KVR Audio

harukiya · Post by **harukiya** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 3:07 pm

Hi all,

I've been trying and trying to figure out the sound of the synth pluck at :19 in this track and could use some help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xo8gtOyC7k

I've been able to figure out that there are 3 parts, a low end pulse, the main plucky body (gentle lpf ~1k), and a small high end buzz on each pluck. But I can't for the life of me figure out the plucky sound itself. I'm pretty sure the filter envelope decay is automated to open on some of the higher notes. I've been mostly working in ZebraHZ or Omni to no avail. My plucks always end up sounding A. typical and B. not as thick and dynamic, and I'm pretty sure using the wrong waveform or a wrong type of synthesis. I think the dynamics are due to good use of compression, but maybe not. Any ideas on how to build the main pluck sound?

And any ideas about how he managed the reverb & delays on the pluck to get such a nice sound would be a bonus. It sounds to me like there is some volume-automated delays hard l/r and then some kind of reverb or delay right behind the pluck that helps keep everything clean.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 5:44 pm

Maybe this screenshot will help to solve the mystery

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 5:48 pm

Lovely those pluck sounds aren't they?

The Deus Ex: HR soundtrack is full of them. Really great stuff. IMO the key here is the filter envelope. Sounds to me like a pulse wave like you said. Bandpass filter too maybe? Or EQ like Warmonger said. Think i'll try to fiddle a bit with Spire later, and see if i can get anywhere near.

Btw, the low layer you mean is the bass, not part of the pluck itself, but i guess you already figured out that much.

tehlord · Post by **tehlord** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 6:11 pm

I adore this soundtrack

I suspect a lot of the sound you're hearing is from careful and selective use of distortion/saturation.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:17 pm

Just had a go, but no success either really. Things i found out: Probably unison pulse waves with narrow pulsewidth, phase retrigger, as tehlord said (quite) some saturation/distortion, a bandpass i guess, some reverb and a lot of delay of course. I have some problems making it plucky and present enough. Maybe he even used a gate with envelope, i don't know. Difficult and frustrating to make it really close.

I guess there's a lot of EQ'ing going on too.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 9:26 pm

Not sure what software he uses, but here are a few pictures of his studio from 2010 and 2013.

In the 2013 picture it shows a Korg Kronos as his master keyboard. Maybe he used this? It also shows he's a Maschine and Cubase user too so that might help you get an idea of what he used.

Also i highly doubt he used FLstudio...

harukiya · Post by **harukiya** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 10:12 pm

tehlord wrote: I suspect a lot of the sound you're hearing is from careful and selective use of distortion/saturation.

I feel like synth magic is always in post processing, and somehow I always forget its importance. Thanks for the reminder.

Aryaroman · Post by **Aryaroman** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:10 pm

DJ Warmonger wrote:Maybe this screenshot will help to solve the mystery

Now I'm intrigued. Could you be as kind as to shed some light on this? :S

But I agree, that synth-line is sexy, so I'm also curious about this subject. Even though Michael hasn't endorsed any products nor revealed his (today's) choice of studio-arsenal, (at least to my knowledge) I was in the belief that he used Zebra on Human Revolution, maybe Heavyocity libraries and definetely some ProjectSam. There was an interview from around 2006-08, but that was almost ten years ago so...

Feline Phase · Post by **Feline Phase** » Sat Jun 18, 2016 11:40 pm

I thought this topic is about the sound I try to recreate but actually not.

It happens I have FL Studio and tried to follow the screenshot.
I'd like to know. How do you determine the patch name to start from ? the original amplitude looks nothing like in the image. The harmonics though are at least looking alike.
However I did not buy morphine so it is only the Demo and I do not have Fabfilter so I used the native FL Studio EQ trying to reproduce the EQ parameters but it sounds nothing like the sound you are expecting. I then realised there were some tweaks to do to the patch. I visually tried to reproduce them but it is still not that. It is not perfect thought but at least it should sound alike but I don't think we're even close.
There must be something more.
Should you get your hands on I added the patch + EQ for Morphine and Fruity Equalizer 2 even if it is unlikely to help. take the patch as a starting point.

Mole guitar.zip

Mole Guitar.jpg

Chris-S · Post by **Chris-S** » Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:15 am

DJ Warmonger wrote:Maybe this screenshot will help to solve the mystery

Haha, is that a screenshot from the game, really?

TIMT · Post by **TIMT** » Mon Jun 20, 2016 5:36 pm

Might be a reach,but the one underneath Pro-Q looks like DMG Audio EQuick (the text/info boxes for the eq nodes are stylistically identical)i was thinking though because of the eccentric curves on the plot it could be PitchFunk.maybe a marriage of the 2(more than likely a reach though....)

Aryaroman · Post by **Aryaroman** » Fri Jul 01, 2016 1:44 pm

I think you guys are thinking it too complex. The plucks's just a piece of the mosaic. It has more to do with the chords, arrangement and textures.

I got a nice, pretty simple pluck on Omnisphere with just a little tweaking (filter decay/sustain to near zero)
Similar enough to those HR plucks. Then I jammed that sinister A#-A#-G-G-A#-A#-G-G-C-A-A-A#-A#-progression and layered that with some reverbed high-octave piano and brooding strings and you got pretty close vibe.

Feline Phase · Post by **Feline Phase** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:08 pm

Is there any chance you could show case that on YT or anywhere else?

ChocoTacoBoss · Post by **ChocoTacoBoss** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:40 pm

Incoming Necropost...

So, I just randomly stumbled across this thread in search of this pluck sound and saw Warm0nger's post. Shocked to my core that I potentially missed out on one of the coolest Easter Egg's ever, I decided to fire up my copy of HR and head to TYMC.

I've been in that room at least 50 different times and never noticed that the scientists are all staring at plugins. Hillarious. For the musician gamer, this has to be one of the coolest Easter Egg's ever.

I took the liberty of taking some additional screenshots of the other "stock photography" DAW/PLUGINS in that room for those minds that find this as clever and amusing as I do. To bad it doesn't prove if McCann was using M0rphine or not. However, I did go listen to some M0rphine patches and could hear some resemblances of synth tonality to some of those used in HR.

EDIT: After some serious digging, I'm 99% sure McCann used Dark Zebra for most of HR.

TIMT · Post by **TIMT** » Thu Apr 05, 2018 7:14 am

I'm bored so i'll have a stab at this

I see a Maschine(bottom left),something that could be Traktor,but the screen behind it looks a bit like Kontakt?(top left corner)

One of them is undeniably FAW Circle(the one below the one that resembles Morphine)

I still say the one with the spectrum analyser is based upon Equick cause of the floating text box,but that one could be purely coincidence.based upon the theme though,it seems unlikely it would be

Another weak speculation,but the images of the mixer strips look to be based upon Sonar?(centre 2nd from top in the bottom image)

The one far right 2nd from bottom is bugging me cause its so familiar,but i can't put my finger on it...EDIT:I think though not entirely sure that it is NI Vokator?

Thing with the text boxes and dials adjacent to the pie chart look like the Reason drum machine or that Kong?(years since i used Reason)

Another very weak speculation...the text boxes/columns under the spectral analyser display that i believe to be EQuick looks a bit like the Renoise Tracker.annnd i'm done

Michael McCann - "The Mole" from Deus Ex synth