Synthesizing and processing sounds for maximum "boing"

[Annabanna]

I've had a project in the back of my mind for the past couple years that I haven't taken on yet because I haven't been quite sure how to do it. Some of the pieces have fallen in place, though, so I might take on the full project soon.

I'd like to create a dance tune where every sound is designed for maximum "boing". By this, I mean the types of sounds that you would get by hitting a metal water tower, berimbau, or high tension metal cable. Also interested in less metallic sounds that sound like cartoonish rubber bending or stretching.

You get the idea. All these sounds have a certain springy "boing" to them. Today, I've been playing around with the comb filters in MTurboReverb, and "tuning" various spring reverb IR's, and it's got me thinking about this again, so I'd like to work out a sort of list of both synthesis and processing techniques that accentuate this "boingy" characteristic, and see how many of them I can incorporate into the track.

I'm asking here because the precision of the tools makes it likely that I would use the melda toolset to create and modulate the sounds. So, interested if anyone has input on any of the following, or can point me toward any other resource I should check out:

1) I understand a number of synthesis basics, have dabbled with modular, etc. but no experience with FM, or certain other specific types. In general, to create bouncy rubber or springy sounds, what sorts of synthesis techniques should I look into? Any particular examples with breakdowns or particular features in Melda toolkit I should investigate?

2) I've also been playing with various chorus and other time based effects to modulate the delays to create a boingy sound. any particular delay tricks like that I should look into, examples, or melda tools I should investigate?

3) Any particular reverb tricks, modulations, or other manipulations I should look into that tend to accentuate the springy sound? Looking to move way past just using something like a spring reverb, and modulate various parameters to really pronounce the effect.

[Hexspa]

Short delay, moderate feedback will boing. Pitch envelopes can boing. Water and plants can boing. No wait, sorry that's bong.

[David]

Do you have MSoundFactory? If so, I've just the thing for you:)

Ting Bonng Zizzer Factory.zip

There's quite a few presets in this that boing, including 3 that are even called "Boingy".

In general, any physical Modeling device is where I'd start, and by watching all the videos on doing that with MSF that Chandler has made (these are the inspiration for my device, above). Here's a playlist of them, including a few on comb filtering, short delays, and another Melda device you might explore: MWobbler.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... oSPIbcuift

There's actually an MSF factory device called Wobble Factory (that oddly doesn't include MWobbler, but that could be easily added if you like it), that is worth looking at, though it's more dubby that boingy in most cases, but lots to play with beyond the presets. Also a new one called Cause & Effect that also does modeling nicely, ditto on explorable possibilities.

I'd also mess around with modulating the Flanger Range parameter in the MSF default FX rack. Combining LFOs and envelops can make lots of wobbling FX that fade out like a resonating struck object would.

This video is on modulating the coarse pitch knob on my Bonng device above with an external modulator; it's pretty much pure boing from end to end.



Filters and resonance controls will help make metals into rubbers. And look at Chandler's videos on drum synthesis for other non-metallic boingy sounds.

Finally, there's a quite extensive recent thread on Non-Melda modeling devices that's full of ideas that could be applied to Melda tools; it's here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=543185

[cron]

SOPHIE's music might be a good research point. She's known to be (thematically and sonically) obsessed with physical textures, to the point where some tracks sound like an orchestra of materials being hit, prodded, poked, and squeezed. As far as I know she completely avoids samples and makes most of her sounds on the Elektron Monomachine, which has a few synthesis methods under the hood but nothing outrageously unusual. Endless examples of how obviously synthesised timbres can be made 'sproingy' to chew through and break down in her work though.

(strobe warning for Faceshopping)

[Smapti]

Sophie is an excellent reference point for this sort of thing. I love her production style. I've found that Corpus in Ableton Live is an good way to approximate these sorts of timbres. Probably you can get something similar by running a snare drum sample through the modal filter and/or resonator in MSoundFactory, although I haven't tried it. A key component of Sophie's sound seems to be getting inharmonic timbres from physical modeling.

[Annabanna]

Great stuff. Keep it coming. Will look into all of above.

Hadn't even crossed my mind that physical modeling would be best approach. I've spent quite a bit of time with Chromophone, for instance, and gotten a few useful plucked sounds from it, but have been sorely disappointed in it's ability to create, for instance, usable pitched drum sounds.

I'd love to try Modo Drum (hardware prohibited at the moment), but suspect that like Modo Bass, I'd find that it's fantastic at creating very realistic sounds... but that I generally want to create more idealized sounds that go beyond what the controls allow.

My last few rounds with physical modeling plugs have each left me with the impression that I want a more generalized and flexible toolkit, and after checking out a few of the above vids, this may do the trick.

[Smapti]

Yeah, when trying to produce this kind of sound I haven't had a lot of luck attempting to synthesize it entirely from scratch. I've had better luck starting with a drum sample and then running it through some sort of physical modeling process. Here's a rough list of things to try:
* Comb filters
* Modal filters or filter banks (bandpass filter banks are often used in physical modeling). I haven't tried it but Tritik Moodal looks like it can do this kind of thing.
* Lo-fi reverb algorithms -- these can produce nice results since reverb algorithms are physical models. Oftentimes, the reverb algorithms that don't sound like real spaces have a lot of grainy ringing resonances that are excellent for simulating reverberant metal/glass/etc. Probably MTurboReverb can do this if you dig into the algorithm builder and intentionally pick "bad" reverbs. There are also some great lo-fi/grainy algorithms in Byome and Raum.
* A much simpler alternative is to just layer another sample with your snare or kick. Find a metal or glass hit, tune it to taste, and layer it with your drum sample. Boom Library currently has a massive sale on their Cinematic Metal bundle, and you'll be able to find pretty much any metallic sound you want in there.

[Annabanna]

Yeah, when trying to produce this kind of sound I haven't had a lot of luck attempting to synthesize it entirely from scratch. I've had better luck starting with a drum sample and then running it through some sort of physical modeling process. Here's a rough list of things to try:
* Comb filters
* Modal filters or filter banks (bandpass filter banks are often used in physical modeling). I haven't tried it but Tritik Moodal looks like it can do this kind of thing.
* Lo-fi reverb algorithms -- these can produce nice results since reverb algorithms are physical models. Oftentimes, the reverb algorithms that don't sound like real spaces have a lot of grainy ringing resonances that are excellent for simulating reverberant metal/glass/etc. Probably MTurboReverb can do this if you dig into the algorithm builder and intentionally pick "bad" reverbs. There are also some great lo-fi/grainy algorithms in Byome and Raum.
* A much simpler alternative is to just layer another sample with your snare or kick. Find a metal or glass hit, tune it to taste, and layer it with your drum sample. Boom Library currently has a massive sale on their Cinematic Metal bundle, and you'll be able to find pretty much any metallic sound you want in there.

I've been doing the layering thing for years. Looking to step it up. Frankly, I'd like to create an entire batteria where each instrument is custom crafted to fit perfectly into the overall mix. Went through Chandler's timpani tutorial yesterday, and not sure wny mine sounds so different unless it's just the particular timpani samples I tried to set the partials.

Digging into further now to get kick, toms, timpani, but I have my eye out as I go for twangy berimbau type sounds I know I'll want later.

[peejay123]

I'd love to play around with your Ting Bonng Zizzer

I've downloaded the zip file but I can't for the life of me work out how to install/import it into MSF.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

[David]

I'd love to play around with your Ting Bonng Zizzer

I've downloaded the zip file but I can't for the life of me work out how to install/import it into MSF.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Sure; it goes in the same folder as all your other MSF devices and their presets, called MSoundFactoryInstruments. On my Mac that's here (dunno the exact PC equivalent, but should be something quite similar):



Note that this folder's contents exactly matches the Browser content in the Easy Screen view in MSF, as in my screen shot. IOW, you can edit how that looks by editing the contents of that folder. New stuff you drag in, such as my upload here, doesn't have to go into any particular folder, and you can rename anything AFAIK, but device presets must have the same name as the device(s) they're for. (Which incidentally is the secret to sharing/exporting device presets with/to new devices: duplicate, rename.) HTH!

[peejay123]

Thanks David, worked perfectly.

Fantastic instrument, loads of fun!

[David]

Glad you like—Thanks:)

[Schopenhauer]

@David - That Ting Bonng Zizzer Factory is such a gift. As peejay123 says lots of fun and so educational. I've spent the past evening digging deep into this and learning so much about building my own MSF stuff. Your channel videos demonstrate some lovely sounds from it.
Thanks David really appreciate it.

[ralfrobert]

@David - That Ting Bonng Zizzer Factory is such a gift. As peejay123 says lots of fun and so educational. I've spent the past evening digging deep into this and learning so much about building my own MSF stuff. Your channel videos demonstrate some lovely sounds from it.
Thanks David really appreciate it.

This thing should find its way into the standard MSF distribution. Or is this already happening? Any reasons against it?

[David]

@David - That Ting Bonng Zizzer Factory is such a gift. As peejay123 says lots of fun and so educational. I've spent the past evening digging deep into this and learning so much about building my own MSF stuff. Your channel videos demonstrate some lovely sounds from it.
Thanks David really appreciate it.

This thing should find its way into the standard MSF distribution. Or is this already happening? Any reasons against it?

Hey, I'm really glad to hear that my TBZ F is being found interesting and worth exploring by at least a few folks; I certainly think it is:) Thanks, all; your enthusiasm is much appreciated, and quite surprising, actually!

Surprising in part because I very much doubt it'll ever become part of the Factory distribution for MSF devices/instruments.

Mainly that's because I've no interest in submitting it as a candidate…which is because I've no interest in having it "evaluated" as to whether it meets all the stated criteria for such devices or not. I made it to suit me, and there's nothing about it I'd be willing to change just to get it past the reviewing process with the Melda developer. I just can't see any benefit or point to that.

When I first got MSF, way back in its beta days, I did try to submit a bunch of candidate devices and never even got close to meeting the requirements, based on the responses I'd get back from Vojtech, the Melda genius/dev himself. Nor could I ever seem to get what it was he'd built MSF to do that I was consistently unable to imagine doing with it myself. And so it was a HUGE relief when MSF was finally available for sale at a great intro price, and I could forever drop any further efforts to build stuff that "most people", in Vojtech's opinion, would want (in hopes of getting a "free" version as a contributor), and could simply enjoy building for myself alone using his brilliant creation—for which I'm eternally grateful:)

My only reason for sharing this one or any of the other MSF devices I've built is to show off what the amazing MSF itself is capable of, from my perspective. IMO, it's absolutely one of the all-time top 3 or 4 virtual instruments EVER made, that I know of, anyway, based on at least 30 years of collecting them. But my perspective turns out to apparently be quite an odd one, compared to that of the people already successfully submitting devices for the factory collection, other forum viewers, or that of Vojtech himself.

I've posted it, and several other devices, in these forums a few times before, and in every case, I don't think there's ever been more than maybe 5 total downloads per posting…? And I can only recall one other instance of any comments or reactions of any sort being offered. So, there's certainly no evidence that what I naturally gravitate towards doing with MSF is being widely recognized as intriguing, or useful, or even remotely commercially interesting. Which is a bit surprising to me, as I don't think these are all THAT weird, or that my taste in synths is particularly odd…but, so be it. It is what it is, others want whatever they want, and I'M having fun anyway:)

So, thanks again:)