Devo "Whip It" high "squirrely" sounding tone during chorus?

[rsilverst]

Hi all --

First time posting in this particular sub-forum.

I am new to learning synths, and have been delving into my favorite early Devo records, trying to reverse engineer various tones for fun and practice. On "Whip It" I didn't have much difficulty getting the main bass sound, the verse lead parts, and even the "whip" sound.

But the tone I'm having a hard time unravelling is the sort of squirrely high 2-note (?) alternating pattern (sounds like it goes between major 3rd and a 4th) that comes in only during the chorus (over the lyrics "so whip it... into shape... shape it up... get it straight... etcetera". It's very thin sounding, seems to have modulation, though I can't really tell if it's pitch or pulse wave (guessing pitch?).

Any Devo fans wanna give it a listen and throw some suggestions at me for how you'd get the sound?

For "extra credit" -- I would also be interested to know how people might go about getting the "hissing" sound that precedes the whip. I can get the whip sound, which is all they do "live" just by smacking the keyboard with a very short noise oscillator envelope. But on the recording, there's sometimes a hiss that precedes the whip -- not sure if that can be done with the same patch, or if it's a combination of 2 different sounds overlaid

For what it's worth, I've been using Diva for the bass tone and whip, and Repro-5 for the higher notes. But I also have the synths in my signature. Given what I've found online about Devo's gear for that record (Minimoog and Prophet 5) I figured those 2 were a good place to start.

Thanks!

[CHOOS]

OK so I got close enough

It's notes B+E & B+F Use a slow attack on the volume envelope.
The upper notes (E & F) need to be louder than the B notes.

The important part is the LFO on the fine-tune. I had the LFO speed at around 0.160 sec. And set amount to taste

Filter cut off @ 2600Hz.

After that a hint of eq to get the tone just right.

[rsilverst]

OK so I got close enough

It's notes B+E & B+F Use a slow attack on the volume envelope.
The upper notes (E & F) need to be louder than the B notes.

The important part is the LFO on the fine-tune. I had the LFO speed at around 0.160 sec. And set amount to taste

Filter cut off @ 2600Hz.

After that a hint of eq to get the tone just right.

that was super helpful. i actually had the tone settings closer than i thought (had the LFO on frequency, and attack about right). but what i was doing wrong was the actual notes. i thought it was C+E and C+F, and was wondering why it didn't sound dissonant enough!

i'm actually using 2 oscillators, an octave apart and putting the LFO only on the higher frequency.

screenshot of my Repro-5 settings (i'm once again annoyed that u-he uses non-real-world values for all their knobs - would rather just see milliseconds and Hertz - but what can you do?)

Screenshot 2025-04-14 at 5.29.31 PM.png

[osiris]

I'm thinking it's a reverse cymbal, probably pitched.