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I’m recreating some of the synth sounds of the 80s and I would love your suggestions/help. I am looking to recreate these sounds:
New Order – Blue Monday ’88
Bass synth at 0:09Yazoo – Don’t Go
Melodic synth sound at 1:34Gary Numan – Are Friends Electric
Synth from the startKraftwerk – The Model
Bass from beginning
Melodic synth from 0:17Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Bass synth, best heard at 3:15I’m recreating the sounds in Live’s Analog instrument, but feel free to make general description. I will post the recreated samples to let you see how it went.
Hi,
Taking a jab at these one at a time so I can get to you as I work through these five.
New Order:
Osc: Saw. I experimented with different pulse widths but thought they all sounded too hollow. Saw gives the fuller sound I hear in the song.
Filter: Low pass, 24 dB. The cutoff isn’t too low, surprisingly. (For reference, in Serum, it’s set to 1760 Hz)
Filter Envelope: Very short decay and release. Bump the filter envelope amount up just a bit.
Amp Envelope: Also a short decay and release, but somewhat longer than the filter envelope so you can hear the filter movement.
Resonance: Bump it up a bit to hear the point moving down.
Unison: 4 voices, wide spread, only a little detune to hear the spread, but not enough to make it sound out of tune.
Make sure your oscillator is in “Start” or “Retrig” mode to hear that consistent pulsation at the beginning of each note.
Velocity: I routed mine to volume, because the lower notes in this track (the notes on the beat as opposed to the syncopated notes) sound quieter. I just made sure to hit the higher notes harder.
Yazoo:
Note: While programming this patch I had to bend my oscillator’s fine knob up about 30 cents to sound in tune with the recording lol.
Osc: Saw.
Filter: Band Pass. 24 dB. Cutoff is set pretty low to allow for the horn movement in the patch which leads me to…
Filter Envelope: Very fast attack. Push the filter envelope to a pretty bright sound. The horn attack in this patch is faster than the lowest fixed setting on Syntorial (besides 0 ms).
Amp Envelope: Give the notes a tail, set decay and release to the same value. Attack should be instant.
Unison: Two voices, medium spread. Detune enough to get a pulsation. Turn off “Start” or “Retrig” to avoid getting a harsh transient on each note.
Reverb: Maybe not needed since your amp envelope has a tail, and it may have been due to the song’s recording, but I hear a little reverberation in. Small mix, pretty large room.
Kraftwerk:
Osc: Saw, for that full, warm sound.
Amp Envelope: Somewhat long release.
Filter: Band Pass. I set the filter slope to 12 dB so that I could get more highs into the sound, which is a big part of its personality.
Filter Envelope: This was a little tricky. Very fast attack. I definitely hear a horn attack, and I think my envelope decays to the correct darkness (darkest point), but my attack transient sounds more intense than the synth in the song. I have to wonder if the song’s attack stage begins at a brightness in between the brightest and darkest points. That way you can still get the horn attack, but not as extreme as what I have. Either way, somewhat long decay and release time, similar to the Amp Envelope’s release time.
Resonance: Definitely crank it up to hear the movement of the filter envelope.
Delay: I hear echos in this synth. 1/8 time, about a 50/50 mix. I think that Delay is how the sound gets so much into the stereo field, so give it quite a bit of spread. Not enough for the echos to sound out of time, but enough to fill the stereo field.
Donna Summer:
The first thing I noticed in the patch was its huge stereo-ness.
Osc: Saw.
Sub Osc: Square Wave.
Amp Envelope: Quick decay and release, instant attack.
Filter: Low Pass, 24 dB. This patch has a really full low end, so if you have the option, use the drive knob. If you don’t have a drive knob, then a warm distortion sound should do the trick.
Key Tracking: The higher notes sound brighter than the lower notes, so incorporate key tracking on the filter.
Filter Envelope: Very fast decay/release, give it a bit of amount so that you can really hear that movement on each note. Should be shorter than the Amp Envelope decay/release.
Resonance: Bump it up a little bit. Somewhat for the point, but also to even out the lows and highs in the sound a little (Cutoff shape goes from a gradual slope down to a more sudden drop with resonance set up). More on this later.
Unison: 4 voices, mild detune. Make sure the “Start/Retrig” button is off to avoid an overly-repetitive attack transient. Give it a medium spread to make the delays more obvious. Speaking of which…
Delay: Judging by the way the keyboardist is playing in the video, each note has a single echo after it. Set the Mix to about 50-50. 1/16 time. Spread wide to hear in the stereo field, but keep it rhythmically tight. Feedback should be all the way down to only allow for one echo. The Delay, in my opinion, is the biggest part of this patch’s personality.
Even with resonance, I still wasn’t getting that growl-ish sound in the patch, so I also used:
EQ: I gave the treble a boost (cutoff around 1400 Hz) and that seemed to get the growling sound in the patch. It may take some back-and-forth between cutoff, key tracking, and the EQ to get to a satisfying sound.
Gary Numan:
Osc: Two saws, one octave apart.
Filter: Low Pass, 24 dB. Turn it down enough to remove the buzz on top.
Unison: 2 voices, give it a good amount of detune. Spread it quite a bit for width, but not enough to completely remove the pulsation.
Amp Envelope: I hear a quick, but not instant, attack in this patch. Give it a quick tail as well.
Reverb: Mix it in a little bit. You don’t need much here.
Make sure you have polyphony enabled, as I hear the notes overlapping.
Distortion: Just to give the sound a more aggressive timbre. Like reverb, you don’t need much, but a little goes a long way. Use something warm. The type I use is “FoldBack”, which tends to accentuate the mid range.
Note: Admittedly, when I heard this song for the first time, I didn’t think the lead was a synth. I thought it was some kind of brass instrument.
Hope this has helped!
Hei.
Waw, yes It really helps a lot!. Thank you so much for this.
I finally recreated the sounds, and I made a quick survey. I would really appreciate it if you could give me some feedback as I am doing this as a project for school.Link to survey: https://forms.gle/tajmjKHEWgRbvGUW9
There is a link to all the patches at the end of the survey, but I’ve also attached them here for anyone to play with.
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