• September 14, 2018 at 2:43 pm #20104
    the_doomsayerthe_doomsayer
    Participant

      Hi all. I saw Virtualself play a set earlier this week and during his set, this (see video) happened, and it was cool. I’d be interested in learning how that sound or something similar is created. I don’t know whether it’s just a relatively straightforward Serum preset or if there’s more to it. But if I could program and trigger sounds like that at whim, I’d probably never leave the house.
      robots & lasers

      October 8, 2018 at 10:13 am #20665
      Joe HanleyJoe Hanley
      Keymaster

        Are you referring to the laser-style high pitched sound that sweeps up in pitch?

        October 8, 2018 at 2:08 pm #20679
        the_doomsayerthe_doomsayer
        Participant

          Indeed, I am. To me it sounds like equal parts laser fire + futuristic rail gun/plasma cannon/what-have-you cooling down (or how I imagine that would sound, anyway) + the sound of Robocop walking.

          October 12, 2018 at 9:55 am #20785
          Joe HanleyJoe Hanley
          Keymaster

            Two patches: Laser and Robocop. Laser is pretty straightforward. Robocop is a mash of FM, Noise and Distortion.

            How It’s Made
            Laser

            • Synth: Primer
            • Oscillator: Saw
            • Filter: Low Pass with Cutoff at Max, and pretty heavy res to bring out the very top sizzle
            • Distortion: Make it angry with a medium amount of Distortion, but not so much that it starts to sound like a square wave
            • Pitch Envelope: This will sweep the pitch up, giving us the laser effect. Attack at 1500 ms, and an amount that will bring it up about 2 semitones. I’m playing a high Eb (Eb 5)

            Robocop

            • Synth: Massive
            • Noise: White noise, with full Color (brightness). Turn up the volume to about 2:00. This is going to be the main body of our sound
            • Oscillator: I left Osc 1 at its default Square-Saw hybrid, but a straight Saw would probably work as well since we’re going to decimate this with FM
            • FM: In Massive it’s called Phase Modulation, but they’re almost the same and result in a similar sound. Apply Phase modulation to Osc 1. Set the Modulation Osc amount to Max, and bring its pitch down to -28. Playing a low C (C2). Lowering the Phase Modulation pitch is a great way to create this angry rolling robotic sound
            • Filter 1: Set Osc 1 and Noise fully to Filter 1 so they’re both 100% running through it. Set filter type to Bandpass, Cutoff at 1:00, Bandwidth at 0, and heavy Res (at about 1:30). This gives us a narrow, pointed bandpass. Then…
            • Filter Envelope: Route an envelope to Filter 1 Cutoff. Set Sustain (Decay Level) to 0, and Decay to about 11:30. Turn up Mod amount to the top of the Cutoff. Now we get that sweeping “eeow” and as it approaches the bottom, it really starts to gurgle
            • Filter 2: Set Filter Routing to full Serial so that 100% of Filter 1 runs into Filter 2. Set to Highpass 2, and turn up the Cutoff a bit (to about 10:00). This will take a bit of bottom end off and make the whole thing sharper.
            • Distortion 1: Set the first Insert to Sine Shaper, with full Drive, and full Wet. Getting angry…
            • Distortion 2: Set FX1 to Classic Tube, Drive to Noon, and full Wet. Now we’re an angry robot.

            There may be reverb on these sounds but it’s hard to hear in the live setting.

            Attachments:
            October 14, 2018 at 4:16 pm #20862
            the_doomsayerthe_doomsayer
            Participant

              Fantastic! Thank you.

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