[Jonathan Eppele]

I can hear a little bit of pitch wobble in this patch. Have you tried modulating the pitch with a Sine/Triangle Wave LFO? It’s a very subtle modulation, but it’s noticeable.

[Jonathan Eppele]

This patch sounds like it has a fairly simple synth sound, layered in with some noise sample that I can’t really make out the specifics of.

Basic sound:

Osc: Triangle Wave. This gives the smooth, heavy sound in the patch.

Cutoff: 24 dB. Low Pass. The triangle wave has just a little bit of buzz on top. Use the filter to take it out.

Amp Envelope: Subtle, and you may not find this necessary, but I set my sustain level down to about halfway, with a somewhat short, but not too short decay. Gave each note a gentle yet noticeable attack transient.

As for the noise sample, your guess is as good as mine for what was used. One characteristic I can tell from this recording is that the noise is key tracked (different instances of the noise are at different pitches).

I think you’re right that it’s fairly simple, but without knowing what noise sample they use, I unfortunately can’t give a complete description. Nevertheless, I hope this has been somewhat helpful for you in recreating the patch. Let me know how it goes 🙂

[Jonathan Eppele]

Yeah, I used a sequencer. My sequence was C4 C3 C4 C3 Eb4 C3 C4 C3 Eb4 C3 C4 C3 Bb3 C3 C4 C3.

[Jonathan Eppele]

Hi there!

I was able to get something that sounds pretty close to the original bass patch. This sound is a lot more complex than initially sounds. Here’s what I did:

Osc: Two Medium Pulses, one octave apart, to give that sort of hollow, almost nasal character to your sound.

Filter: Low Pass, 24 dB. Crank it down quite far to really round it out. If you have the option, some drive will help make your sound fuller.

Filter Envelope: Very fast decay/release to get that little “click” sound on the beginning of each note.

Amp Envelope: Quick release, not too fast, just to hear the notes overlapping a bit.

Even with all this, there was a certain something missing from my sound. I got that certain something by using:

Chorus: To give that subtle smearing sound in the track. Fully wet, fully wide. Mild rate, quite a bit of intensity.

If you still aren’t getting the full bass character you want, try using EQ to boost the bass a bit. Play around with it 🙂

Hope this helps!

[Jonathan Eppele]

Glad to help! Happy you got a close recreation 🙂

[Jonathan Eppele]

Thanks for getting back to me. Nice to hear responses from the requesters 🙂

I tried programming the settings from the PNG into Serum. A few changes right off the bat:

I used a 12 dB Band Pass slope. Also made the decay and release about half what you have in the image.

As I said above, I think the main character of the patch’s pluck comes from an FM Mod Envelope, with a fast decay. I notice that you didn’t have that modulated in the PNG. From my own experience recreating this patch, in Serum, I was unable to get that distinct pluck sound you were talking about. This goes back to my previous post, where I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of the way Serum implements this (for all you can do with it, this is one section of the synth that I find pretty weak). I’ve created a basic sound in both Serum and Primer, and attached some audio of them both below. Take a listen and let me know what you think 🙂

Attachments:

1. Primer-Kalimba.mp3
2. Serum-Kalimba.mp3

[Jonathan Eppele]

Hi there.

This patch actually reminds me of a patch in Syntorial from Group 21 (The FM lessons). In that regard, here’s what I did to get a basic framework of this sound:

Oscillators: Sine. In Serum, set both waveforms to Sine and turn Osc B’s level down all the way, since you only want to hear Osc A’s FM sound. Then use the warp knob to give a little bit of FM to Osc A. I found that turning Osc B up 28 semitones (2 octaves and 4 semis) gave a similar pitch.

Mod Envelope: One part of this plucky sound seems to be from an FM attack transient. Route the envelope to the FM knob, and give it a very fast decay. Experiment with the amount until you find the right tone.

Even with the FM envelope, I still wasn’t getting the same pluck in the vid, so I headed over to…

Filter: Band Pass. 24 dB. Set it pretty low. FMing Sine Waves doesn’t produce a whole lot of highs, so you’ll only be cutting off a bit of your sound.

Filter Envelope: Extremely fast decay. Give it a good amount so you can really hear that pluck. I found that after combining these two attack transients a good pluck sound came out. At this point it should sound similar to a marimba or kalimba.

Personally, I do not like the way FM attack transients sound in Serum. It comes off as very muddy, and I can always hear a little build up to the peak FM, even if my attack stage is set to 0. I think Primer does a much better job with FM attack transients, which sound nice and clean. If you’re having trouble matching this sound in Serum, try programming it in Primer.

I didn’t recreate the entire patch, but just wanted to see if I could get that basic pluck sound. Let me know if this sounds closer to what you’re looking for 🙂

[Jonathan Eppele]

Hello,

Please post a link to the track with a timestamp of the patch you want recreated 🙂

[Jonathan Eppele]

Wow, I love this bass sound. I have a liking for deep house and punchy bass sounds like this 🙂

I did not have to use a sub oscillator to get a pretty close recreation. Here’s the gist of what I did:

Osc: Saw. If you’re having trouble getting a growling sound, try playing an octave lower.

Filter: Low Pass, 24 dB. Turn it WAY down. It’ll be so far down you’ll need to boost your main volume. Turn on Key Tracking for this, as well, so your cutoff is applied evenly.

On each of these notes, I hear a little punch, and that seems to come from…

Pitch Envelope: Give it a very fast decay, and a decent amount.

Hope this helps!

[Jonathan Eppele]

Hi there,

I think the main character of this sound comes from a combination of Distortion and Oscillator Sync. Here’s the main parts of what I did:

Osc: Saw. Use Oscillator Sync to get that grindy sound out of it. Experiment with the semi setting to get the right pitch.

Filter: Low Pass. 24 dB. Take it down quite a bit. We’ll be adding highs back in with…

Distortion: Use a warm Distortion style and don’t be afraid to really crank it on the nastier notes.

The varying timbre of the notes doesn’t seem to be modulated by an LFO, so my guess is that this track uses a Mod Wheel to modulate Distortion amount. This way some notes sound grungier and warmer, and some sound nastier.

[Jonathan Eppele]

Have you tried using Oscillator Sync? That’s another way to get a gritty sound out of your synth. Your patch sounds pretty close to the actual patch, but I can hear some “gaps” in the grittiness. If you use Sync you shouldn’t get that.

[Jonathan Eppele]

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!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Jonathan Eppele.

[Jonathan Eppele]

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.

[Jonathan Eppele]

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.

[Jonathan Eppele]

So I rewatched the Serum Lesson Pack video on Distortion to refresh myself on how it works. And it turns out that using the filter built into the effect in Serum gets a similar sound to Sylenth. This also means that the filter movement should be done in the Distortion effect instead of the Filter in the “Osc” section.

In Serum, I took advantage of Velocity and routed it to the Filter Envelope amount and that actually seems to sound closer to the original track.

A few other changes I made:

Changed the Osc to Saw.

I still think Mod Wheel controls Resonance. So I used the Filter Effect (Not the Osc Filter), and passed the sound through a Peak filter. The Mod Wheel controls the resonance of the filter, so when the mod wheel is turned up, you get that moving peak. But I also found that the Filter kind of ruined the sound a little on non-resonant notes, so I routed the Mod Wheel to the Filter’s Mix knob as well.

Finally, for the aforementioned resonant notes, I routed Velocity to the effect Filter’s cutoff to get those differently-pitched moving peaks.

Let me know if this sounds close enough to what you’re looking for!

Attachments:

1. LEAD-Peryl.zip