How to recreate that sound?

[zulunation]

Hi everyone,

I've come across this song by Soulwax which has an awesome aggressive lead which I just could not recreate with my own synths.

My guess is that it's some kind of an FM with distortion on it.

The song is called "Miserable Girl" btw.

Sample attached:

02-soulwax-miserable_girl.mp3 - DivShare

Thanks!

[Stocktown]

Try this. Pick a drum sample, like a snare or something like that. Then loop a part of it with a short loop time, short enough to make the loop begin to have a tone. Play around with it a bit on the keyboard. If the sound doesn't have the character you're looking for, try moving the start/end points to another part of the sample, or pick another sample. Then add filtering/eq and some vibrato.

[sweetjesus]

Originally Posted by Stocktown

Try this. Pick a drum sample, like a snare or something like that. Then loop a part of it with a short loop time, short enough to make the loop begin to have a tone. Play around with it a bit on the keyboard. If the sound doesn't have the character you're looking for, try moving the start/end points to another part of the sample, or pick another sample. Then add filtering/eq and some vibrato.

i can see how you thought that, but to me (especially after hearing the sound develop) its a synth with distortion on it and a square LFO ****ing the filter at an extremely fast rate.

I may be mistaken but the LFO speed seems to be follow keyboard pitch.

[analogbass]

Could be FM but you should be able to get close by using F/X plus a sound with a sharp attack. Adjust compression, ring mod, etc.; experiment and you can get something similar.

[ElMosca]

Originally Posted by zulunation

I've come across this song by Soulwax which has an awesome aggressive lead which I just could not recreate with my own synths.

Sample attached:
02-soulwax-miserable_girl.mp3 - DivShare

I came close with Reason's SubTractor. Here's what I found:

- Definitely compress and distort the output. That's more than 50% of the tone right there. I used Reason's Scream and Lo-Fi in PT via ReWire.
- Play with the filter's ADSR to make it close before note off. That's how you get the short burps at the beginning of the notes. That and:
- Set polyphony=1, Enable legato (i.e. do not retrigger filters nor modulators when playing legato) and set portamento to a low, but non-zero value...and:
- Play legato. The screenshot shows that I had to extend the bottom notes, so the top notes wouldn't retrigger. I hope it's clear. Somebody with actual keyboard chops could actually play legato, but since I tried various permutations, this is what worked best.

Cheers,
++aldo

[Cojo]

Probably two hard sync'd oscillators tuned very wide apart in pitch from each other plus an overdiven amp somewhere in the chain.

[Feinstrom]

I think Stocktown has already nailed it. I know exactly this sound from a cheap musical toy with drum sounds; when the battery starts to run low, it loops the drum samples - voila! Sample that, and you're there.
You can recreate that lo-fi quality by using an old Casio SK range keyboard (no need for re-sampling the loop).

[infty]

Try Kontakt's granular engine. It can produce sounds like that. Especially if you want them to be playable.

[zulunation]

I've come across some similar sounds while playing with the digital oscillators of my DSI Evolver.

Perhaps the Soulwax sound was made with a Waldorf or a Sequential digital synth.

[PlaySweden]

Try SqakAttack VST (with the nicest GUI ever)

Shuriken, sonic weapons for the music ninja! - SqakAttack

Watch and hear it in action on Youtube

YouTube - sqakAttack

[octatonic]

Sounds like a JP8000 feedback oscillator tone that has been sequenced and distorted.

[PlaySweden]

JP-8000, nope, I can bet my mum's new dad that it's some kind of buffersynth, "glitch" thing.