pop sound sources

[helloeverything]

had some major trouble trying to create/find this patch. it's in alot of pop songs recently very simple, but cutting lead patch. songs that this sound is in off the top of my head: synth break in Don't trust me 30h3, chorus of tik tok by Kesha. I dont like these artists, but this sound is so ubiquitous at this point that i just need to know. any ideas of the sound source? there are some other posts addressing this sound, but they are not very helpful. telling me it's a sawtooth wave when i ask for the sound source is like me asking you where you bought your apples from and you telling me in response that they're fruit.

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by helloeverything

chorus of tik tok by Kesha

Try this:

Take any VA/softsynth you like as long as it supports the following features:

- route keytracking to the LFO speed so the speed of the LFO increases when you play a higher pitch.
- set the LFO to sawtooth, downwards
- make the destination of the LFO the pitch of oscillator 1
- set oscillator 1 to a plain square wave
- adjust the modulation strength of the LFO to taste (it really shouldn't be much!)
- adjust the speed of the LFO to taste (audio rate is too high)
- put a chorus effect on the result

It's the LFO that causes the "ripping" effect.

[helloeverything]

what soft synth would you suggest to get the sound. i tried using massive and also my novation but it did not get the sound anywhere near what i thought it should. i mean, is the sound source itself really just a basic square wave off ANY old va/soft synth? it doesnt sound like that to me at all, but maybe i just dont understand. the timbre quality is particularly biting, and you think i can get this sound, not so much the ripping effect, but the lead sound itself, from just any synth? thanks for all your help

[tompty88]

Originally Posted by helloeverything

what soft synth would you suggest to get the sound. i tried using massive and also my novation but it did not get the sound anywhere near what i thought it should. i mean, is the sound source itself really just a basic square wave off ANY old va/soft synth? it doesnt sound like that to me at all, but maybe i just dont understand. the timbre quality is particularly biting, and you think i can get this sound, not so much the ripping effect, but the lead sound itself, from just any synth? thanks for all your help

?!? Yoozer just gave you a step by step guide ?!

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by helloeverything

i tried using massive and also my novation but it did not get the sound anywhere near what i thought it should.

When I'm back home again I'll see if I can build a Massive patch for you that matches it.

[Lrmusic]

Originally Posted by Yoozer

Try this:

Take any VA/softsynth you like as long as it supports the following features:

- route keytracking to the LFO speed so the speed of the LFO increases when you play a higher pitch.
- set the LFO to sawtooth, downwards
- make the destination of the LFO the pitch of oscillator 1
- set oscillator 1 to a plain square wave
- adjust the modulation strength of the LFO to taste (it really shouldn't be much!)
- adjust the speed of the LFO to taste (audio rate is too high)
- put a chorus effect on the result

It's the LFO that causes the "ripping" effect.

Do you coach synth programming? If so, what are your rates?

[Yoozer]

Free, on any forum you can catch me on, provided that you have interesting questions and save me the work of looking any song up for you; in other words, provide an mp3 snippet or good enough Youtube link and I'll give it a shot. No guarantees.

Okay, finally had a chance to listen to the actual song in glorious lo-fi Youtube quality. My description was incorrect, because that was for another song which you may know. Right-click, save as for the KSD files.

Check the attachments for the files - hosting was suspended indefinitely. Apologies for the inaccurate playing but I didn't feel like analyzing this completely. The 3OH!3 sound is similar. Play legato to make the portamento kick in.

Of course, the sounds by themselves aren't that spectacular, but I think those should cover the basics.

[mavano]

Originally Posted by Yoozer

Free, on any forum you can catch me on, provided that you have interesting questions and save me the work of looking any song up for you; in other words, provide an mp3 snippet or good enough Youtube link and I'll give it a shot. No guarantees.

Okay, finally had a chance to listen to the actual song in glorious lo-fi Youtube quality. My description was incorrect, because that was for another song which you may know. Right-click, save as for the KSD files.

Here you have the Massive patch for "Just Dance" which sounds like this.

And here's have the Massive patch for "Tik Tok" which sounds like this. Apologies for the inaccurate playing but I didn't feel like analyzing this completely. The 3OH!3 sound is similar. Play legato to make the portamento kick in.

Of course, the sounds by themselves aren't that spectacular, but I think those should cover the basics.

Bedankt

I did find the "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" sound somewhere in the Sylenth1 presets. Not "sounds like it", but imho the exact sound they used. It was pretty much identical. No added tweaking needed...

[golden beers]

Originally Posted by Yoozer

Try this:

Take any VA/softsynth you like as long as it supports the following features:

- route keytracking to the LFO speed so the speed of the LFO increases when you play a higher pitch.
- set the LFO to sawtooth, downwards
- make the destination of the LFO the pitch of oscillator 1
- set oscillator 1 to a plain square wave
- adjust the modulation strength of the LFO to taste (it really shouldn't be much!)
- adjust the speed of the LFO to taste (audio rate is too high)
- put a chorus effect on the result

It's the LFO that causes the "ripping" effect.

nice technique

[Yoozer]

The alternative is to sample a square wave that goes slightly down in pitch and make a really short loop; in that case, the loop length is analogous to the LFO speed and keytracking happens automatically.

I'd like to know whether the original poster has tried the patches and if they were to his wishes, though.

[skeltz]

Hey Yoozer,

I am also looking for that 3oh!3/Kesha sound, and was blown away by how your tik tok sample sounded. However I can't load either of the patches you offered. I am using massive 1.1.3.001 as a vst plugin in fruity loops. Any thoughts? Sorry if this is a dumb question; I'm brand new to synths...

If you have a different version, is there any way you could upload a screenshot of the settings?

[Tarkovsky]

OK Yoozer... Great work by the way. I had a total freaking 'uh-huh!' moment. How about the ugly ugly lead of this... pretty please!
YouTube - Tiga - What you need baby (Proxy remix)

[mavano]

Originally Posted by skeltz

Hey Yoozer,

I am also looking for that 3oh!3/Kesha sound, and was blown away by how your tik tok sample sounded. However I can't load either of the patches you offered. I am using massive 1.1.3.001 as a vst plugin in fruity loops. Any thoughts? Sorry if this is a dumb question; I'm brand new to synths...

If you have a different version, is there any way you could upload a screenshot of the settings?

You'll need the latest version "1.1.4". It should come up as an update when you run the NI service center.

[Yoozer]

And in case that doesn't work for some reason, start with the basic init patch, and change the following for the GagaLead:


and start with init patch again and change these settings for the KeshaBass; use the same envelope (attack time near zero, decay level max, release time near zero) as used in the GagaLead.

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by Tarkovsky

OK Yoozer... Great work by the way. I had a total freaking 'uh-huh!' moment. How about the ugly ugly lead of this... pretty please!
YouTube - Tiga - What you need baby (Proxy remix)

Try the file in the attachment (requires Massive 1.1.4 just like the rest of 'm)

Needs some sidechaining and a Crappy Youtube Encoding effect

[AON]

Yoozer, nice work! thumbsup
Can you create the main synth from this clip (in Massive)?: YouTube - Al Azif vs Adam Tensta feat Eboi - Dopeboy

[skeltz]

Thank you so much Yoozer! I'm going to try this first thing tomorrow

[Dj Shaw-t]

Originally Posted by Yoozer

The alternative is to sample a square wave that goes slightly down in pitch and make a really short loop; in that case, the loop length is analogous to the LFO speed and keytracking happens automatically.

I'd like to know whether the original poster has tried the patches and if they were to his wishes, though.

Not the original OP but would just like to thank you. You are the man, thanks for taking the time.

[skeltz]

Thanks so much Yoozer! I'll post the song when we are finished.

[MusicProducer]

Wow Yoozer, This is seriously nice what you are doing here

[nefarien]

Sorry for reposting a really old post. But can one make it so the LFO rate increases based on pitch in THOR/Reason? I can't seem to figure that bit out.

[Yoozer]

You don't make it increase on basis of pitch, you make it increase/decrease based on keytracking. Keytracking is available as a modulation source in Thor; if you set it to a positive value, you can make something increase in pitch.

It's important to understand that even though pitch is hardwired to keytracking in almost all cases, it doesn't have to be - so that's why you don't find "pitch" as a source.

[nefarien]

Thanks for the quick response. Really awesome of you to do that.

For THOR would it be Midi Note>LFO Rate>OSC1 Pitch?
I'm not sure I understand. I re-read before asking and messed around. I hear a difference but I'm trying to actually understand what I'm doing.

The notes will affect the lfo rate which in turn will affect the osc1 pitch?

I can take a screenshot if you would like to see what I'm talking about in case I sound too stupid.

Originally Posted by Yoozer

You don't make it increase on basis of pitch, you make it increase/decrease based on keytracking. Keytracking is available as a modulation source in Thor; if you set it to a positive value, you can make something increase in pitch.

It's important to understand that even though pitch is hardwired to keytracking in almost all cases, it doesn't have to be - so that's why you don't find "pitch" as a source.

[Yoozer]

I have the trial version of R4 at home, so I can check for you in a few hours. Anyway, you have to create two routings for this:

1: LFO1 -> Pitch
2: MIDI Note > LFO1 Rate

It has to be done like this because LFO1 is not hardwired to anything; otherwise the oscillator block would've had an LFO1 knob.

The best way to find out if it works is to put LFO1 -> to an extreme, turn down the rate of the LFO, and put the Amount of both all the way up.

[nefarien]

Thank you. I figured that's how it went. Appreciate the time you spent helping me.

[marcuscw]

wauw those presets you made are f'ing awesome! the kesha one is really close!! I'm quite jealous of your synth skills! Do you have some recommended reading/tutorials? I run into this problem all the time, I know what I want to hear but not how to create it and checking all the presets for that one sound can be a real pain.
Like for instance I've been after the main synth in this beat for a while: YouTube - Chris Brown - Holla At Me ft. Tyga . What would be your first steps? How do you know what to do?

[Yoozer]

The basis of the sound is a supersaw, and the filter cutoff is turned down. There's a soft attack (turning the attack down to zero on most virtual analog synths/plugins results in a short "click" sound), so either the filter or the amplifier envelope have to increase the attack a bit.

After messing around for 10 minutes in Massive, check the attachment for the result and the sound.

Sorry, no images this time.

It's really a basic sound, but the problem in recreating it exactly lies in the filter. The most likely cause is that they didn't use Massive (but hey, use what you have) - the filter sounds sort of like the one on an Access Virus. Plus, I'm listening to this on headphones, so that's another cause.

As for the strategy, I've typed it out here.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5515290-post20.html

[marcuscw]

Echt vet! Thnx alot! It sounds close enough to me, with some effects on it! I'm gonna try recreating some sounds myself using the method you described!

[Tariq909]

Wow! Great thread! Can you please help me out with these synths? I would absolutely just die if I had these for massive or anything else. The frist one comes in at 1:13, and it's that dun dun dun dun dun in the background. lol, i don't really know how else to explain it. The 2nd sound, the one I'm really curious about comes in at 3:17. It sounds like a saw wave with a lot of modulation, but i'm not sure. Please help, thanks a lot!


YouTube - Ryan Leslie - Addiction (Instrumental)

[Yoozer]

The first sound you mention is a harp - can be found in any ROMpler, sampler, or even somewhat capable FM synth (at least, if it's the right one, playing the notes E C# D# G# G#).

(check attachment, preset is called SynHarp.ksd)

Here you go, I've made it a lot more saccharine with the effects, but you can switch those off. Most ROMpler harps are even softer/more mellow than this, but I couldn't find the right wavetable that fast.

The second sound is not that big of a challenge (now, if you would've asked me for the chord sequence, it would probably be a bit more work sequencing everything in Massive).

(check attachment, preset is called LeslieLead.ksd)

I hope I guessed your descriptions correctly; if not, let me know.

The second one gets its modulation by delaying the LFO with the internal envelope. The Juno-60 has a single slider for this; most other synths would either not do it at all (either because they lack the option or the envelope) or you'd simply use the modulation wheel (this can act as a multiplier and gives you the option to engage the LFO when you wish, instead of after a fixed time interval). That's possible too: go to the "OSC" tab. Look at "Vibrato" - assign Macro Control 1 to Depth and set the depth to about 1/3rd. Right-click on Macro Control 1 and choose "MIDI Learn" - then, move your modulation wheel up (or if you have a pitch bend stick, move that up). Macro Control 1 will follow.

In case the above was moonspeak for you:

(check attachment, preset is called LeslieLead2.ksd)