dx7 fretless bass patch like in this track?

[soundtrackshack]

i was browsing through some fm7 presets, trying to find the same fretless bass sound as in this song but cannot find the exact same one. I found several titled fretless, and i can hear some similarity, but they are not as strong as this one.



can anyone help.

[EMarcinM78]

It's the DX7 preset, Bass 2, from the factory Rom 1A. Voice #16. Hope this helps.

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

It's the DX7 preset, Bass 2, from the factory Rom 1A. Voice #16. Hope this helps.

i found it, and im playing the same bassline notes, but there is something missing.

what sort of adjustments need to be made do you think?

i tried the brightness but it messes up the sound somewhat.

i know the original audio its hard to hear, but you can sort of hear the bass more open with the vowel type sound.

[EMarcinM78]

Did you load it into a DX7 or FM7?

[ScoobyDoo555]

effects?

[Liquid360]

effects?

Yes, there's a watery chorus on it. It's the same bass as this song:

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

Did you load it into a DX7 or FM7?

fm7.

on some of the notes on the bass, is that pitch bend which is being used?
or portamento?

its kind of hard to tell.

when i play the same notes in same key on the fm7, it lacks the brightness and some bottom end when the song enters a key change.

im not sure if its layered with another deeper bass.

what effects to use on this particular bass?
i don't think its drenched in as much chorus as that Berlin Take My Breath Away track.

here is another example of it.

[EMarcinM78]

FM7 hasn't got the same engine as DX7 and it converts the DX patches so that they sound similar (with mixed results). Your best bet is to try to adjust the patch manually by ear after importing. For reference, google Synthmania DX7 and listen to that patch.

Once it sounds beefy enough, add the chorus as Liquid360 said. I'm using a DX7 + MXR Micro Chorus and the sound is spot on. You can use pitch bend to play the bass line.

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

FM7 hasn't got the same engine as DX7 and it converts the DX patches so that they sound similar (with mixed results). Your best bet is to try to adjust the patch manually by ear after importing. For reference, google Synthmania DX7 and listen to that patch.

Once it sounds beefy enough, add the chorus as Liquid360 said. I'm using a DX7 + MXR Micro Chorus and the sound is spot on. You can use pitch bend to play the bass line.

could you post up a sample of what your dx7 sounds like with that patch playing those notes?

ill try and work on it to get as close as possible
thanks

[Liquid360]

what effects to use on this particular bass?
i don't think its drenched in as much chorus as that Berlin Take My Breath Away track.

here is another example of it.

In the second example it's drenched in reverb.

[mikael488]

The bass on Take My Breath Away is definitely the DX-7. It's been confirmed by Arthur Barrow (the guy who did the synth-work on that track). He wasn't totally sure but there may be some Jup-8 mixed in with the DX-7 on that bass.

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by mikael488

I actually asked Mr. Faltermeyer a while ago what he used for the bass on the track The Discovery from BHC, and he answered Moog system 15 layered with Oberheim OB-8. He also told me that bass line in Axel F was done with the same synths.

The bass on Take My Breath Away is definitely the DX-7 though. It's been confirmed by Arthur Barrow (the guy who did the synth-work on that track). He wasn't totally sure but there may be some Jup-8 mixed in with the DX-7 on that bass.

so whats best way then to recreate?

i messed with the dx7 patch but its not as close.
what if it was layered using a bass with the oberheim vst?
do you think would be useful?

also, do you know what kind of orch hits were used on fatal beauty and tango and cash?

[CoolColJ]

Is that the same bass as this? Love it, DX7 does good interesting bass

[EMarcinM78]

Originally Posted by soundtrackshack

could you post up a sample of what your dx7 sounds like with that patch playing those notes?

Sure :-) The sound is more similar to the second video example. The first vid you posted has a more aggressive tone, perhaps due to slight preamp overdrive or other studio recording techniques. It may even be audio conversion in youtube, like the sound in the VSE DX7 demo which makes it sort of nice aggressive. But this is basically Bass 2 patch.

I recommend opening this mp3 with Windows Media Player or anything other than the forum player because GearSlut player messes up the low frequencies and you get some awful buzz which is not in the original mp3 file let alone the wav.

[Liquid360]

One of the things old DX didn't have that the DX-7 II had was a unison mode with detuning. Perhaps you can get closer with a unison detune instead of chorus in FM-7. You're going to have to play with the envelope amounts of the operators to get the harmonics closer, it was probably a custom sound.

[mikael488]

It turns out that Faltermeyer mixed-up "The Discovery" with another track of his. Sorry for the confusion.

The bass in "The Discovery" is more or less the standard fretless bass from the DX7!

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

Sure :-) The sound is more similar to the second video example. The first vid you posted has a more aggressive tone, perhaps due to slight preamp overdrive or other studio recording techniques. It may even be audio conversion in youtube, like the sound in the VSE DX7 demo which makes it sort of nice aggressive. But this is basically Bass 2 patch.

I recommend opening this mp3 with Windows Media Player or anything other than the forum player because GearSlut player messes up the low frequencies and you get some awful buzz which is not in the original mp3 file let alone the wav.

this sounds great. are you playing pitch bend on the notes?
im useless at getting the slight pitch bend on those specific notes, but having trouble drawing them in on my DAW which is cubase.

do you have any tips?
cheers

[indigobleep]

Hi, I'm the dude who recorded the clip but I changed my nickname to a simpler one.

I played the pitch bend on those specific notes. Just quickly pitch down to about one step below the target note just before you play the key and then slowly tune in back on the right pitch in time with the music.

Still not perfect as I didn't spend much time practising this bass line.

[mfb]

Originally Posted by soundtrackshack

i was browsing through some fm7 presets, trying to find the same fretless bass sound as in this song but cannot find the exact same one. I found several titled fretless, and i can hear some similarity, but they are not as strong as this one.
...

Here's a Kontakt sampleset of a DX7-fretless sound (£3.50 from Sampleism: snacks for your samplers) that might hit the spot. Soundcloud demo here.

[Martin78]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

Sure :-) The sound is more similar to the second video example. The first vid you posted has a more aggressive tone, perhaps due to slight preamp overdrive or other studio recording techniques. It may even be audio conversion in youtube, like the sound in the VSE DX7 demo which makes it sort of nice aggressive. But this is basically Bass 2 patch.

I recommend opening this mp3 with Windows Media Player or anything other than the forum player because GearSlut player messes up the low frequencies and you get some awful buzz which is not in the original mp3 file let alone the wav.

i think it needs something, maybe more fm harmonics?
or exciter, eq?

what chorus did you used?


anyone know what dx7 patch is layered with bass2
at 0:53 ?

[fooddude]

can this patch be found in the factory patchset in the tx81z too???

[Martin78]

i will check it when it arrive to me, i bought tx81z few days ago

it was used in fletch 1985 theme too
Harold Faltermeyer - Fletch Theme - 1985 - Fletch Lives - YouTube

[indigobleep]

Originally Posted by Martin78

i think it needs something, maybe more fm harmonics?
or exciter, eq?

what chorus did you used?

I'm sure it needs something to sound exactly like the youtube video made from an .mp3 of a digitised tape cassette or whatever. Doing a truly perfect aural recreation of it is beyond my interest because if that was required, all electronic music, or any music, would be dead obsolete the moment it was recorded.

The point is that Bass 2 is the patch used in the soundtrack. It might have been slightly modified one way or another, e.g. the rising resonating sound in the decay has probably been rolled off a bit - I did it too in my example, not a big deal.

What my clip is really missing is to truly capture the vibe of the music. I recorded it in a hurry without proper practice, just to show off the patch. The chorus I'm using is MXR Micro Chorus.

[soundtrackshack]

I think you are right that it is the dx7 patch. Faltermeyer must have modified the patch slightly.

I downloaded an mp3 of the track, but its ripped from Vinyl and has a few pops here and there so its not the best quality,

and since these specific tracks have never been released on CD or digital format, we only have the vinyl to mp3/wav conversions and a few youtube clips available, and so you can't really hear the track in its original form.

I found that just moving the Brightness parameter up slightly seems to make the sound much closer in fm7.

[soundtrackshack]

Originally Posted by Martin78

i think it needs something, maybe more fm harmonics?
or exciter, eq?

what chorus did you used?


anyone know what dx7 patch is layered with bass2
at 0:53 ?

i think thats a razor type sound, im pretty sure the same sound is used on the Fletch theme too during the main chorus breakdown.

Even the fletch theme, there is no CD version I don't think, only vinyl rips, so its hard to get an accurate feel of it.

Its probably Jupiter 8 or something like that I guess or maybe his jx8p.
i would love to know too.

[mikael488]

The polyphonic synths used on Fletch included a Jupiter-8, Oberheim OB-8 and DX-7. I don't think Faltermeyer had a JX-8P until '87 or thereabouts. I know that he didn't use one on Top Gun (1986) any way.

The other synth bass part on Fletch, the one that kicks in at 1:06, sounds mostly analog to me. Faltermeyer told me a while
ago that he often used to layer bass sounds: analog with analog and/or analog with digital. In the case of Fletch it may be the Moog 15 layered with the OB-8 or DX-7. He also used the Roland system 700 on most of his own scores.

The Synclavier debuted on BHC2 (1987) and was also used on "The Running Man (1987), Tango & Cash (1989) as well as Pet Shop Boy's "Behaviour" (1990).

[mikael488]

I just wanted to correct a mistake I made in my previous post; Harold confirmed to me that he did use a JX8P on "Fletch" (1985) but not on "BHC" (1984). The synth wasn't released until early '85 (outside of Japan )so it was not available for "BHC" which was recorded in the fall of '84.

[Kiwi]

I used to own several TX modules, and was very influenced by DX7 sounds in the 1980's. The modules failed and/or I sold them all, with no regrets. But I love FM bass, and I use a old, relatively unpopular VSTi called Loftsoft FM Heaven. I compared this to FM7, and - in my opinion, and to the best of my recollection - FM7 sounds fairly wimpy compared to the real things. To my ears/memory, FM Heaven is far more faithfull. Right down to the grungy aliasing, which I previously had assumed was poor D/A converters but seems to be part of the original algorithmn.

FM Heaven loads all the DX7 sysx files, and it's cheap enough to give a try if you like these sounds.

The sounds are VERY sensitive to Velocity data. And the original DX7 midi velocity only went to 100, so the sounds can get really nasty if hit with higher velocity. So if the sound isn't quite what you expect, try editing the velocity for a start.

A trip outside the box, with some good transformers in the path won't hurt either - and it's still hard to beat real analog chorus.

[Shubelo]

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

Sure :-) The sound is more similar to the second video example. The first vid you posted has a more aggressive tone, perhaps due to slight preamp overdrive or other studio recording techniques. It may even be audio conversion in youtube, like the sound in the VSE DX7 demo which makes it sort of nice aggressive. But this is basically Bass 2 patch.

I recommend opening this mp3 with Windows Media Player or anything other than the forum player because GearSlut player messes up the low frequencies and you get some awful buzz which is not in the original mp3 file let alone the wav.

Hey mate, great sound!

I've just got my hands on a DX7. Is this sound a factory patch and if so where can I find it? Otherwise, what could I do to get it? Sorry for racking your brain just so desperate to get some nice sounds.

Thanks for any info

[Yoozer]

Originally Posted by Shubelo

Is this sound a factory patch

Earlier in the thread:

Originally Posted by EMarcinM78

It's the DX7 preset, Bass 2, from the factory Rom 1A. Voice #16. Hope this helps.

and if so where can I find it?

☮ Dave Benson's DX7 Page ☮

Note the number "1A" so you know what to load up; using MIDI-OX on a PC allows you to transmit the sysex to a DX7.