Hey all

I am looking for synths defining the rave / techno scene.
Examples of synths in songs that I really like are 2 Unlimited , Technotronics, Prodigy and whatever they are using on here. I like great synth leads as well as the softer and feel good sounds.

First... find a copy of stravinskys firebird.

sample it... then detune two them.

korg m1 for pianos
korg ms20 for bass/leads
akai s950-s1000 for sampling (get the amen break and cut it up for beats.funky drummer beat cut up.sample one note off t99 record)
juno 106 for pads
kawai k1 for techno sounds (used on lfo track)
roland 303 for acid sounds..or buy the new Behringer td3 its miles cheaper and sounds 99%the same).


if you can afford the above use the korg legacy collection for most of your sounds its as close as your gonna get..the kawai k1 can be found on ebay very cheaply its usally under £100..the Behringer td3 will be under £150 when that comes out..and either use kontakt for your sampling or buy a second hand akai sampler they go very cheap on ebay.

ohh yeah and finally get yourself some cheap fx..
get a …..
alesis midiverb/microverb
couple of boss pedals.
zoom 1201 multi effects (got a brilliant vocoder on that)

and finaly a cheap mixer and dat machine that's what most studios had back in the day.

This has been a very common post topic in the last few months.

Definitely try a forum search

Boomhauer's feel empowered because they now know how to use the search function.

Alpha Juno and MKS80, my dude.

Prodigy's debut was almost completely done on a roland w 30

My impression is you sample the synth stabs etc and can then play them back in a different way than you normally would on the original synth. Alpha Juno is usually the synth that pops up when this question is asked (and it has that handy chord function).

Tx81z
Cz-101
Sh-101

Yamaha YS200 was a popular one back then.

Is there a good alternative for the W30 , it's still expensive for my budget

A DAW , your choice of old skool rave CD.

The Roland W-30 is going to be more difficult to work with than a modern DAW. There are tons of free synths, plugins, and sample libraries around that you could use. I used to make a base track in Sony Acid and then overdub my keyboard parts with VSTs. Part of the rave/techno sound you want is based on musicians using the only tools they had available in creative ways.

Software. TAL Sampler.

Sample all non-MIDI monophonic analogs. Doing that makes them polyphonic, multitimbral and computer-controllable.

Don't bother with the w30 Its not a patch on the akai/emu samplers. If u can get the akai 3000xl it was the studio standard at one point not at the time of the raves but its much better than the s950.
It had the option to add scsi drives so u can have more samples.

Korg Wavestation
Korg M1
Yamaha DX7
Roland Alpha Juno
Roland Juno 106
Roland D50
Roland TB303/101/202

All these are available in plugin format these days


or this free one:

https://blog.wavosaur.com/rave-gener...-in-the-house/

Hahahaha. Thanks for this link. It's hilarious.

Advertises 'awful delay' as one of its effects.

DX 100 for bass duties on the Technotronic, Inner City heavy bass.

From what I can remember I think the answer is 'everything and anything' People tended to use whatever they could afford or was available.

Of course there were staples, Akai samplers, 303, 909, 808, SH101, Juno's, Mackie desks, Alesis FX but a lot of my favourite artists of the era used very different gear. Pretty much all the people I knew who were making techno at the time had different gear also.

Wow that sounds really cool & the website has all kinds of history about the different stabs

Free out of a dumpster is out of your budget?

You can also use it as a sampleplayer, you can load in your own samples if you want. Very low on the CPU

don't forget when you produce it, use nothing more than you would find in a mackie channel strip for plugins.

no one had more than one compressor, no one had more than 1-2 crap reverbs in thier entire studio.

also, mix to 2 track, no stems.

then regardless of gear it should start to sound like the 90s....

that roland w-30 is literally all you need for 'rave' music (assuming good sample sources).

Atari
Roland Alpha Juno and 106
A sampler! (often S1000 or S900)
909
Effects
Analogue desk
DAT

I'd like to formally complain about this post to the relevant authorities.

I downloaded this plug in yesterday. I then spent literally hours recreating 2 Unlimited, Bizarre Inc, and early Prodigy when I had other stuff to do.

It's absolutely brilliant fun!! The Akaizer is brilliant.

Seriously, thanks for sharing. I'd not heard of this and when you unearth such gems due to the sharing nature of another user, that's what GS is all about.

Just in case you havent heard, here's another good tool:
http://the-akaizer-project.blogspot.com/?m=1

Rave generator is one of my favourite plugs of all time too. Just sounds so bad its good

I’d recommend RC20 for some 12 bit fx vibes on the back of it too

An entirely suped up W30 is the Korg microSAMPLER. I recommend it if you believe restrictions breed creativity.

The W30:


The microSAMPLER on the other hand:


So it's 14.4 seconds versus 160 seconds. Heaps better, yet still in the restrictions breed creativity territory. Double that again if you settle for 24K sample rate rather than 48K sample rate.

Anyone got Rave Generator to work on Catalina?

Lol, this only gets one thumbs up and he was on loads of R&S Techno/Rave belters early 90's.

Rave Generator 2 is fantastic, anyone with an interest in early rave/techno records should check this completely free VST plugin! I've had so much fun with it...