Kaini Industries has always been an inspiration to me as an example of the beauty and complexity that can come from a simple patch and well programmed sequence. I decided to attempt a cover at Kaini Industries using the Elektron Analog Four MK2 to approximate the SH-101.
The sound design took a bit of time to nail down, particularly the reverb. I’m still not sure if the original used reverb or a short analog delay. Here, I’m using the native reverb in the A4MK2. I also noticed that in the original the synth voice is panned slightly left and the reverb (or perhaps delay) is on the right. You cannot pan the reverb on the A4MK2 so there’s that, but the synth voice is slightly panned left.
The synth patch itself is a single saw oscillator with significant filtering from the first filter, and then the bass rolled off with the second filter in Highpass mode. There is a triangle lfo applied to the filter cutoff and the filter and amp envelope settings are the same, fast attack, slight decay, mid-sustain and moderate release. Dialing the resonance of the filter is key, and it’s clear much of the SH-101 sound comes from the filter. I like the way the A4MK2 approximates it, but it is certainly not the same (nor should it be!).
This was a great yet unexpected exercise spurred on by a bout of insomnia! I wasn’t going to go too deep into it but it was quite enjoyable to really try to nail down the sound as much as I could, and then I thought I should probably just make a quick video of it as well…
Edited to add a screenshot of the patch:
