Hi, anyone have any ideas how to design the lead sound on those track ? The one that sounds like a guitar.
Any soft/hardware synth recommendation ?
Thanks
That sounds like a sample to me. How about sampling an actual electric guitar? And maybe running it backwards + giving it a medium attack.
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That’s what I also thought at first but the last note is very different than the first ones, I’m thinking of a synth with glide
…i also don’t “see” any synth here…and no particular hw at all…
that’s a sample, simply reversed…and it could be even a snippet from that main electric piano vst motiv…first big lesson for all sorts of sounddesign…almost everything is worth to check, how it does once it’s nothing but played backwards…u can always also let audio files glide in pitch and whatnot these days…
It sounds more like a Rhodes sample to me, too, rather than a guitar.
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Not the “piano” part, the lead above
Thanks for your reply, I’ll try with samples.
For you there is no way that it comes from a synth?
They’re all referring to the electric piano with the plucky sound, which is a sample. you can tell at the part where it is chopped and looped back near the end of the phrase.
you’re talking about the slightly LFO’ish sound that is above it and a little quieter, with a bit of a distorted sound but it’s more closer to a siren noise than a guitar, correct? Maybe siren is the wrong word but it’s the modulated sound going wee-yew, wee-yew.
I think it’s just a vst with a bit of a drive sound which is sampled then modulated with an lfo and some panning.
I mean I’m not 100% but it doesn’t sound that complex, it’s all sample based in the execution of the track from what I can tell.
Yeah, that’s the sound I’m talking about. Sounds like a siren, yes, but the last note of the loop reminds me a guitar, hope you understand what I mean.
Knowing a little about the producer of the track (DJ Mehdi from ed banger) and the year (2000), I doubt it is a vst, he used to working a lot with sample and hardware synths but I guess it’s the same concept.
Yeah, doesn’t sound complex but I’m having trouble reproducing it. Sounds like a “g funk” siren sometimes but not exactly, he used that kind of sound a lot, other examples :
it’s not vst from that era, but I know what you mean, same concept. It sounds to me like a digital synth, the one on the lucky boy you posted might have live modulation with the mod wheel/joystick as there’s more pitch fluctuation than the original track.
The karlito has some glide / portamento on it and is more clearly sequenced. This is a different synthesizer to the one on lucky boy, this is almost a moog type sound. If it’s from the early 2000’s could be microkorg, but he does seem to like this type of modulated slightly driven sound. This is a really cool track, I like the elements and the funk guitar sample and vocal sample play nicely together.
Thank you again for your response !
Yeah, the glide on the karlito one seems easier to reproduce, I was thinking about Moog too.
One of my favorite producer, too bad he’s dead
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Are you working in the box or using hardware to try and reproduce?
Both, I got the Korg MS20 mini and some soft synths (Diva, Arturia Mini V3)
The first track ( now that I put headphones on ) I’m pretty sure this one is a sample. It has the guitar type feel where the other ones are more clearly synthesizer. The volume being panned left to right and modulated up to down.
I think you could do this with a synth, but I feel like this sound may be either from an old sample pack or possible a cd/record. It’s a little clean to be a record sample but it might have processing so it’s difficult to say exactly where the origin is. I think the first thing to do is if you are working on a hardware sampler, use a delay/reverb calculator to get a proper speed for how to time the fluctuation of volume and panning. I think you could achieve it with an lfo. It would be easier in a daw.
You would want to make the up down of the volume rhythmic to match the panning and both rhythmic to the bpm of the track, it sounds like the crescendo is on the upbeat and there is a resolution note that is lower which you can hear doubled with the electric/toy piano sound but it’s not modulated on the upswing so it’s below the cut.
I might be counting the bpm for this track wrong but it sounds slow to me. I think the guitar/siren sound is hitting on the half note of the bar, on the upbeat. it starts on the downbeat but the modulation puts the “hit” on the upbeat.
Also, everything on this track has reverb but it’s not just a stereo track level reverb. That sound we’re talking about sounds more wet to me than the foreground sound. It’s also that the electric piano part has more clarity, but there is a halo of reverb around it which is making the volume up and down modulation more effective.
I don’t know if this is helping, this is just my observation, I would think to try a sample but it’s finding a sample that already has that pitch modulation that will be difficult if you are trying to recreate this specific sound. If you have a guitar you could almost make it yourself by sliding on the D string from the note of choice downwards towards the nut, then you would cut out the attack of the pick from the sample start point. But you would need the right kind of fuzz pedal, like a fuzzface or a big muff, maybe a proco rat - if you have an analog drive pedal it probably has a similar option built in, it would be to give the fuzz the same warm sound that’s making it a bit muffled (part of why I think the sample is from some media like cd/record and not live sampled).
Yes, it’s very helpful, thanks a lot, the sound modulation you’re talking about, could it come from a compressor (kind of sidechain effect) ?
I’ll try with samples but if I can make the same type of sound with a synth, it would be perfect too !
Sidechain compression is an act of one sound ducking another because the compressor activates and lowers the level with a specific amount of attack and release when the sound which is being ducked hits. There’s no kick or other rhythmic sound present for it to be ducking so unless there is a sound which is not present in the mix which is being used to activate the side chain I don’t think that’s it. However, if you did want to do it that way you’d have to do something pretty much like what I just described with the setting of the attack and release to modulate in that specific timing (difficult) and then not have that sound which is being ducked present in the actual mix, does that make sense?
Or I guess there’s maybe something like a kick in there but it’s not really at the modulated interval of the siren sound. I just don’t hear anything specifically that it would be sidechaining off of. Maybe someone better at that could do it more easily.