Tips: Making out of date synth patches on new systems

Dreaming of owning a keyboard with a 6mb sample rom library? Thinking of selling your entire studio to get that new sound? Try these simple tips to get bigger synth sounds.

1. Use a double delay instead of reverb. Digital delays are the best. You can try one tight delay (30ms or so) and one long delay (250ms), then pan each to the left or right. This creates a larger sound space.

2. Filter the sample, or analog modeling synth with a Lo-Fi sample rate down-conversion (destructive). Change the bit rate to 12 or 8 bit. This would simulate old sample roms or digital synthesis.

3. Combine a choir (ahh) sample with a short percussive attack sample. Many pad patches have been created this way with various string type sounds or percussive strikes and plucks. Many keyboards based on rom libraries let you create a sound with two “oscillators” in the patch. Again use the tips above on something like this to make it sound bigger. This is the scariest tip.

4. Experiment with sample speeds, transposition zone, and formant. If you have a roland sampler with vari-synth or ableton you may be able to get low-fi type results on modern samples, as if you were to take a smaller section of the rom sample and stretch it to fit the keyboard. Sometimes its better to turn these new pitch correcting/stretching technologies OFF and let the samples run.

5. Use a stereo choir effect or guitar pedal

The old tricks are the best tricks.

Yamaha DTX-Multi 12 Drum Pad

Feature packed, theDTX-Multi 12boasts over 1200 stunning voices in high quality covering drums, percussion and keyboard sounds, many drawn from Yamaha’s professional Motif synthesizer range and many completely new. Up to 200 custom set ups can also be created and stored with ease to suit any musical context using all internal sounds and 42 types of effects.

Features USB and 64 MB sampler flash rom!!

Link Here Found on Music Radar.

I like the multi-level design!

Battlestar Galactica Disco

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/10/11/giorgio-morode-lost-disco-battlestar-galactica-soundtrack-album/

Take a Listen @ Synthopia

New V-synth 2.0 Patches

LISTEN TO THE DEMO! (MP3, 5.4MB, 4 Minutes)

50+ V-synth 2.0 Patches for $25, paypal & credit cards.

Designed over a period of months, it features:
A better TB-303 recreation w/909 thats fully controllable, and arpeggiated.

Analog Leads

2 Sampled Statocaster Guitars on multiple patches (one with real distortion, 80s style)

Pads, Eery Combinations
FX & Drums
+More!

Link to V-synth Patches in our store http://www.chipcollection.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=51

Nudge Monome Flash Clone

by Hobnox

LinnDrumm II Design

Looks like I didn’t see this yet. Its a cool 3d mockup. Looks a little like a mixing console. Everything is starting to take this shape lately.

http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/products/linndrum2/index.shtml

PSP Beaterator: Whats taking so long?

What is taking so long for Rockstar to make a PSP music creation game? Popular websites list Beaterator as a Rockstar creation in 2005. I know I played something with exact same interface, name, and flash technology running on a different website earlier than 2005. I’m taking a guess that it was purchased or liscensed by Rockstar and is finally making its way. WHATS TAKING SO LONG? I don’t think anyone has been anticipating its release. I haven’t. I remember playing Beaterator free on the web years ago. Corporate control made it disappear. Its only after Rockstar took control of Beaterator that I wasn’t able to play it anymore!

I’m not going to buy it on PSP to support a flash game that was intended to be free and intended for everyone to use. I hope it doesn’t sell well at all.

There are many free homebrew music creation titles on the PSP with similiar features!

Korg MicroSampler Looks like Voltmeter

It seems like they come out with a new mini keyboard ever year.

From youtube “looks like a midi keyboard for troops in iraq… really ugly”

To me it looks like a plastic Voltmeter from electronics class or a yard sale toy. It looks like it has a sequencer at least. If it doesn’t have time-stretch, pitch, beat-match, and sample chop, like modern samplers, then its not necessary to own, but I hope it does for the sake of people buying this ugly thing.

Link to Video

Royksopp Remixable Track

Their favourite track of mine is still Poor Leno that was also availble in the snowboarding game SSX3, but now you can remix a new one in this new contest.

Free Röyksopp Track To Download & Remix From Synthopia

One Key Drum Programming Tips

Ever had trouble timing drums on a keyboard? Use this tip to consolidate your drums onto one key to reduce errors.

How it works: Accents trigger fast snare and bass drum (high velocity), and normal strikes (low to high velocity) just play bass drum and optionally a soft/quiet/blended snare. This allows you to naturally play rock rhythms on the same key and frees up other fingers.

For this to work you’ll need a sampler that supports custom velocity sensitivity and at least two samples per key. I used the V-Synth. I’m sure this will work in Reason or anything remotely modern.

1. Find your drum samples. Bass, Snare etc. Setup zones or make keymappings for drums.

2. Place a Bass Kick – 0-127 Linear Velocity (straight upward graph) on Middle C. This is OSC1 on the V-synth

3. Place a Fast Snare – 100-127 High Velocity (highly peaked graph) also on Middle C. This is OSC2 on the V-synth

Thats it. Now its slightly easier to play rhymthms on a keyboard using a single key.

BONUS TIP: Make a bass drum sound slightly more real! Using a variation of above you can blend a bass drum sample and a soft snare. Why would you want to do this? In real life when you press the bass pedal your resonating the surrounding drums (the snare’s springs). In studios where samples are recorded their goal is to isolate sounds and make sure this doesn’t happen. If your using samples from entirely different kits or electronic drums this method will blend them. If we add a soft snare sample to our kick drum at much lower volume you can blend them like its coming from one drumset. Make sure you use appropriate velocities for this. You don’t want the snare to actually sound like an accent or compete with the real snare.

I hope this helps people make more natural sounding drum rhythyms or inspires someone to do something new with sample layers.

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