squarepusher Squarepusher and FM Synthesis

  On 3/1/2011 at 8:02 PM, MrSparkle666 said:

  On 3/1/2011 at 7:24 PM, Wall Bird said:

It could very well be the sound of a sample looping at a very high rate.

 

Bingo. Now you are headed in the right direction.

he does this a lot on the live cd that comes with "do you know squarepusher"

  On 3/1/2011 at 9:22 PM, yek said:

  On 3/1/2011 at 8:02 PM, MrSparkle666 said:

  On 3/1/2011 at 7:24 PM, Wall Bird said:

It could very well be the sound of a sample looping at a very high rate.

 

Bingo. Now you are headed in the right direction.

 

he does this a lot on the live cd that comes with "do you know squarepusher"

the re-trigger on my elektron doesn't sound quite like this but that could depend on what the sample is

any chance of a basic example of the effect?

I have to apologize for leading people astray. It is likely FM synthesis after all. You guys were probably on the right track in the first place. My bad.

I played with sample length modulations for a while tonight, which is what I thought it was originally. Although it came close to a lot of the sounds, I couldn't get that record scratching sound he does even in the ballpark. So I fired up a synth with some simple FM and BAM there it was! My FM programming experience is mostly DX7 style where you can only use sine waves as carriers and modulators, so I'd never tried this type of FM before. Once you start frequency modulating a square wave with other waveforms, all of the sudden it nails it. Just play with the the pitch of the modulator and the amount of modulation.

Now, the hard part is the sequencing. I have two ideas.

1. He's either doing it all with programmed midi cc messages.

2. He's recording tweeks by handing and then chopping them up in a sampler.

Or maybe both. Hell if I know. That's why Tom is a master.

like i sais before i reckon the volume and pitch of the bass guitar is at the controls of a bass guitarsynth and modulation depth hence the title of the song. i really dont think the actual 'playing' of the sound is programmed in anyway although it could be the audio of a short jam fx'd to fuck later on but with the crazy shit tom does live i doubt it

methinx it could be analogue too hence none of your typical digital alaising or fuzzy distortion like on a DX/FM7 which has thrown people a bit

  On 3/7/2011 at 4:57 PM, soundwave said:

like i sais before i reckon the volume and pitch of the bass guitar is at the controls of a bass guitarsynth and modulation depth hence the title of the song. i really dont think the actual 'playing' of the sound is programmed in anyway although it could be the audio of a short jam fx'd to fuck later on but with the crazy shit tom does live i doubt it

 

methinx it could be analogue too hence none of your typical digital alaising or fuzzy distortion like on a DX/FM7 which has thrown people a bit

Right. I forgot that he has a midi bass rig. That makes more sense.

I doubt it's analog though. As far as I know Tom doesn't own any analog gear capable of this. I don't think you can get that kind of audio rate modulation out of a tb303, sh101, or octave cat, unless you do some circuit hacking. More likely it's a Reaktor patch or something he cooked up in the Orville. Actually, now that I think of it, I remember reading an interview where Tom was talking about using the Orville to turn his bass guitar into a synthesizer. This is probably exactly what he was talking about. The programming on that box goes DEEP. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone here has access to one.

if i were to guess i'd probably say the Orville on his live set material. However Tom has in the past many times done a similar effect only using a synthesizer and no bass guitar as the source through a similar series of FM modulators. My guess is when he did this it was on Reaktor or possibly on FM7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slA1I2xlqek

about 1:55 into the video you can hear his very fast FM synth solo going over the top

  On 1/27/2011 at 7:44 PM, Boxus said:

i work mostly in logic too, but when i want more meticulous control of parameters i'll usually try to set up a max patch to generate the sort of sounds i want, then bounce a few takes and cut them up in logic.

 

there's definitely a lot going on in that synth - it sort of sounds like fm tones are being brought out by high-speed cutoff mods on multiple filters

you guys should have a look into the hyper editor...

Alright, here's a quick, very rough example.

No sequencing. Just a midi loop with some improvised knob tweaking. It's not an attempt to sound exactly like the track in question. I only made it to show that all of the basic sounds are there and easy enough to make with simple 2 osc FM.

Have fun...

moderbass.mp3Fetching info...

Good one!

that's pretty damn accurate really

Yeah, that's spot-on, Sparkle. Would you be willing to share the patch with us?

Yeah, nice work, I would be interested in how you did this

but I'm not going to be lazy and I will read the last half of this thread I haven't peeped. I can guess that you just have the right FM patch with the right knob twiddles ready to go.

  On 3/10/2011 at 10:46 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

Yeah, nice work, I would be interested in how you did this

 

but I'm not going to be lazy and I will read the last half of this thread I haven't peeped. I can guess that you just have the right FM patch with the right knob twiddles ready to go.

Sorry, I didn't save the patch. I didn't think it was necessary since it only takes about 3 mouse clicks to make. Just set your carrier osc to a square and set your modulator osc to a saw. Roll of a bit of the harshness with a LP filter. The first part of the clip I have the carrier and modulator set to the same frequency and I'm just tweaking the FM amount. Then later I start tweaking the carrier pitch also. That's really all there is to it.

raising this thread from the dead for posterity. Yes he uses reaktor, no not typically for synths, from what i've seen and heard software is mostly only coming in to play to play samples. everything is entirely sequenced on the Yamaha QY700, which i own, and his 2 main synths are the FS1R and the TX81Z, which i also own. I can tell you that from years of programming the FS1R that nearly every melody you hear in his songs, that isn't an obvious bass being played is almost always the FS1R. this goes for Plaid's music as well. the FS1R was at the time of him likely purchasing it, extremely difficult to program, made easier by modern software, but play around with one for a while, and you recognize a lot of stuff while using it. as well as understanding how it's being done. reaktor may very well be controlling parameters of the FS1R but likely not generating sound. the simple fact of the matter is that software FM synthesis from reaktor to FM8 is nowhere close to touching the FS1R or even TX81Z, which is basically a keyless DX series synth. both of these synths are cherished items of mine as well as the qy700. almost everything he's doing is away from the computer, sans reaktor effects/patches. i believe the real question in the OP was regarding his workflow, and i'll bet everything i own that his workflow doesn't involve sitting at a computer drawing things in a sequencer. it's well thought out, planned, calculated, pushing hardware to it's maximum. and you can find plenty of interviews where he says 'making music on a computer is my idea of hell'. just my $.02 . computers haven't replaced hardware, and i have a hard time believing they ever well. if you want to do some serious synth work, get some hardware. start with a tx81z, you can get them for $50. it's an 8OP FM synth and it's easy to program. i designed environments in logic to directly edit my synths from within the DAW itself. i'll also add that besides sounding a lot better, making your own patches for synths is pure joy.

this topic became a project of mine when someone asked me to duplicate some squarepusher synth patches and "do what he does" so i spent a few hours doing just that. put up a mock-squarepusher soundcloud page for realism, and posted the track.

what you're hearing is the FS1R for melody and TX81z for bass. drums are pitched shifted and arpeggiated from 1 single amen loop. i didn't sequence them. i cut an amen loop up. applied hits to whole octaves, rigged a few arpeggiators to activate according to mod wheel position. i tried to duplicate the breezeblock session, without spending a stupid amount of time on it. it's pretty basic and nowhere near what he's doing as things progress.

hi tom. nice track.

I like how in that post he keeps talking about how working on music with computer is complete hell for sure but keeps mentioning how you need to use computers to get the most out of hardware.

  On 4/14/2012 at 11:23 AM, Squarepusher said:

'making music on a computer is my idea of hell'. just my $.02 .

Funny idea of hell. I always thought being stuck in a broken elevator with several Nickelback fans on their way home from a Nickelback concert and Joan Rivers without makeup would be kind of like hell.

that's great. Your Logic environment looks fantastic. :)

I gotta see if I can make the Preen sound like that. :D

squaring off software and hardware is kind of a moot point I think. much like analog versus digital sound generation..

I guess this bias could come from having an instrument that doesn't change, something you can rely on, and something that has faults that you learn to live with. If you compare software like Reaper that sometimes has updates every other week, hardware is unrelenting when it comes down to it. I guess this gives it more of a personality. and you don't have to constantly adjust with how the program changes. I think that's what I liked about the early versions of Reason..

I have more of a GNU approach to things now though, lot's of small tools to get to what I want.

  On 4/14/2012 at 11:23 AM, kaydpea said:

the FS1R was at the time of him likely purchasing it, extremely difficult to program, made easier by modern software,

i've long been considering purchasing an FS1R, but i have a big concern regarding it. seeing as how you seem to be quite knowledgable about this synth i hope you'll be able to give me your perspective on this.

researching the FS1R, it became clear that there are an INSANE amount of parameters to work with in order to program this synth. i've looked at the synth editors and, as you mention, they do seem to make the parameters easier to access and adjust. but even with the software it still seems like working with this synth would involve a massive amount of tweaking to multiple screens of values, a tons of envelopes, levels, etc...

my question is: is there a way to work with the FS1R on a broader, more 'meta' level? is there any way to 'breed' or 'mutate' patches (as in reaktor) or make coarse adjustments to a patch? basically, i like the ability to make broad changes to a sound, get surprised by some randomization, and get unexpected results from tweaking a parameter. once i get something that sounds interesting... THEN i like to go in and fine tune all the settings. having the ability to do tons of tweaking is quite fun at that point.

...but if you have to adjust a million little parameters just to make basic changes in the overall adsr, filter, etc... it sounds like it would get tedious to work with this synth pretty quickly for me.

I haven't had any success generating random or mashed up presets from the FS1R yet like i have with my other hardware gear (polyevolver, yamaha Vl1, and kawaik5000). It seems like even the software editors i've tried besides maybe one or two of them do absolutely nothing to my FS1R. The best success i've had editing my FS1R is using a reaktor front end i created myself but that only gives you access to maybe 10 CC data controllers, which to be honest don't really tweak out the synth as heavily as i would like. The real tweaks are buried beneath the normal standard CC access.

i wish i had the patience to actually make a logic environment or set one up for the FS1R, user Kaydpea, do you know if there is one available for the FS1r?

  On 4/14/2012 at 1:20 PM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

I like how in that post he keeps talking about how working on music with computer is complete hell for sure but keeps mentioning how you need to use computers to get the most out of hardware.

I'm not anti software, my point was SONICALLY software isn't up to hardware

  On 4/14/2012 at 10:17 PM, digit said:

  On 4/14/2012 at 11:23 AM, kaydpea said:

the FS1R was at the time of him likely purchasing it, extremely difficult to program, made easier by modern software,

 

i've long been considering purchasing an FS1R, but i have a big concern regarding it. seeing as how you seem to be quite knowledgable about this synth i hope you'll be able to give me your perspective on this.

 

researching the FS1R, it became clear that there are an INSANE amount of parameters to work with in order to program this synth. i've looked at the synth editors and, as you mention, they do seem to make the parameters easier to access and adjust. but even with the software it still seems like working with this synth would involve a massive amount of tweaking to multiple screens of values, a tons of envelopes, levels, etc...

 

my question is: is there a way to work with the FS1R on a broader, more 'meta' level? is there any way to 'breed' or 'mutate' patches (as in reaktor) or make coarse adjustments to a patch? basically, i like the ability to make broad changes to a sound, get surprised by some randomization, and get unexpected results from tweaking a parameter. once i get something that sounds interesting... THEN i like to go in and fine tune all the settings. having the ability to do tons of tweaking is quite fun at that point.

 

...but if you have to adjust a million little parameters just to make basic changes in the overall adsr, filter, etc... it sounds like it would get tedious to work with this synth pretty quickly for me.

Tedious yes, there are some edits like basic lfo shaping that are broad, but there are literally thousands of parameters and I'll sum this up by saying if you're not interested in really learning how to make your own synth a using FM synthesis the fs1r is going to disappoint you. I would suggest a HEALTHY understanding of how FM works before diving into editing the fs1r, the results are worth it though. Nothing sounds better to this day

  On 4/14/2012 at 11:14 PM, Awepittance said:

I haven't had any success generating random or mashed up presets from the FS1R yet like i have with my other hardware gear (polyevolver, yamaha Vl1, and kawaik5000). It seems like even the software editors i've tried besides maybe one or two of them do absolutely nothing to my FS1R. The best success i've had editing my FS1R is using a reaktor front end i created myself but that only gives you access to maybe 10 CC data controllers, which to be honest don't really tweak out the synth as heavily as i would like. The real tweaks are buried beneath the normal standard CC access.

 

i wish i had the patience to actually make a logic environment or set one up for the FS1R, user Kaydpea, do you know if there is one available for the FS1r?

I'm using a dedicated program to build synths on the fs1r, and a logic environment to make live edits for effexrs. If you have an iPad there is an editor for the fs1r which is the friendliest I've seen. Considered getting a 1st Gen iPad just for this

  On 4/15/2012 at 12:33 AM, kaydpea said:

Tedious yes, there are some edits like basic lfo shaping that are broad, but there are literally thousands of parameters and I'll sum this up by saying if you're not interested in really learning how to make your own synth a using FM synthesis the fs1r is going to disappoint you. I would suggest a HEALTHY understanding of how FM works before diving into editing the fs1r, the results are worth it though. Nothing sounds better to this day

thanks for the feedback. this is kind of what i suspected. not going to take the FS1r off my 'to get' list just yet because, as you say, it sounds amazing and has incredible textural range. i'm just going to have to be prepared to put the hard work in.

  On 4/14/2012 at 11:14 PM, Awepittance said:

The best success i've had editing my FS1R is using a reaktor front end i created myself but that only gives you access to maybe 10 CC data controllers, which to be honest don't really tweak out the synth as heavily as i would like. The real tweaks are buried beneath the normal standard CC access.

this is also super useful info, Awe. thanks.

i'm curious now how these software editors access all of these parameters, then. can you get at them via sysex? if so, is that spec published somewhere?