Making synths sound old/from 90's like Aphex, BoC, etc.?

  On 5/5/2013 at 10:49 PM, autopilot said:

maybe come up with a good idea for a melody or beat and then worry about texture afterwards instead of setting out to ape something someone else did better 20 years ago

this entire website was founded on wanting to sound like BOC/Aphex/AE, was it not? No shame in it.

  On 5/5/2013 at 11:12 PM, Hanratty said:

 

  On 5/5/2013 at 10:49 PM, autopilot said:

maybe come up with a good idea for a melody or beat and then worry about texture afterwards instead of setting out to ape something someone else did better 20 years ago

 

this entire website was founded on wanting to sound like BOC/Aphex/AE, was it not? No shame in it.

 

imitate assimilate innovate

imitation is how we build a vocabulary from which to draw upon when it's time to say what we want to say

IMO the Ideal Musician (and I mean theoretically, of course; such a musician could never actually exist) would be someone who had a deep understand of every piece of music that had every been made.

I often see arguments that the more educated you are the less likely you are to be original, when I think exactly the opposite is true. Writers and artists used to (and probably still do) copy the styles of those that came before to gain mastery. Picasso has alot to say on the matter, and his personal track record of imitation and innovation are a great case study.

I think this is getting off topic...

Not really.

  On 5/5/2013 at 10:45 PM, LimpyLoo said:

Oops I think I misread your post.

 

 

Well look, let's take the chords from "Flim."

 

 

It sounds to me like a squarewave, with a very plucky amplitude setting (but maybe a soft-ish attack setting), a LPF set so you get a very dark sound, and lots of hall reverb.

 

I've been known to recreate Aphex Twin sounds from time to time so lemme know if you want me to demonstrate.

oops i meant the melody not the chords

anyway, here it is...took about 5 minutes:

(you'll have to forgive me as I momentarily forget the chorus melody)

Wow! That's incredibly close to the real thing. What did you use to make that? If it was a VST could you take a screenshot?

  On 5/6/2013 at 12:06 AM, reid458 said:

Wow! That's incredibly close to the real thing. What did you use to make that? If it was a VST could you take a screenshot?

I used my sh-101, but I could've easily used my Microkorg or any number of freeware vst's. I'm just more familiar with the 101 than with anything else.

I'm not gonna tell you the exact settings because that would negate my advice for you to become more familiar with whatever gear you're using and with synthesis in general. The whole point is that you become tune your ear to the sound of the different waveforms and amplitude envelopes and filter envelopes, etc.

Give a man a fish and all that

Dang.. I knew you would say that. But I guess you're right. What would you suggest I do in order to get better at all this? Because like I said in an earlier reply, I kinda feel I've done all I can with the MinimogueVA.

  On 5/6/2013 at 12:19 AM, reid458 said:

Dang.. I knew you would say that. But I guess you're right. What would you suggest I do in order to get better at all this? Because like I said in an earlier reply, I kinda feel I've done all I can with the MinimogueVA.

Try to recreate sounds you like on the Minimogue. Like I said before, don't worry about the gear. If you can't do a certain task with the Minimogue then it's likely moving to another piece of gear won't help you.

So essentially, try to master what you have. I promise promise promise that will help your music more than anything else I promise promise promise.

Great tips LimpyLoo !

Just a thing about what you say on the Minimogue : I don't remember the controls it provides exactly but if it's "only" a subtractive synth then I wouldn't say it's really possible to imitate a FM type sound with it.

Alright. Thanks for your help LimpyLoo, I can't thank you enough

  On 5/6/2013 at 12:40 AM, Antape said:

Great tips LimpyLoo !

 

Just a thing about what you say on the Minimogue : I don't remember the controls it provides exactly but if it's "only" a subtractive synth then I wouldn't say it's really possible to imitate a FM type sound with it.

I would mostly agree but I would say it totally depends on how complex the sound is.

Alot of FM-type sounds in early Ae and AFX can be imitated quite convincingly through bitrate/samplerate reduction. The bass on Ae's "Montreal" for instance is probably FM but could easily be achieved with BR/SR reduction. I came to this realization after spending many hours with my beloved Casio SK-5 and constantly saying "wow that sounds exactly like FM."

And of course that example is terrible because it has literally nothing to do with subtractive synthesis lol, but regardless I think some simple FM stuff can definitely be done using subtractive synthesis.

By the way, what were you using for reverb in the Flim track? The quality of it is really nice

  On 5/6/2013 at 1:19 AM, reid458 said:

By the way, what were you using for reverb in the Flim track? The quality of it is really nice

I think it was epicverb

Put all your energy into being original and sounding original.

If tape warble is what you're after check out Tone Project's Sonitex or CD Sound Master's VTM-M2. Increase the fuck out of the warble knobs. Treasure your new insta-lofi vibes.

  On 5/6/2013 at 1:40 AM, nuclearaddict said:

Put all your energy into being original and sounding original.

Once again, I think it's a misconception to think that being and sounding original comes from simply trying to be and sound original.

Everything original I can possibly think of is a variation on what has come before. That is all the more reason to study what has come before.

No doubt inspiration helps, but I speak from experience. I put a lot of time and energy 13 years ago in trying to be just like BoC and Aphex Twin which caused me to never write any music for about 3 years. I was sooo focused on trying to recreate their magic that I never had time to realize there was some sparkly magic of my own waiting to be unleashed once I learned how to harness it.

Well I don't think LimpyLoo is saying you should spend forever being obsessed with recreating some else's sound. I think he's just saying it's important to learn how others make music and what they do in order transform a style of music into something completely new and original.

You can emulate BoC pretty easily with a simple sinewave and some tape emulation/tape warble VST. Check out Wow & Flutter. It's free.

It's really not so much the sounds and how they're programmed, but how the songs are written and arranged.

VST's are nice and I don't have much against them but actually physically having a vintage synthesizer is a great thing. I use both but you can't fully immerse yourself in a vst like you can with a physical synth. I have a Roland Juno-106 and I love it.

what always seems to happen in threads like this is that someone assumes that the ultimate goal of studying music is to copy it

the point is to sharpen your ears and your skills

so when you're writing a melody over a D chord (for instance)

you have a variety of different ways to approach it

or when you're voice-leading a synth part

or writing a bassline

or writing a hi-hat part

I always hear people saying that education will detract from originality

you mentioned Aphex Twin and BoC

they are great case studies

because their music very clearly betrays influences

whether it's 808 State or 70's educational films

they did not imagine their music out of thin air

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.”

-T.S. Eliot

lol

i think it's all about learning through experimentation. in that way you force yourself to be original...

  On 5/6/2013 at 2:56 AM, DerWaschbar said:

lol

what's on your mind, mate?