Sunday 29 April 2012

Patch 009 - ADK Clap

I've had a lot on this week so apologies for the lack of patches (I had promised four and you're getting one at the end of the week).

I must admit I didn't have a clue how to start with a clap sound and had made a number of aborted attempts of one before now. Initially I started with a burst of noise shaped via an amp envelope with fast attack and decay / release with no sustain and basically found myself with a hi hat. A low pass filter made the sound duller but listening to a clap from my sample library there was more tone to it than a low pass filtered burst of noise. I turned to google and found a very interesting site - Advanced Programming Techniques for Modular Synthesizers which was written for the Nord Modular hardware synth. Still a lot of the techniques were valid for any synth (hardware or software) and on the page relating to Percussion Synthesis a synthesized clap was discussed.

According to this site, the key element I seemed to be missing was the delay added to the sound to simulate the "echoes and reverberations produced in an enclosed environment from the slapping together of the hands". That made a lot of sense so I added some onboard delay over the top and I was almost there. The sound still lacked a bit of interest so I turned to Reason's Subtractor synth and checked out the clap sound in the Factory library. The Subtractor synth is very similar in terms of architecture to the microKORG so I basically ripped off the filter settings (BPF with cut-off of 81 and resonance of 42) and I was finally getting close.

I realised that I could use two filters with noise if I used the noise oscillator in Osc 1 instead of just adding noise in the mixer. This meant that I could filter out the higher frequencies and add a BPF on top. The level was a bit low so I boosted it a bit by adding distortion. The level is still a bit low but I am happy with that for now (I guess you could add an identical patch on timbre 2 if you wanted).

Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):

Voice: SYT, SGL, PLY, ---, --- (unchanged)
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 2, 5 (unchanged)
Osc 1: NOS, 63, 0, ---, ---
Osc 2: SAW, OFF, 0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Mixer: 127, 0, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Filter: BPF, 81, 42, 0, 0
Filter EG: 0, 64, 127, 0, ON (unchanged)
Amp: 127, CNT, ON, 0, ---
Amp EG: 0, 25, 0, 25, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: LF1, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 2: LF2, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 20, 18, ---
EQ: 320, 0, 6.0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)

Saturday 21 April 2012

Patch 008 - ADK Cymbal

As discussed on the ADK Hi Hat patch, obtaining a realistic cymbal noise from a simple synth like the microKORG is difficult. This is due to the fact that a cymbal sound is an inharmonic sound that cannot be replicated with two oscillators (or four for a layered patch). I was keen to give it a go though...

From my web based research, I learned that ring modulation could be used to generate a complex spectrum of frequencies and started with that. First I used a DWGS waveform in Osc 1 in conjunction with a square wave, detuned heavily in Osc 2. I used the DWGS waveform solely for ring modulation / synch purposes and therefore turned this off in the mixer and set Osc 2 to the maximum. Fast or instant attack and zero sustain for both envelopes together with moderate (and equal) decay / release. I made the filter decay a little quicker than the amp decay.

I found that adding distortion amplified the metallic nature of the patch and I also liked some movement in pitch and the filter through modulation with an LFO. As per the other ADK pitches I turned keyboard tracking of the pitch off.

I then thought that the sound could be further enhanced by adding a second timbre, . after all, this is a monophonic patch so the lack of polyphony wouldn't be a problem. After messing with a noise based sound I settled on using another DWGS waveform, this time without ring modulation. I left Osc 2 off in the mixer and used a similar (but quicker) amp envelope than timbre 1. As you can hear, timbre 2 has a lot less "noise" than timbre 1, being more like a ringing bell, so I made sure it didn't overshadow timbre 2. After making some adjustments to the filter (HPF, negative envelope), I panned both timbres slightly off centre. Timbre 2 has identical virtual patch settings to timbre 1. Finally I EQ'd both timbres to accentuate the higher frequencies.

Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):

Timbre 1

Voice: SYT, LAY, MON, SGL, ---
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Osc 1: DIG, ---, 60, ---, ---
Osc 2: SAW, R-S, 10, 40, ---
Mixer: 0, 127, 0, ---, ---
Filter: BPF, 75, 75, 34, 0
Filter EG: 6, 84, 0, 84, ON
Amp: 127, R3, ON, 0, ---
Amp EG: 0, 80, 0, 80, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: TRC, PTC, -48, ---, ---
Patch 2: LF2, CUT, 2, ---, ---
Patch 3: LF2, PTC, -2, ---, ---
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 40, 0, --- (unchanged)
EQ: 320, -12, 6.0, 12, ---
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)

Timbre 2

Voice: SYT, LAY, MON, SGL, ---
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Osc 1: DIG, ---, 28, ---, ---
Osc 2: SAW, OFF, 0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Mixer: 87, 0, 0, ---, ---
Filter: HPF, 41, 52, -43, 0
Filter EG: 6, 84, 0, 84, ON
Amp: 127, L4, ON, 0, ---
Amp EG: 0, 60, 0, 60, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: TRC, PTC, -48, ---, ---
Patch 2: LF2, CUT, 2, ---, ---
Patch 3: LF2, PTC, -2, ---, ---
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 40, 0, --- (unchanged)
EQ: 320, -12, 6.0, 12, ---
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)

And that is that, very obviously a synth sound, but it does vaguely resemble a cymbal! The one thing I am not sure I am altogether happy with is the pitch of this patch. I could re-enable keyboard tracking of pitch and play it up and down the keyboard, and perhaps I will in the future. But for now, I am going to leave it as is. Also, if keyboard tracking is not enabled for the filter, amp or pitch, or any of the other modulation sources in the virtual patches, why does this sound different played up and down the keyboard anyway? Perhaps one of you clever people can give me a clue..

Wednesday 18 April 2012

microKORG Patch Sheet

Not sure if this will be useful to any of you or not, especially given that there are software editors for the microKORG as well as the standard MIDI dump method for storing patches. But just in case you like to be old skool and archive your patches by hand here is an example of the patch sheet form I use:





There are 4 blank pro formas per sheet of A4, pre filled out with the init patch settings. Only record what has been changed. Here is the pdf file:

microKORG Patch Sheet

Patch 007 - ADK Hi Hat

According to Gordon Reid (in his Synth Secrets articles on the Sound on Sound website), synthesizing realistic metallic percussion on a simple analog (in our case virtual) synth is impossible. This is due to the inability to generate the complex spectrum of frequencies with simply two oscillators (and a noise generator) although with layering we can utilise four oscillators (and two noise generators). As you will see below however, the open hi hat patch that forms the subject of today's post is relatively simple being based on white noise only and doesn't to my ears sound too bad, especially for it's intended use, within an electronica composition. I suspect I will have a harder time of it however when programming the cymbal patch (ride or crash, I have not yet decided which) for tomorrow.

As I will be synthesizing just the single hi hat sound for use in my sampler I will need to create a sound that can be used both as an open and closed hi hat. I was also therefore keen that the hi hat in today's patch could be played on the microKORG as either open or closed (either manually or via an external sequencer). This will be achieved by having an amp envelope with zero sustain and a shorter release than decay which means that playing normally will result in open hi hat sounds while playing staccato will result in closed hi hats.

Firstly, change to voice to monophonic as we don't want any open hat tails to overlap. Next up I turned off the vibrato on the mod wheel. Although I left the pitch bend assignment on, I reduced this to 1 as I may want some subtle changes in pitch as the patch plays (although have since realised that this has no effect given only noise is used).

Next I turned down both oscillators and the noise level up to 127 in the mixer. The filter was of the high pass variety with a medium degree of resonance. The filter and amp envelopes were similar, although the decay and release for the filter envelope were faster than the amp envelope (so we can hear the full ADSR of the filter envelope before the sound fades out). And that is pretty much all there is to it, except for some EQ to accentuate the higher frequencies further.

Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):

Voice: SYT, SGL, MON, ---, ---
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 1, 0
Osc 1: SAW, 0, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Osc 2: SAW, OFF, 0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Mixer: 0, 0, 127, ---, ---
Filter: HPF, 107, 28, 22, 0
Filter EG: 0, 20, 0, 20, ON
Amp: 127, CNT, OFF, 0, --- (unchanged)
Amp EG: 0, 54, 0, 33, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: LF1, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 2: LF2, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 40, 0, --- (unchanged)
EQ: 280, -12, 6.0, 5, ---
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Patch 006 - ADK Snare

Like the ADK Kick patch from yesterday (Patch 005), I did a fair bit of reading up on what constitutes a snare sound. This time round though I followed the tutorial provided in the Fast Guide to Propellerhead Reason by Debbie Poyser and Derek Johnson closely, where a snare drum was synthesised using the Subtractor synth.

The sound of the stick hitting the skin is provided by a triangle wave while the vibrating metal snare across the bottom of the drum was provided by noise. A fairly open LPF was used (we wanted to retain a lot of the character of the white noise) with a filter envelope with moderate attack, decay and release with no sustain. The amp envelope has an instantaneous attach and moderate to fast decay and release (again, no sustain).

As with the ADK Kick patch from yesterday, put the voice into monophonic mode and turn keyboard tracking of the pitch off using virtual patch 1. I used Osc 2 so I could drop the pitch by a further octave. If you wanted to use a sine wave you'd have to drop the pitch by the same method as the ADK Kick patch (using the mod wheel) or of course you could have a higher pitched snare. Finally, I made some minor adjustments to the EQ.

Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):

Voice: SYT, SGL, MON, ---, ---
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 2, 5 (unchanged)
Osc 1: SAW, 0, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Osc 2: TRI, OFF, -12, 0, ---
Mixer: 0, 84, 127, ---, ---
Filter: 12L, 75, 0, 0, 0
Filter EG: 25, 40, 0, 40, ON
Amp: 127, CNT, OFF, 0, --- (unchanged)
Amp EG: 0, 36, 0, 36, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: TRC, PTC, -48, ---, ---
Patch 2: LF2, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 40, 0, --- (unchanged)
EQ: 180, 4, 1.5, 4, ---
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)

Monday 16 April 2012

Patch 005 - ADK Kick

The first patch of the Analog Drum Kit (ADK) Series is a kick drum. Not knowing where to start I did what I usually do and turned to my synth bible, Gordon Reid's Synth Secrets series first published in Sound on Sound Magazine and now available online. Rather than regurgitate the relevant articles on bass (i.e. kick) drums, I will instead point you in the direction of the following links:

Synthesizing Drums: The Bass Drum
Practical Bass Drum Synthesis

Other sources of information I turned to in preparing this kick drum patch included Programming Drum Sounds, a PDF guide to how the classic drum machine sounds were synthesized (provided with the Attack Percussion Synthesizer by the great German synth company Waldorf) and the Fast Guide to Propellerhead Reason by Debbie Poyser and Derek Johnson which includes tutorials on how to program kicks and snares using noise in the Subtractor synth which is available in hard copy only (I have a rather well thumbed volume).

From my research I learned that just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there are many ways to program a kick drum. Start by selecting a monophonic voice. Next I selected a sine wave in Osc 1 and a triangle wave in Osc 2 (dropped an octave) in equal measure which provided the low end rumble to the sound together with some noise, which provided the initial shorter sound of the beater striking the drum. I introduced a very short (but not instant) attack to the amp envelope together with no sustain and moderate decay and release. I closed the low pass filter almost completely and added a reasonable amount of resonance. A very short filter envelope controlled the short click like sound of the beater, provided by the noise.

I wanted to turn keyboard tracking to the pitch off (since this is meant to be an untuned instrument) but I couldn't really work out how to do this satisfactorily - I ended up routing keyboard tracking to the pitch by -48. This had the effect of increasing the pitch however and for some reason I can't quite fathom editing the pitch transpose value had no effect (I would welcome any suggestions!). In the end I routed the mod wheel to pitch as well in order to drop the pitch further (you need to remember to do fully apply the modulation via the mod wheel once you load the patch). Finally I added a little low end boost via EQ.

Further editing would be possible (for example adding distortion, introducing some cross or ring modulation, tweaking the envelopes and filter settings further, etc) but you have to stop somewhere and I am actually rather pleased with this first attempt. Hopefully it suits the other analog drum sounds I will shortly be creating!

Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):

Voice: SYT, SGL, MON, ---, ---
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 2, 0
Osc 1: SIN, 0, 0, ---, ---
Osc 2: TRI, OFF, -12, 0, ---
Mixer: 127, 127, 50, ---, ---
Filter: 12L, 10, 68, 7, 0
Filter EG: 0, 2, 14, 5, ON
Amp: 127, CNT, OFF, 0, --- (unchanged)
Amp EG: 1, 60, 0, 50, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: TRC, PTC, -48, ---, ---
Patch 2: MOD, PTC, -63, ---, ---
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: STR, OFF, 40, 0, --- (unchanged)
EQ: 320, 5, 6.0, 0, ---
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 1 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)
[NOTE - Always remember to push the mod wheel fully away from you prior to playing the patch, otherwise the bass drum will be an octave too high.]

Tuesday 10 April 2012

MPAW Series - Analog Drum Kit (ADK)

Last night I decided to record a 100% microKORG track using the patches I have blogged about up to now. The only problem though, is that there are no drums to provide rhythm! Rather than compromise on my all microKORG philosophy I thought I would have a go at generating my own analog drum sounds on the microKORG. I could then load my hardware sampler of choice (the much underrated Zoom Sampletrak) with these to accompany my track.

Therefore the idea for the first MPAW Series was born! There are 8 samples in each bank on the Sampletrak so I decided to limit this series to 8 common drum and percussion sounds, as follows:

Patch 005 - ADK Kick
Patch 006 - ADK Snare
Patch 007 - ADK Hi Hat
Patch 008 - ADK Cymbal
Patch 009 - ADK Clap
Patch 010 - ADK Shaker
Patch 011 - ADK Tambourine
Patch 012 - ADK Drip

Obviously if I stuck to a patch a week this series will take me the best part of 2 months to complete. I therefore plan to publish 4 patches a week - traditional drum sounds next week and percussion sounds the week after (but this may change depending on how tricky the sounds are to program!).

As a bonus extra - I will then conclude the series by issuing the drum kit as a sample set (WAV audio files) so you can use in your own sampler without even having to program the patches yourselves (or even having to own a microKORG). Especially for Reason users I will also provide a refill ("The microKORG ADK") including a special Combinator patch housing a Redrum drum kit with all the samples preloaded. Hopefully these will be useful to someone. Check out the page with all the goodies here.

I haven't created any bass sounds for this blog yet either, which is something I'll address soon as well...

Note - The ADK Drip was a late replacement for a conga.

Monday 9 April 2012

Patch 004 - Oscillatorless Wonky Arp

If any of you followed my Alesis Micron - Patch a Day blog, you may recognise the concept of this week's patch - a melodic patch using no oscillators. How? Read on...

The first thing to do is to go to the mixer and turn off both oscillators. The sound for this week's patch will come solely from the self oscillation of the resonant filter (both the LPFs will work for this). Close the filter completely and crank up the resonance to 127. To be able to play a melody with this patch you will need to assign keyboard tracking to the filter (how much modulation you apply will affect how "in tune" your patch will be). Further tuning can also be made by opening the filter cutoff. By how much is up to you, experiment! I have found that playing with the resonance level while playing the pitch can cause problems without some noise so I have added this in the mixer.

To shape the sound I added a bell like amp envelope and then applied the arpeggiator. The effect is most pleasant, amplified with the use of delay in my opinion.

Here are the settings:

Voice: SYT, SGL, PLY, ---, --- (unchanged)
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 2, 5 (unchanged)
Osc 1: SAW, 0, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Osc 2: SAW, OFF, 0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Mixer: 0, 0, 127, ---, ---
Filter: 12L, 0, 127, 0, 46
Filter EG: 0, 64, 127, 0, ON (unchanged)
Amp: 127, CNT, OFF, 0, --- (unchanged)
Amp EG: 2, 88, 127, 77, ON
LFO 1: TRI, OFF, OFF, 10, --- (unchanged)
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: MOD, NOS, -63, ---, ---
Patch 2: LF2, PTC, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: FLG, 20, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Delay: L-R, ON, 1.8, 88, ---
EQ: 320, 0, 6.0, 0, --- (unchanged)
Arpeg. A: 120, 1.16, 80, UP, 2
Arpeg. B: OFF, 0, ON, 8, --- (unchanged)
[ARP ON]

You'll notice that I've assigned the mod wheel to the noise level. When you're playing the arp try playing with the resonance, filter cutoff and noise level to get some cool glitchy effects when combined with the delay. Further fun can be had if you route LFOs to the cutoff or add a filter envelope. Get wonky!

Thursday 5 April 2012

Patch 003 - Solina Strings

I've always loved the classic string synthesizer sound (think Oxygene and groovy 70s soul records), and one of the original machines which defined the sound is the ARP Solina String Ensemble. The all analog Solina has two bass voices (contra bass & cello), and depending on what version of the keyboard you have, up to four preset standard voices (viola, violin, trumpet & horn). The standard voices can all be layered.

Here is a video showing off this cool synth:


Of course, the easiest way to be able to have that classic Solina sound would be to buy an original 1970s (creeping into the early 1980s) string synthesizer, but sadly I haven't got the spare room or cash at the moment (according to Vintage Synth Explorer you can expect to pay $100 to $600 for a Solina, which I think is actually pretty good value). Another alternative would be to use a sampled approximation but I have chosen to try and recreate that sound on my microKORG. There are string sounds in the presets but hey, that would be cheating...

Not knowing where to start, I consulted what I consider to be the bible of synthesizers, the Sound on Sound Synth Secrets series, written by Gordon Reid and totalling 40 articles from May 1999 to July 2004. Thankfully this wonderful resource is available online here:

Sound on Sound's Synth Secrets

The article from February 2003 dealt with Synthesizing Strings and I used that as my starting point for creating this week's patch.

I increased the Osc 2 volume in the mixer so that both were audible and changed Osc 1 to a square wave. Next I varied the pulse width and pulse width modulation via Control 1 and Control 2 for Osc 1 until I got a sound I was happiest with. I then dropped Osc 2 by an octave and slightly detuned it to get a thicker sound. Nice, but a bit bright so I closed the filter to about halfway and changed to the gentler cut-off of the -12dB LPF. No resonance.

Next I added an amp envelope of a moderate attack, slow release, a sustain level of not quite 100% and a slow release. The Synth Secretes article suggested no decay at all but I liked the subtle movement provided by a slight drop when sustaining. The Synth Secrets article also suggested no filter envelope but I added a touch to provide some movement to the tone which I found to be pleasant but not drastic. I also added some keyboard tracking of the filter.

Modulation wise, I just added some subtle modulation to the Osc 2 tuning and Osc 1 control, both by LFO 1. Again, the amount was very subtle. Finally I added an ensemble (of course!) and added some extra brightness through EQ. I played about with the delay settings until I found a delay time I was happy with but in the settings given below I have left it turned off. Feel free to add some to suit your taste!


Here are the settings:

Voice: SYT, SGL, PLY, ---, --- (unchanged)
Pitch: 0, 0, 0, 0, 5
Osc 1: SQU, 55, 10, ---, ---
Osc 2: SAW, OFF, -12, -3, ---
Mixer: 84, 118, 0, ---, ---
Filter: 12L, 67, 0, 5, 14
Filter EG: 85, 81, 53, 62, ON
Amp: 127, CNT, OFF, 0, --- (unchanged)
Amp EG: 34, 80, 120, 94, ON
LFO 1: TRI, VOC, OFF, 32, ---
LFO 2: SIN, OFF, OFF, 70, --- (unchanged)

Patch 1: LF1, 2.TN, 1, ---, ---
Patch 2: LF1, 1.CT, 2, ---, ---
Patch 3: LF1, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Patch 4: LF2, CUT, 0, ---, --- (unchanged)
Mod FX: ENS, 41, 82, ---, ---
Delay: STR, OF, 63, 0, ---
EQ: 320, 0, 1.5, 5, ---
Arpeg. A: 140, 1.16, 20, AT1, 3 (unchanged)
Arpeg. B: ON, 0, OFF, 8, --- (unchanged)

Enjoy!