How to make this lead?

[Kanthos]

I'm not a synth expert (yet; I'm working on it), and I'm trying to duplicate the lead from

(starting at 1:15, and it's in and out, but that sound occurs often in the song) in my live keyboard rig. The keyboard they use is a Moog Little Phatty Stage II.

Any ideas on how to make that patch? I'm not even entirely sure what oscillators to start with, other than that I can see from closeups of the keyboard in the video that he's got osc. 2 set to a square. I'll duplicate it either in Omnisphere or in Reason's Thor with the Etch Red rack extension to get the Moog filter sound.

[Meteo Xavier]

That seems like a surprisingly simple lead too, but I'm kinda struggling to come up with it.

There's definitely some sine or triangle in there. Super quick portamento. Sounds like it's got an octave thing going there too. Slightly detuned...

Hope some of this is helpful to you.

[Flexstyle]

Probably a toothed wave of some sort with a LOT of filtering. Sounds to me like the bandpass filter cutoff is following the keyboard (e.g. A2 has one cutoff, while E4 has a much higher cutoff).

You could probably get the same effect by sampling a single note that sounds like that synth, and then pitching it up and down with some vibrato. Pretty simple to do in FL Studio, at least.

[ShrackAttack]

Completely unrelated to your question: But it's good to see some people recognize Snarky Puppy.

[Kanthos]

Snarky Puppy is awesome. Saw half of their set (and stood outside Toronto's good jazz club for the first half, waiting in line) a couple months ago, and I'm going again when they're back here in September.

I asked Shaun Martin, the guy who played the part, but he was reluctant to give help (or just didn't remember, or would rather encourage experimentation than handouts, or whatever).

I worked on this for a couple hours last night until my ears got tired, than did some work on the pads in my rig. Here's what I've got so far.

Definitely mod wheel-controlled vibrato on this, and it's a big part of the performance. Not so much earlier in the song, but when he goes nuts near the end, it's obvious. I'm not sure about a square wave any more; I misread the screenshot I took, and it's the glide amount that was showing on the knob, not the second waveform. Also, osc 2 is synced to osc 1.

I think what I'm going to do is try to recreate it in Arturia's miniMoog plugin (I picked up the free copy they were giving away a couple months ago), and once I've got it, try and duplicate it in Omnisphere or Reason, which will be better for use in my live rig. I'm trying to use only Omnisphere, Kontakt, and Reason sounds loaded in combinators, since all three have patch remain in some form (meaning I can turn off an Omnisphere sound, send a program change to a Kontakt instrument bank to select an empty slot, or turn off note input via a Combinator button in Reason, and no further notes will sound but existing notes will sound until I release the keys).

[avaris]

This is def no Oscillator Sync.

The Triangle Osc on the MiniMoog has a bit more harmonics than a normal Triangle Osc. Listening to some Osc examples from the minimoog it is def the Triangle/Saw wave:

The filter is def sweeping over and hitting the vocal formants. That is what gives it it's unique character. This can be done with any of the filter types.

This is a simple lead. Keep it simple and don't over bake it.

[avaris]

Here's a Subtractor Lead:

http://www.sonic-elements.com/Dogged%20Lead.zyp

[Kanthos]

What do you mean by 'sweeping over and hitting the vocal formants'? I thought vocal formants was a term associated with vocoders and such, not synths.

Awesome, thanks for the lead. I'll check it out at home; I definitely want to understand how this works, not just use a preset.

I think you might be right with the waveform. The sync light is definitely on, I can see that from the screenshot, but if the patch uses only one waveform, osc 2 wouldn't be syncing to anything.

The keyboard is the moog little phatty stage ii, which has continuously variable oscillators (yes, I downloaded the manual ), so I'd bet osc 1 is somewhere between triangle and saw, as you suggest, though not necessarily exactly like the minimoog's tri-saw osc. Sadly, the keyboard only has a few knobs that control different things when different buttons are pressed, so I can't tell, from the screenshot, what most of the settings are.

[avaris]

Vocal formants would be the frequencies that are present in the human voice. The presence of these certain frequencies can give you the sensation that a synth is "talking." They can recreate the Ooh Ah Eh syllables in the synth.

That synth sound sound seems to have a slight vocal tonality to it.

It might be a little less daunting to try and make a couple similar leads trying different techniques.

[SonicThHedgog]

You mean this kinda synth?

http://soundcloud.com/aires/air3s-spring @:26

If yes, all I did was a 2 saws (and I think a triangle, dont quote me) under a notch bell filter with a automating resonance filter. I but a pitch lfo to make it sound a bit more analog and with a EQ I cut the some high end (LP) to make it sound a but more rounded.

also kinda like this yes, but a bit brighter

[zircon]

Alright y'all, sorry to shut you down. It's not a triangle, it's not osc sync, it's not multiple oscs, it's not a filter sweep. It's one saw going through a slightly resonant LPF. That's it. It has a bit of portamento and vibrato on the modwheel of course. But there's no other filter motion.

Getting that EXACT tone may be tricky since it is highly dependent on the filter, and every synth (ESPECIALLY analog Moog synths) has a different filter. But I would go with a standard 24db/oct LP, a LITTLE resonance and drive, and then put the cutoff at around 1-2 o'clock. You'll have to tweak it to taste, however that will get you in the ballpark. If your filters don't have a drive option you might want a tiny bit of post-saturation to help emulate the raw sound of an analog synth. Your oscillator should just be a simple saw wave.

Quick mockup:

http://zirconstudios.com/music/wips/ThingOfGold.mp3

Omnisphere preset:

Remember, try tweaking resonance, gain, cutoff and filter type to get REALLY close. A little post EQ might not hurt either.

[SonicThHedgog]

Alright y'all, sorry to shut you down. It's not a triangle, it's not osc sync, it's not multiple oscs, it's not a filter sweep. It's one saw going through a slightly resonant LPF. That's it. It has a bit of portamento and vibrato on the modwheel of course. But there's no other filter motion.

Getting that EXACT tone may be tricky since it is highly dependent on the filter, and every synth (ESPECIALLY analog Moog synths) has a different filter. But I would go with a standard 24db/oct LP, a LITTLE resonance and drive, and then put the cutoff at around 1-2 o'clock. You'll have to tweak it to taste, however that will get you in the ballpark. If your filters don't have a drive option you might want a tiny bit of post-saturation to help emulate the raw sound of an analog synth. Your oscillator should just be a simple saw wave.

Quick mockup:

http://zirconstudios.com/music/wips/ThingOfGold.mp3

Omnisphere preset:

Remember, try tweaking resonance, gain, cutoff and filter type to get REALLY close. A little post EQ might not hurt either.

Kinda what I said, but expanded with pictures! lol this^^^^^^^^

[ShrackAttack]

I was going to post a similar patch in Omnisphere today, but zircon beat me too it . His is a bit closer anyways.

[Kanthos]

Thanks so much guys! I used zircon's patch as a starting point and got pretty close; not 100% there, but close enough for tonight; too much working on it is making me lose sight of the fine differences. I'll polish a bit more tomorrow, I think, but I've at least got all the info I need. Also, I found it sounded just a bit better using one of the moog saw samples than either of the saw oscillators.

[timaeus222]

If you had Zebra2, I believe it's possible to get another variation of that sound, and it might even be better, who knows? ;D

Oh, I do think the envelope actually has about a 30ms attack on the cutoff, like at 1:14.5. I also believe the LFO speed on the vibrato might change depending on the pitch. Maybe. I'm not sure what that's called, but it's "KeyFol" on Zebra2.

This is actually a really cool lead. I might try to make it when I get home.

[Kanthos]

If you had Zebra2, I believe it's possible to get another variation of that sound, and it might even be better, who knows? ;D

That's pretty true of any synth though; if you use a different plugin, you won't get EXACTLY the same results and it might be better. I don't have Zebra, and as I mentioned, I'm limiting my choices to Omnisphere (which, like I said, I've gotten quite close in and will take another shot at tonight) or something in Reason, so that I have patch remain on my entire rig rather than one sound without. None of the other synths I have, even the miniMoog, which would've been the obvious first choice, have patch remain.

Oh, I do think the envelope actually has about a 30ms attack on the cutoff, like at 1:14.5. I also believe the LFO speed on the vibrato might change depending on the pitch. Maybe. I'm not sure what that's called, but it's "KeyFol" on Zebra2.

I increased the attack on the amplitude envelope very slightly up from 0 to make the lead a bit smoother. Maybe there's an attack on the filter envelope too; I'm not hearing it on the track, at least not on my fairly cheap consumer headphones at work. Are you possibly confusing it with the fact that before most repeated notes in the lead, including 1:14.5, he's quickly playing the note a tone down so there's some glide happening? See 1:25 for a clear shot of him doing that.

As for the vibrato, he's definitely not using key tracking; the Stage Phatty II doesn't have any that can be applied to a mod source, only to the filter. Possibly he adjusted the rate as he got into the solo at the end and started playing higher on the keyboard, but the rate LED isn't lit at 5:03 when he's playing that, so either he upped the rate and then switched back to the amount (controlling how much effect the mod wheel would have), which would be kind of dumb and unnecessary to do during a live performance, or more likely he's just pushing the mod wheel all the way up, applying more vibrato depth at the same rate, while earlier in the song, he didn't drive the mod wheel as hard. I got the same effect doing just that; it's a pretty standard synth performance technique.

[timaeus222]

This is an old topic, but I did mean to go back and make that lead on Zebra2, so here it is. xD

https://www.box.com/s/ibdsqpfimdmk73xl8a3o

A small twist is that there isn't a modwheel control, but instead, an XY control. It's possible to do modwheel, but I'll leave that to the composer.

Notes:

- Saw wave, hint of reverb and delay.

- 12dB LPF plus a very mild formant filter.

- XMF lightly gives it that analog feel, hence the "analogue" label.