Trance Lead
 

How is everyone tonight? I was bored and I made these two typical trance leads; one was made with Virus|PowerCore and the other one with Emagic ES2. Can you guess which one is which? Which one do you like better and why? Let me know what you think! :D

Sample 1

Sample 2

There's a delay and reverb on both sounds - same exact settings and wet/dry amounts; other than that these sounds were not processed in any other way - no EQ, distortion, phaser, chorus, etc. There was a multiband compressor on a master buss to prevent clipping though.

-REMIDI 8)

P.S. Post your version of a typical trance lead made with Virus if you feel like it. Here's the midi file of the melody:

i think the 2nd one is the virus, at 33s, the filter sweep let me think it is a virus.... ? :D

the second one is the virus.

I think I still prefer clip 1, even though clip 2 sounds like it's probably the Virus. The transients appear to be more dynamic at the start of clip 1. I think the sound in clip 2 is just slightly detuned too much. Clip 1 sounds purer, and to me, slightly more attractive.

I'm leaning towards number 2 being the Virus too, but I'm with Timo on liking the first one better.

Honeslty though, neither of the sounds would probably fit in the "noise" I call my music. :D It's hard for me to judge the Virus when it's not convered in distortion and using the moog filter. :wink:

I'd say #2 is the virus!

Can you guys guess which synth is this(same melody, with reverb+delay)
www.madstation.net/my_religion.mp3

:D

JP-80x0?

number 2 is deffo the virus theres a roundness and clarity to the sound that i havent really heard much of outside of software romplers (which were sampled from hardware anyway). also the bass end on it is huge which is characteristically virus. number one sounds thinner although i prefer it as mentioned above - the second one is detuned too much and has too much of a bouncy squelchy quality. it just sounds clumsy and a bit silly when playing that melody because of this. if you were to lower the detune and maybe up the release on the amp and filter envelopes just a touch it would sound v nice. just enough so that the previous note kind of cascades into the next :D im not sure what filter configuaration you got on but a low pass and band stop or double low pass would be smoother, less harsh and would make a v nice filter sweep using the cutoff.

i can have a go at posting a virus trance lead but im afraid it wont be that great cuz im not very good at programming my virus b :cry:

mad station with the jp 8000 i see :O i really want one of those...oh baby...

just a quick question mad - did you use the delay and reverb on the jp or an external reverb/delay unit/plugin?

EDIT:

i built a lead using a single patch on my virus b desktop and fruity delay, SIR reverb, 1 fruity compressor and 1 buzz effect adaptor just to position it in stereo! i scribbled down some settings for some of the pluck presets on the virus + mad station's sound as a reference and (predictably i suppose) it ended up sounding nothing like a jp. but. i think it sounds quite nice anyway:

http://www.soundclick.us/fastk6/09/0...nviruslead.mp3

there was quite a bit more post processing on this than on the others so far in this thread. SIR decided it wanted between 20 and 40% of my cpu straight off which annoyed my ASIO drivers causing lots of pops and crackles. so i had to rerecord with a latency of 20ms. i had to cut this static burst off the beginning. you can still hear part of it. dont know why its there but it has something to do with SIR (and my ASIO drivers probably). when i bounced it, i found there were alot of peaks where the filter cutoff was quite open/fully open. i used a compressor to squash some of those peaks and got about 2 to 3 dB extra headroom out of it. i used rymix's stereobox in the buzz effect adaptor in fruity and moved the centre and stereo width slightly to the right and to the left respectively. it will be slightly louder in the right channel but the pluck part now seems a little more separate from the sub and bass part of the lead.

during this process it was fed through 2 SIR reverbs, both using PCM91 hall impulse responses - it created a lush, washed out effect which smoothed out the filter sweep and made it overall feel wetter (which i like!).

as for the patch itself. its a single patch using all 3 oscillators (with the 3rd on saw) and the sub oscillator which is set to around 3 o clock. FM amount is set to about 11 o clock and the detune is 58 (unison is enabled at x4). i experimented with more detune but it started to sound like a dying mosquito and decided to keep some of the purity and simplicity in the sound.

i only used 1 of the filters for this (set the filter balance all the way to 2) on series 4, low pass. set cutoff 2 until cutoff 1 just emits a faint bassy rumble when full closed then widened it all the way. 0 resonance. 0 key follow. envelope amount set to around 10 o clock. theres a saturation curve on this set to rectifier and osc volume is set to around 3 o clock (made it sound very slightly harsher and more forward)!

the envelope is 0 attack and sustain for both filter and amp. decay for both envelopes set to around 1 o clock. release for both envelopes set to around 2 to 3 o clock.

LFO 1 is set to modulat pulse width for both oscillators 1 and 2 and its set positive and about half way up. LFO rate is fairly slow and is set to around 10 o clock.

The clip is actually pro53 with a preset designed by Icone :-)

Regarding the JP8080...there is no onboard reverb so I usually record it dry, or with very little delay and then add my own effects!

pro-53? thats interesting. I find the filters on that very thin I'm actually quite impressed with the quality of that sound!

can we have the uhhhh patch? or at least could you dissect it?

perty please :D

it sounded lush.

Everybody guessed it correctly - #2 is the Virus|PowerCore! I personally prefer the first clip as well - it just has more clarity, crispness and is much brighter than the sound coming out of the Virus. Does anybody know why Virus sounds so dull compared to other synths like ES2 and V-Station? It sounds like it's missing some high frequencies.

I really love the ES2, I just wish they made it into a VST plug-in since I'm not using Logic that much anymore. ES2 is an extremely flexible synth - I can create almost any kind of sound with it; and I just love its transparency! APPLE MAKE ES2 VST PLEASE!! :x :cry:

Wandering Kid, I tried using same exact settings for both patches - so no dual filters for ES2 or the Virus (both use a 2-pole LP filter, btw). Envelope settings were also pretty much the same. I'll play around with detune settings though, see if that makes the patch a little better. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to add that brightness without using an EQ. Damn it. Is it Virus' filters or Oscillators that lack the brightness?

MADSTATION, nice patch there! PRO-53 is a great synth, I just don't use it that much for some unexplained reason. :?:

I really want the Virus to be my main synth (like ES2 used to be - I literally used it for everything from acid sounds to FX), but I feel like it's a bit lacking when it comes to trance leads. Maybe I should spend more time with it... You think the TI's HyperSaw will be brighter sounding?

Thanks,

REMIDI

im not sure exactly but everything i program on virus has a kind of darkness to it. if you cut out the sub oscillator by turning it off it'll brighten up a lead (and you can put the volume up higher. changing one of the filters to band pass will also do this too or changing the filter routing. parallel routing and split routing have a much more separate bass and treble presence but i sometimes dont like the sound of them). cutting out the sub osc however loses this massive sub presence behind your leads. and i think thats what makes my virus b so fat - having that sheer weight of bass behind every fecking note you play. i guess i you want brighter, harsher leads a more suitable synth would a nord lead or a jp or a v-synth xt. that said, your ES2 patches are sick :O makes me want one. shame i dont have logic and think it should be renamed to illogical.

DJ REMIDI, my opinion about the brightness of the Ti Hypersaw is that it will probably sound more aggressive and harsh than a brighter synth like the JP8000 or V-Synth for instance. It will definately keep that traditional "darkness" virus sound, I think.

hehe, remidi... ;)

http://www2.tranceaddict.com/forums/.../240584-1.html

Indeed "DC"s version on that thread sounded excellent.

http://eightwonders.djeso.com/my_religion.mp3

...using a V-Station.

Personally, though, I think he's been adding some extra processing onto that as opposed to the V-Station dry. Something like one of the popular enhancers/exciters. The delay has been filtered too, to get rid of the muddy, lower end. Still sounds fantastic.

Ive commented a few times on the inherent Virus dull/dark sonic character. Its not something that can be changed without a total reprogramming I guess.

Thats why its pretty hard to make convincing 80's happy synth pop sounds on the Virus.......but in its favour....thats why the Virus is so good at darker styles of music.

DS

THis is just a guess.....but i think the inherent darkness exists because Access (back in '97) couldnt find a way to eliminate audiable aliasing. I suspect by supressing certain frequencies and boosting others they....to a certain extent minimised the effect.

A guess?

DS

a good one too. the fact that the hard dance scene emerged shortly afterwards to fill the niche synths like this made is testament to just how much more natural dark synth hooks work on a virus. what with the sub oscillator, the FM capabilities of the synth and the variety of saturation curves on the filter, its setup in such a way that you can very easily turn most patches into a very dark and aggressive sound. just listening to lab4's evilution, the whole record just oozes virus b. its quite hard to achieve that sound with any other synth. the candyman lead in particular is an absolute monster of a virus patch that you would be hard pressed to recreate with any other peice of hardware.

if you wanna make supersaws though thats a unique characteristic of the JP80X0 and you'd be hard pressed to get *that* sound from any other synth.

i only recently began to notice the nuances of all these peices of hardware. whilst with most VAs you can approximate 90% of the stock sounds in modern dance music, the more you play around and experiment with these synths you the more you become aware of their uniqueness in relation to each other.

i think thats the greatest achievement you could make in designing a synth - one that has a characteristic sound. its amazing how many records i can listen to and just recognise certain peices of kit just by their signiture sound.

which makes mad station's pro 53 wonder patch all the more interesting - i reiterate! please tell us how you managed to achieve this and whether you can load that patch into the demo version! thanks in advance!

DS have you ever listened to skinny puppy? their earlier stuff is very 80s. but its dark. very dark. a virus would be very suitable for building skuppy type sounds - which is probably why it gets so much use in the EBM scene that sprung up around bands like them.

I will post the patch when I get home :)

that's right, i rememebr you said it DS, but i also remember in one post, marc suggested the use of the Eq to make it sound brighter! and he is right too ;)
C users should not forget their Virus is equiped with an Eq, personally i use it in almost every patch, and it drasticaly changes the sound!

yea but when you make huge boosts on an EQ to change the fundamental properties of a particular sound you eat up your own headroom. if you make significant cuts on an EQ to that same sound you will take something away from it and it will lose part of its energy. most of the time i ever use EQs its a trade off. im either sacrificing headroom or trying to gain it. in somewhat rarer instances i EQ very tentatively just to shape some of the sound that i couldnt on a filter. when i try to gain headroom i come to the inevitable question of what part of the sound i want to dominate, which parts to recess and which synth parts wil cover up some of the recessed sound as a result of heavy EQing.

virus is dark out of the box. its bassy out of the box. its arguably what it does best - why fight it?! :wink:

Yep me too Hatembr. It's a great way to cut corners when programming sounds on the C. Luckily the VC EQ sounds quite good too.

About boosting EQ......Personaly, I never boost EQ in the C (or on the desk for that matter). I've always found it's better to cut EQ, then boost the overall signal.

yep agree, thats what Wandering Kid said too, boosting may eat the headroom, but i think it depends on the sound actually, for certain dark sounds, it is good to boost the high freq a little to make them brighter, but generally, as u said, i use it to cut down some freq.
in my case i have only the VC as a hard synth and some VSTs, but when comparing the sounds, the VC is far away better and warmer, so i feel like forced to use the Eq to change the sound and make it brighter than using a VST to achieve the same sound.

Some awesome patches in this thread. What we (read: I) need is for y'all to post these patches, regardless of whether they're done on a Virus (have one), the JP-8000 (have one) or the Pro-53 (have it). But what's the use of having loads of equipment, when you're crap at sound programming and don't have the time to get into it?

preset for pro53:
www.madstation.net/pro53_supersaw_by_Icone.fxp

I second the notion of Eq cutting is a bit better than boosting overall. However, Im a little dubious to using too much eq'ing because to my ears it does fundementally change the sounds characteristic (well i guess thats the intention!). But.....I prefer more naturally 'bright' synths for bright sounds (i.e. Nord 3, Jupiter 8 etc).

But at the end of the day its not a problem. Synths need to have character.....and luckily the Virus has one all of its own. Depending on your tastes......the Virus can either be the dogs bollox (i.e. just what you need!) or it can represent the antichrist....in that you will struggle to get the kinda tones your after. Having 2 or 3 synths eradicates this 'issue'.

Personally im going to buy the Virus TI....because I know what im letting myself in for.

DS

I'm an idiot! Doesn't the Pro-53 only read ".p5f" format patches??

dont use pro-53 to open the patch, in your vst host use "load instrument" to load the patch and you'll be away

link doesnt work :cry:

Try this one:

http://www.madstation.net/pro53_supersaw_by_Icone.fxp

Right! Except I can't seem to do that in Sonar. I've been reading all through manuals and everything. Not one word regarding the matter. I'm a hopeless newbie when it comes to soft-synths - I seriously need to get past the use on out-of-the-box presets.

fxp is a cubase file format.

That would explain it!

I don't suppose anybody could post that patch in Native Instruments own format?

I like this sound. Would you mind posting the patch?

http://www.gobo.dsl.pipex.com/audio/IndigoPulser.mp3

or stream @ 192kbps MP3: http://www.gobo.dsl.pipex.com/audio/IndigoPulser.m3u

No reverb, though, as delay was being used. Indigo v1

Well this is like my second post or something like that. I think I?ve cheated though but I layered up some softsynths and put some beats to it but I wanted it to sound nice and fat so one softsynth wasn?t enough.
Sounded pretty decent I think.

http://www.shell.linux.se/nexious/Fr...rFrankeh-2.mp3

try vaz modular
fat sounding software va.
i love to creat supersaws on that (yeah juho take that...) :twisted: