Any ideas about this sound?

[tttcowan]

Hi!

This is my first post, I don't actually have a Virus but I'm thinkin of getting the Powercore version. I'm currently on a quest to try n find out how the hell the bass/lead sound was made on justice - waters of nazereth. It can be found at http://www.myspace.com/etjusticepourtous

If you then click on the justice medley it's the first track on there. It's not even really a bass sound, I know it's distorted to hell but just wondering whether anyone thinks it would be possible to make with the Virus. Also, my latest track is here if anyone fancy's a listen, its very rough and I know it distorts but you get the idea.

www.filthynights.co.uk/dgital.mp3

Thanks for any help!

Cheers
Tom

[Khazul]

The sound in that mp3 varies quite a bit through the track. Seems to start witha single saw detune down by a couple of octaves later sounds like a unison or mild chorus used. In another bit sounds like sync or maybe ring mod used as well, though not sure if in synth or external effect - I suspect an external fx chain.

Either way, the rest of the post osc chain sounds like a hard tube like distortion unit - some guitar pedal or other I would guess run through a steep filter - 24db/oct, maybe even 36db/oct with a tiny bit of reso to add bite to the filter.

Simple - detune down by a couple of octaves add hard tube like distortion and filter to taste - probably needs a 24db/oct filter after the distortion unit.

Virus can add distortion after the first filter stage, but can only add a 12db/oct second filter unless you use multi mode and feed outs to ins or maybe use the fx filter as well (one of the distortion fx options) and link both filter 2 and the fx filter to the mod wheel.

I dont think you are going to that that close - in concept certainly, but not in actual sound character.

Easiest way I would reproduce it would probably not be using a virus as a starting point - I think you would want something with a much more meaty raw saw osc than a VA typically has - nord g2, some analog synth or alesis ion or fusion, then a bunch of analog guitar fx for the rest. Im sure a bunch of plugins would do the job.

That filter is quite characteristic - someone here might even recognise it. There are certainly a bunch of boutique analog distortion and filter units that come to mind that would easily do the job.

Maybe someone here will chime in with other thoughts on this.

[camus]

I'm french and i'm a friend of justice and daft punk .I've been once in justice sutdio.

All i can say is that you'll have to gather a lot of gear in order to reproduce their sound : loads of analog synthesizers , hardware filters and fx pedals , like big muff and other things. You just can't reproduce it with the virus only , at least buy a guitar fuzz pedal and an analog filter.

Then record your loop , slice it rearrange it , re re<ord the audio through a external fuzz and filter , compress it ... it's far more easier to try to reproduce Vitalic sound which owns a nordlead 3.

[tttcowan]

Khazul,

Thanks for that but think you've been listenin to the wrong one. The mp3 is my track and I just used lots of z3ta+ softsynths, with some heavy distortion plug ins. Tell me what you think of though! Cheers.

Camus,
Wow! Don't believe you've been in that studio, would give my right arm to get in there! Thanks for your help though, I'm tryin to keep my kit down to minimum at the moment but if you've got any suggestions for any good software plugins that would be helpful. Or indeed, an analog synth to get that would be really cool. You were saying vitalic makes his sound with the nord lead 3, does that differ greatly in sound to the virus? Also, any thoughts on my track posted above would be sweet! It's rough, and it clips, but you get the idea. Thanks again!

Thanks
Tom

[Khazul]

LOL - teach me not to read every word of your post

Nice track BTW, I would tone down the distortion in some bits where its seems to be on everything.


Some comments apply though - just I think it started with a sine wave instead. Tons more resonance at times. Perhaps some metasonix gear and a sherman filterbank would get you there or a bunch of decent similar plugs.

Either way - no way in hell a virus is going to do that on its own.


About the NL3 - its a much brighter sounding synth - much cleaner high end, filter character is quite different and quite good for FM sounds. The huge downer for an NL3 is you will need some fx to go with it. For the kind of music you do... that might actually be a bonus - sounds like your going to need some very analog sounding mangling, so even if you had a virus - its fx aint going to get you close.

For these kind of sounds specifically, you might be *way* better off going for an Alesis Ion - which IMHO is one of the more analog sounding VAs in terms of its osc character and has the advantage of being very cheap and then spending the difference on signal processing. The downer with the Ion, while it has alot of filter options, I much prefer the Virus filters. And of course its synth engine is rather more basic.

Spend you money where you need it - if you need very good clean synth sounds - then Nord or Virus or Waldorf according to taste. If you just going to mangle them to hell, then something more basic but with good meaty raw oscilators and then focus your cash on processing maybe.

[tttcowan]

Cheers Khazul,

Yeah I blatently got carried away with the distortion, lol, I do that quite a lot!

I was just thinking of getting the virus powercore card you see to replace the z3ta, I've had hardware before and much prefer plugins just for usuabilty really. There are lots of nice distortion plug-ins out there, maybe I will have to get stuck into some hardware though. Was thinking of getting a really old analog synth if I was gonna by any hardware then mangle the sounds with effects. What do you think? It's a real shame the virus oscillators aren't upto it by the sounds of things, thats all I want really! Thanks for the help though!

Thanks
Tom

[Khazul]

Just been having a mess around with my TI - you can get very close to these kinds of sounds with it using hypersaw/hypersquare as a starting point then piling on distortion all over the place using the TIs own saturation and distortion fx.

If you are after the concept rather than an exact reproduction - then it aint bad. The reason I guess for starting with a hypersaw is two things, one its a brighter saw/square than the classic mode oscs that the previous models have, the other - well a much much richer sound that makes up to some extent for a less smoothly distructive saturation effect.

Pile on some reso on filter 1, low frequency, LP12/24 or BP so it really bloats the sounds with the distortion, then filter on filter 2 with loads of reso to give extra bite. Set the key follow on both filters so that the filter cutoff follows the keys very closely.

Just for added bloat - used osc 3 to stick a sine wave in an octave down and unison on twin and some light distortion from the TI fx chain as well to dirty up the output of filter 2 a little.

[tttcowan]

Hi khazul,

thanks for that, do you rekon I could do that with a virus powercore?

Cheers.