getting really aggressive sounds from the Ti

[lawst]

its a kind of general question but what tricks do you normally use to make aggressive sounding patches?

I play in a rock band and find that cutting through the mix can be difficult with everything else thats happening - i think some really aggressive sounding patches will cut through better at the right frequency

any suggestions?

[mnj]

if your in a rock band and the guitarists has got those fatty distorted chords going + a drummer + bass guitarist pretty much every bit of the frequency spectrum is going to be taken over

anyway try playing with eq on the ti

[Juho L]

The main idea in band playing is to make working arrangements. Nothing is going to work if everyone hammers the whole arsenal at one time. Fix the arrangements first.

On sound wise - I don't know what kind of rock are you playing, but The Party recommends Hammonds to everything, but you can't get very convincing Hammond emulation with Virus, so you must settle with brisky HP layered pads, distorted leads and nonfiltered/HP'd/BP'd clean leads. And remember that if you end up using those Nintendo leads popular amongst the melodic heavy bands, Igor comes to strangle you to death on your keyboard set.

[grs]

The opposite approach always works well in thick mixes / live sound.

Try using single oscillator sounds, two unison max. The less harmonics the better, the obvious end of the line is sine wave sounds.

That's the Nord Lead kind of approach, that stuff is always sticking it's head out of rock mixes.

It might be harder to get on a virus but it's not impossible because there is so much thickness to be had on a virus the thin sound often gets overlooked.

[Khazul]

Just shoot the guitarist

[Hollowcell]

Originally Posted by Khazul

Just shoot the guitarist

Hehehe.

[Khazul]

For the serious answer...

Virus + Rock band???? Odd combination - virus isnt exactly the first synth comes to mind for that scenario. V-synth is good - its guitar patches sound more convincing than most guitarists and can certainly out-scream them

If its a Virus TI - then Mono Sync leads, Use Ring mod as well, be gentle with the subosc and detune. Also definately worth trying wavetable sine with freqmod or phasemod FM. Crank the ring mod - as well as hardening the timbre, his can add loads of bite and energy to presence range. Use unison and start phase sync to add more bite/energy if needed.

If you want an overdriven sound, then rectifier or wave shaper distortion maybe modulaed by key on velocity to give it an overdrive rather than just fuzz feel. Bit reduction is good for making it scream as well.

Also try a bit of resonance to filter 1, use >64 osc volume, a bit of saturation followed by a bandpass filter to really focus the thickened sound. If you want to use reso allmost as a 4th osc, then set cutoff keyfollow to max.

Careful using distortion though, it may spread the sound energy too much so it doesnt cut through anymore.

A quick starter for a dirty organ-like lead (theoretical as I'm at work atm so cant try it):

Select init patch, Osc 1 - wavetable, sine, Osc 2, wave table sine, Start phase at about 50-60%, punch to max, unison to 2 and a bit of detune. Ring mod to about 90%, FM to freqmod, FM level 0-10% range, Osc 2 detune +12 semi.

Erm, filer 1, rectifier sat type, osc volume at around 75%, filter 2 bandpass, cutoff follow, reso at arond 25%, bit of env mod - not to much. Leave the filter and amp envs where they are for now. That should come out a bit like a softly overdriven hammond with alot of presence energy. Use LFO3 to mod the osc pitch if you want it more rock organ like.

In the matrix, map velocity to osc volume at about +20, drop ring mod to 50%, and map velocity to also mod the ring mod by about +30 or so. End result should snarl a bit more when you nail it. crank the FM up a tiny bit to bring in some higher harmonics. For a harder attack, env mod the FM a tiny bit.

For FX - chorus, phaser will generally sap energy, but extreme settings of either can add alot of energy.

[lawst]

cheers for all the replies so far...

Originally Posted by Khazul

Virus + Rock band???? Odd combination - virus isnt exactly the first synth comes to mind for that scenario

Totally man and thats one of the reasons I got one
i could have went the nord lead route but i want a different sound from the killers etc. I like the dark character that the virus has too...

in the band there is 2 guitars, bass, drummer, vocals and myself on synth so its a big sound but i think that some sort of screamin metalic sound would probably work pretty well - maybe like the sort of sound from the start of firestarter by the prodigy

[Juho L]

Originally Posted by grs

Try using single oscillator sounds, two unison max. The less harmonics the better, the obvious end of the line is sine wave sounds.

Excellent point! Usual mistake is to stack on billion unison sounds in hopes of more clear lead. It's a swamp of CHWAAAAA sounds you end up in.

Originally Posted by Khazul

Just shoot the guitarist

Indeed!

Virus + Rock band???? Odd combination - virus isnt exactly the first synth comes to mind for that scenario. V-synth is good - its guitar patches sound more convincing than most guitarists and can certainly out-scream them

A keyboardist imitating a guitarist should be rewarded with a slow and painful death.

Good tips you got there. A good thing to try is to set a paraller distorted BP-filter for narrowband bite. It doesn't smash up the whole sound but gives a nice character.

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by Juho L

A keyboardist imitating a guitarist should be rewarded with a slow and painful death.

Normally I would 100% agree with you - the V-synth is a special case I think - it basically has the same processing in it as the Roland V-Guitar system, so it really sounds the part for solo leads, and often alot better than running a guitar through a Pod-XT or V-Amp Pro, especially when you load up a suitable sample into the V-Synth in the first place.

For odd guitar bits I do I sometimes start recording with my guitar, then end up using the V-Synth instead - maybe the ideal is to get a midi guitar rig on my guitar and drive the v-synth through that

Part of it of course is Im just not a good guitarist, the other bit is the COSm fx system works so damn well for guitars