Creating A Supersawish Trance Lead on a Virus B

[piku303]

I just got my virus b and was really hoping that it would be able to make an awsome detuned jp-8000 sounding super saw lead thats common to all trance music. ive tried making some of my own patches but none sound thick enough and just arent close enough to what the classic sound is. i was wondering if you could make a multi saw lead patch using multiple instances of the same sound to make it sound thicker. has anybody done this? as of now the only virus trance lead patch that has really impressed me is one from manuel scleis's patches from the vengeance-sound website. i dont exactly have the money to be buying a patch cd that expensive. does anybody have a really good patch theyve made, know of some good ones, or can anybody help me make a great sounding patch. if it helps im going for the sound like in jfk-whiplash (the main lead), or even a riot 303 vs observer - alive and kickin lead at the begining that builds up over the pad. thanks guys

sam

[Khazul]

Erm... try:

Start with init patch
Enable osc 3, crank detune round to -100 or so, level up to half way, wave = saw
Crank up sub-osc - 2/3rds, should be on pulse
Add a bit of noise, colour to max

Need a fast LFO to modulate the pitch of osc 1 pitch and another fast lfo to modulate osc 2 pitch by a little bit each - dont use same lfo for each, first one set rate very hight, the next one set rate quite a bit lower so they are unrelated.

Switch on unison, set to 2-3 or so, detune to max, spread quite low, maybe min.

May want to decouple the filters (so filter 2 is at a fixed frequency and independent of filter 1 and key follow), add a bit of reso to filter 2, crank the cutoff until it just start to fiz at the top end - JP80xx - like.

For adding presence, high end bite - fiddle with EQ to get the right freuencey balance - pull down the mid a little - crank it up around 8-10K or so - the high EQ slope will gently bring up presence bands too as well as boosting high-end fizz. For more bite and punch - try cranking up the ring mod a bit.

On its own - it may sound a little thin low end - it will be fine in a mix with bass sounds, drum parts etc - to much low end and you will swamp everything else.

Now frig around with filter 1 type = LP12/LP14 in filter filters and mess with key follow, env follow, reso, cutoff etc to suite.

I have a TI and assuming the TI init patch - no idea if the B one is equivelent. Its basically filters wide open, osc 1 and 2 or saws, detune = 32 and osc balance = mid point, filter balance = mid point.

Not quite dirty enough - add a little noise FM.

That should sound quite fat and fizzy if you get the EQ right. Run it through some delay and reverb and you should be sorted


Caveat - I have a TI, buit from memory of B feature set - this should work...

[Tomer=Trance]

Dont let Juho see this one

I can recommend vengence sound.defor trance oriented soundsets.

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by Tomer=Trance

Dont let Juho see this one

I can recommend vengence sound.defor trance oriented soundsets.

Yeh - +1 for that - if you cant program good sounds yourself - then they are well worth scraping some pennies together for.

[piku303]

wow awsome response. im about to try this right now actually. its a pity there arent more people posting in the sound design forum, after all isnt that the point of owning a virus, making sounds?

[Doc Jones]

I love threads like this.

great post Khazul!

[Khazul]

LOL - this is where I find out my numbers are way out and it sounds like shit

[piku303]

if this patch were any fatter and thicker i think my desk would snap. awsome walk through on how to get the sound, a few things i changed in the ways of minor change in values for parameters. the third osc detuned really gives the patch its punch. in addition to detuneding the third osc i detuned the 2nd one a little too for more spread. im not too familiar with the way the LFO's work but i was able to get them to mod the movement of the 1st and 2nd osc using one per osc at different speeds. also i cant believe how much the sub osc changes the sound. without it its way weaker. thanks so much for the help with the patch. next do you think you could help me with a really nice classic trance pad? sounds like a new thread "virus trance sounds 101."

[piku303]

if this patch were any fatter and thicker i think my desk would snap. awsome walk through on how to get the sound, a few things i changed in the ways of minor change in values for parameters. the third osc detuned really gives the patch its punch. in addition to detuneding the third osc i detuned the 2nd one a little too for more spread. im not too familiar with the way the LFO's work but i was able to get them to mod the movement of the 1st and 2nd osc using one per osc at different speeds. also i cant believe how much the sub osc changes the sound. without it its way weaker. thanks so much for the help with the patch. next do you think you could help me with a really nice classic trance pad? sounds like a new thread "virus trance sounds 101."

[Khazul]

To go from that to a nice pad...

Soften the envelopes - both of them (reduce the attack, add a bit of release). In the filter env, slow the decay.

Maybe re-couple the filters, use the second one to tonall shape the output of teh first - ie like tracking tone control. Crank or the env amounts a little. Drop the high boost on the EQ, instead add a tiny bit of body with eq (slight boost at around 200-600, cut the presence band a bit and maybe take up the extrme high end if you need it). If you cranked up the ring mod, take it back down.

Crank up the reverb so that it starts to take the attack off - ie just over half way. Set reverb colour quite high - +20 or so. If you add in a little phaser - then the high color of the reverb should carry the phaser effect around the sides of the sound. Too much phaser will kill it though.

Now add in a little bit of phaser and/or chorus, also mabe reduce unison to 2 instead of 3 or 4 or whatever you have it set to, and open up the unison detune spread. Try some different waveforms too instead of saw - some of them are quite glassy sounding. Try using the spare LFO to slowly modulate the wave shape or PWM on one osc. Maybe switch the subosc to saw to soften it a little.

Expriment with using delay instead of reverb too - with delay - try a bit of modulation - 10-20 on depth, 10-20 on rate, and try different colour settings and crank up the feedback a bit. Adding modulation wity give it a bit of smear. To much modulation and it sounds just broke, but get it right and it should smear nicely.

Also extreme settings of chorus can give quite good comb filter type sounds.