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There must be something in the air as when I spotted this thread some weeks back I was trying to recreate a Cosmosis bass, mainly for fun so I learnt a little about the old ways of bass whilst experimenting. 1) Try the Novation Bass Station VSTi, common bass synth of the era, I owned the original hardware back in the day. 2) Blend some square wave into your saw. I made commentary some time ago about an Etnica bass having some extra "vibrancy", adding some square in gets this result. You can also try adding a very very small amount of some kind of chorus type effect, 1-2pct (or maybe the very smallest touch of I.M. Wider, the trick with any artificial pseudo stereo is use a very small amount, be tasteful.) so you keep most of the low end stable but have just a very small amount of width to it, just enough to subtle-y tickle the ears. Just a very small amount and set it up on headphones and monitors for the right effect for both. I imagine any soft synth you can blend some square and of course the obligatory envelope control LPF. I have a love hate relationship with making old school inspired tracks. On one hand it can be fun, on the other it has all been done before and very, very well. Tryptamine dream is one of my favourites from A.P. The main lead to me sounds like a Supersaw (with correct amount of detune/spread) in an arp/repetitive overlapping note MIDI pattern with some portamento/glide which gives it a slightly on the edge of being out of tune (which adds to its smeary slippery-ness) with a wash of very nice reverb. That should get you close.

He was never here. Yeah he used the basstation iirc for the acid synth and to get the desired distortion he pushed the channel on the first mixer to max then ran it into another mixer and pushed that channel too. Analog distortion at its finest. But ofc it's all recreatable in software you just have to think a little outside the box no pun intended, to get the right sounding noise, distortion, and even passive filtering and compression that's the nature of resistors and transistors in any analog unit.. So some people who say software sounds thin and lifeless aren't incorrect but it's certainly possible to emulate each step in the analog process inside software, it just gets really really technical and quite difficult to nail something so abstract and almost esoteric nature of how the audio is processed in an analog chain..... Anyway I'm rambling.. Yes he used both the albino and the vanguard aswell as zebra synths - at least for his tutorials on YouTube. But back in 98 he used basstation, and one i can't remember right now but I'll edit this post tonight to add it in, it's one that doesn't get too much mention and it's not a Roland. Edit : it was the waldorf pulse

Yeah I've had convos with him on YouTube. (maybe you even saw our convos )He is an amazing guy, really love him alot. Haha moonshine you too?? Yes I used both a saw and a square aswell as noise. Spire is awesome cause it has 4 sources and each source can be whatever you want and it has deep modulation abilities and extremely easy to work with. Sound reminds me of a mix between jp8000 and Virus. But sadly lacks a little something. But nothing that a little transformer distortion in the fx chain couldn't add. Anyway spire is really freaking good at pretty much anything except it lacks just a little something special in the sound department... Otherwise I'd say its the perfect VA.

Indeed Moonshine, an incredible track, very advanced and futuristic sound for its time, I still dance to it. I had the bass 90-95pct nailed albeit a different pattern, add the square wave in and you get a special something : ) Maybe he will drop by one day this thread and let you know, Billy Cosmosis comes across as an all round nice chap, you could probably ask him on his YouTube channel he seems pretty open to commentary and questions.

Which Cosmosis track? A few months ago I tried recreating the bass and main lead of Moonshine. I got close to the bassline, may even post it here and it was also made in spire. The main lead with all those glorious 32th notes I did not quite nail yet. And thanks for a really great and interesting post, I'd love to hear what you have. Yes tryptomine dream is also one of my very favorite ap tracks.

Yes the tuning is my biggest problem atm. I have the basic melody but the tuning on my attempt seems too perfect and doesn't have the organic feel of the original. Your input on this is greatly appreciated and think youre spot on. (about analog synths going slightly out of tune aswell as chorusing causing such an effect aswell) I also think I've read that they also had a phaser on most of their leads, and the key there i think is that both the chorus and the phaser is summed to mono, which could cause both phase issues (pleasing and interesting ones that may even actually cause a shift in pitch) and ofc if you normally add unison or chorus the sound becomes wide, but not in this case as I'm pretty sure dancing galaxy lead is all mono.. My progress currently is that I have the pattern somewhat, aswell as the patch built in spire and one in diva. Gonna try tal uno-lx too and see which sounds closest, currently my spire version sounds the best but it's not fully there yet. Thanks, I'll send you a pm. BTW such a very cool topic it became I did not expect it to be so fun already even if its mostly talk at this point. I need to put up or shut up I guess

Yes that rings well with what I've heard as well, also if you listen to "Tryptomine Dream" on the Another World album at: 05:22, the lead sound that comes in, sounds just like the lead sound in Spiritual Healing, and thus most likely is a JD-800 Lead. It has that same digital crying aspect to it, a very nasal and almost wavetable sounding quality. Two Etnica tracks, which I don't know what gear was used on them, but that to me also displays some of these digital sounding qualities are: Nice Toys and Floating Universe. It wouldn't surprise me if the JD-800 had something to do with it. But yeah Draeke and Filteria knows for sure. I would love some input here from them.

I'm gonna give it a go this week, the hot temperatures last week made me take a break my poor old computer was cooking lol, would be nice to hear your progress, you can send me a pm if you don't feel like sharing it here yet. The tuning can be a bitch sometimes with these old tracks due to various reasons, I certainly feel you on that one. Sometimes it's a combination of things, for example the scale used plus how they set the tuning of the oscillators, sometimes amplified by unstable osc tuning, and then some external chorus which further adds variation to the timbre can mess with your ears a lot. And when the ears get fatigued, it can often become difficult detecting pitch correctly. Gonna boot up logic now to see wuzzup It sounds promising that you seem to have got the timing and the pitch of the individual notes, have I understood the progress so far correctly? So now it's only the finer details of the actual patch and effect chain that needs some work?

I've missed this place. Seems like an age since I was active here. I came back a few years ago but disappeared again. I think it's been 5 years or so since I've been active here. Coincidentally daughter turns five in a few weeks. My wife isn't overly maternal and the bulk of the child rearing has fallen on me. I don't get much free time to do what I want or listen to what I want. She loves dubstep and hates my downtempo boring stuff or weird trippy trancey stuff I've been sick this year: diagnosed with sinus cancer over New year's but I had successful surgery last month and on the mend I had tumors removed and the sinuses themselves reshaped as they were twisted. Now my sense of smell and taste are coming back. Didn't realize how much I stink hope everyone is doing well ❣️