Classic Goa Trance basses/leads/FX recreated in modern software

[astralprojection]

well, in case im very mistaken, isnt a 32 channel desk 32 mono channels or 16 stereo channels? if so that limitation of having to use mono for alot of things would make sense. ive never owned a mixer but perhaps those 32 channels are in fact stereo channels. Then my hypothesis kinda doesnt work ^^ 

yes indeed would be cool to hear from 90s music makers on this

[Imba]

MIDI wife old basses aren't much different comparing to one today, it's synthesis. Here are few examples of old school basses.

 

Electric Universe - Solar Energy

 

 

 

Electric Universe - One Love

 

 

Dimension 5 - Omega Centaurus

 

 

The Overlords - Sundown

 

 

Genetic - Trancemission

[Imba]

Bassline from my new track... but now you have that super fast envelopes, phasing and sidechain they didnt use in 90s  

 

[Imba]

On 5/29/2021 at 6:13 PM, AstralSphinx said:

mad cool, did you recreate by ear or from official midis? kinda sick that they put the notes on the same time the kick hits? And without sidechain I would assume.  

Hmm makes sense! Since they often programmed the bass patterns directly in the synthesizers onboard sequencer, SH-101/MC-202/TB-303 etc.

Hmm pt2 now I realized they programmed the velocity values as well so must be inside daw they did it then?  

 

I did not, some were recreated by our own Padmapani and rest I got from original projects from artists to remix

[Imba]

18 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

 

Once again big thanks! This is great stuff to learn from, straight From the Source, together with the BPM and Key available on Beatport.com  

Btw speaking of BPM for Goa Trance these days, what do you guys reckon, is 150 BPM as some of the Dimension 5 tracks are in, a good tempo for todays listener/dance floors etc? I have no clue what BPM ranges people are in these days. 150 seems to be very energetic indeed and I quite like it. Gives a good rush, but I remember that atleast the Neo Goa in the 2000's was a bit slower in comparison, 138/146 bpm ish. And also of course some of the Old School was a bit slower as well sometimes, Sheyba etc.

I produce 142-150 but rarely play bellow 145, I just don't feel it

[astralprojection]

the distressor is nothing but a compressor; and you could accomplish that with any good compressor, i recommend Pro-C. But that wouldnt be enough. That would handle the compression bit, but not the color/sound of it. This require very creative use of distortions. A MB distortion plug with oversampling could probably add color to emulate the distressor (which is one of the best compressors there are)

the "bock" and knocky words he use are simply referreing to the attack and release. most people these days call it punch; to add more or less transient to a kickdrum.

but for the distortion he talks about referring to the distressor, im sure he means overdrive distortion which analog units handle great; in the box not so much. youd be better off using a distortion plugin for that; since pushing the gain over 0dbs isnt really overdrive in the box, its just clipping. 

kick 2 i would recommend for any kick old school or not. (but any VA can work)

the things he has that cannot compete itb, is definitely the Eventide units to name a few, the FX those can produce are of much higher quality than what you find itb, and you really have to be very creative with your plugin chains to get close.

delay on the bass (or rather, echo) is definitely something thats missing in most new school stuff, for example in gamma goblins pt 2 there is a nice echo on the bassline (and pretty much everything) to create a certain space. same goes for much of his tracks. i think one reason people who work ITB dont use that is simply cause it doesnt sound as good off the bat; and it can be hard to recreate something that simply is a preset in an Eventide box.

This can also be demonstrated using the Eventide plugins based on their boxes - it sounds nothing like it and sounds just like any other plugin.

this is all just my opinion and nothing more

[astralprojection]

groom lake is my fav miranda track. i just checked its bpm, and if im not tapping all too off its 144.2. (after 200 taps)

https://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm

not sure what gear these guys used to make their kicks, but im sure you could remake them with kick 2. also you have to take into consideration the compression and eq that was applied; that very much could shape the sound alot

 

but this kick was given to me by miranda back in mid 2000s; she was on a community i was also on and we chatted a bit, im sure she gave this kick to quite few people.

https://www.aeap.se/tmp/child_kick.wav

the kick on groom lake seems similar as this, but slightly longer; with a more pronounced pitch decay. (so basically just pitched down)

[astralprojection]

22 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Maybe this space ship was involved in bass duties?  

 

 

And I would also love to know what phaser he used on those albums? I’m trying to replicate the phaser settings. But I don’t know how many stages his phaser had/was set to. Could he have used a smalltone phaser? Or perhaps a phaser effect is included in the Eventide Multi-FX chain?

The phasers I’m currently trying are on Output Portal and Output Thermal. They get kinda close. Certainly closer than Logic’s own phaser. If I would have been the person interviewing/filming the in the studio segment with Simon Posford. I would’ve asked one million questions.

nearly sure he used his very very expensive eventide multi-fx box (H3000?) for all of his FX. im sure ive seen a video somewhere of him going on about how great that is. but i couldve dreamed it.

[astralprojection]

22 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Wow nice!  I get some heavy deja vu from this child_kick.wav. What community was it, badboll.nu? I have like some really blurry memory of having used this kick in Reason around that time. No clue where I got the kick from back then though. Thanks!

yep it was badboll

i suppose that kick circulated around that place ^^

me and a friend made some tunes in reason back then, using this kick, good times.

[astralprojection]

20 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

 

The brain unit :

Mac G3 266Mhz
PC Pentium 800Mhz
Korg 12/12 soundcard
Gina soundcard
Logic Audio Platinum
Mackie 32*8 bus mixing desk
Mackie HR824 monitor

The keyboards unit :

Kurzweil K2000
Korg MS20
Korg MS50
Roland SH101
Roland Juno106
ARP 2600
Oscar
Prophet 5

The digital unit :

Akai S3200
Akai CD3000
Akai DR16
Fostex D-5
Tascam mx2424

The effects unit :

TC M2000
Zoom
Behringer intelligate
Alesis Quadraverb
Drawmer Gate
Bel Flanger
Ensoniq DP/4
Eventide DSP4000
Eventide Harmonizer
AMS dm 2-80
TC Electronic
Smalltone Phase"

great post i read all of it, very interesting. the ARP could be a source for his basslines definitely, as it has that raw organic flavor to it.

and the Eventide DSP4000 and the Eventide Harmonizer H3000 is definitely what made his tracks sound so damn good (on top of his skills ofc) aswell as that TC electronic Finalizer. Which Im not sure exactly what it does tbh, except making it sound even better. Maybe something like a Crystalizer/Vitalizer with compression/limiting?

Anyway this is hugely interesting and I love diving into the technicals of these legends, to perhaps gain some inside knowledge. Keep hunting 

[astralprojection]

im really interested in dimension 5 aswell. They have a really unique sound for their time period, almost like it doesnt fit in the time they released their music in, not sure how to describe it. Ive said before it almost sounds software like in a way (but not, at the same time), but looking at their studio, they had all the pieces everyone else had. So it must be the processing; and that would be really interesting to get insight into..

[astralprojection]

12 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Just stumbled upon this very extensive academical analysis/essay of the Goa Trance genre and song structure/production. 

It features several bassline note charts from old school Goa Trance songs:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/14924953.pdf

My bet it’s someone who is a member on psynews who wrote it.  Very interesting, and written by someone involved in the Finish Goa/Psy scene.

holy crap. A thesis on goa trance. Thanks for posting it. surely must read some time.

[astralprojection]

On 8/15/2021 at 3:45 AM, AstralSphinx said:

I’m having lot’s of fun with the latest AudioRealism Bassline update, very good selection of algos to combine between now.  Also the Arturia ARP-2600V3 is very nice for some Hallucinogenesque sounds. 

Weird that Arturia hasn’t made a SH-101 emulation yet?

im definitely gonna try out the new Bassline update. Looks really amazing.

Im loving your musical research man, keep posting

[recursion loop]

On 8/15/2021 at 4:45 AM, AstralSphinx said:

Weird that Arturia hasn’t made a SH-101 emulation yet?

There's an excellent one from TAL (Bassline-101), as well as LUSH-101 which is loosely based on 101 with some extras

Both play in this track - starting from 3:35 and till the end of the track, quite a bit of both as the main leads and acid lines (sorry for self-promotion but hope it fits the topic )

 

There's also a vst plugin made by Roland themselves which is supposedly the most realistic emulation but it requires that cloud subscription crap so I never tried it.

[recursion loop]

1 hour ago, AstralSphinx said:

But I'm sure Arturia could take it to the next level.

I think Arturia aren't exactly known for making the most realistic emulations. 

 

they do make some fine hardware tho.

[recursion loop]

21 minutes ago, AstralSphinx said:

Btw what plugins do you like/recommend that aim to emulate vintage synths?

Monark, Diva, Repro-1/5, TAL stuff

 

22 minutes ago, AstralSphinx said:

 And what reverb and delay plugins do you like?

Replica XT for delays, Valhalla VV for reverbs

[astralprojection]

On 8/22/2021 at 2:21 PM, AstralSphinx said:

Does anyone have any snare/clap similar to the ones like MFG used in Overload Remix, and that Astral Projection often used? It sounds like a gated snare+clap combo kinda? Also found in the Miranda-Gnocchi Remix. It doesn't sound like the pure TR-909/TR-808 snare/claps. Could it be some Linn Drum or some other drum machine layered? 

*Edit found some quite similar ones in Imbas sample pack.  

 

tr-606 ?

 

[Psyoris]

Hello and thank you for this topic, there are a lot of interesting things.
I use Hybrid 3 for the bassline and some leads, the sound is really good, i sometimes have the impression of finding typical sonority of the old time.

And i also wanted to say thank you to imba for the few midi basslines, is it possible to have other examples of the same kind, that helps a lot please !

Thank you, have a nice day.

[Psyoris]

Indeed i use a 303 controlled on midi for the bass, i don't really like the sidechain in the goa i think it sounds too clean and I haven't really used one so far, but maybe i should ? 
Anyway for the goa the kick is always in the background with a good attack, the snares and bass will do the rest, that's how i see the thing.

On an album like that of Man of the Last 3rd - Evosonic has the sidechain been used ?
In fact it would also be good to have songs that use the sidechain and others without sidechain to have a better comparison.

For the Hybrid 3 vst i received a key when buying an akai product, it's been 2 years now and I use it a lot in my productions when i'm on the pc. Strangely i see no one used this vst, there is not even a conversation about it.

[MikroMakro]

Stumbled on X-Dream fx zaps  @ 02:05 the other day so thought I would share.

Sylenth 1 (likely possible on any decent VA)

Osc A - 2 voices,  Stereo fully clockwise, Pulse wave for OSC A, Retrigger ON, LFO 1 assigned to Pitch A with a pulse wave/square LFO shape, Gain MAX, little value knob fully clockwise, LFO synced to 1/32 and add a touch of delay. No need to even select a filter. Press a key and bingo.

I often stumble on sounds when synthesizing, quite fun when you think oh that's track X, Y or Z so that's how they did it. Sylenth1 is a very good solid synth for many of the VA type old school sounds.

[MikroMakro]

I make 90pct of the sounds I use in my own tracks myself, including synthesis for kicks and bass lines so don't really waste much time preset browsing : ) I have always just preferred to try and work out existing sounds, the more the synthesize the better you get at it and reverse engineering and coming up with new sounds.

 

 

[astralprojection]

On 8/30/2021 at 12:12 AM, AstralSphinx said:

I'm rying to replicate somewhat the Hallucinogen type chorus on an acidic 101 line. Anyone who knows any good chorus plugins?

didnt try it but tal-chorus is an option, its that juno sound. 

tal-dac is also great for emulating classic digital synths,  although theres usually a bitcrusher plugin in every daw that kinda can do similar things..

[Prana4ever]

Link not working here as well (or maybe my browser has an issue).

[Prana4ever]

Link doesn't work. 

[astralprojection]

im not gonna lie, i was in shock. A recreation of the JD800 is something Ive been dreaming about since at least 2012. 

Then they made it in software earlier this year, and I was really hyped - but it requires a Pro membership to Roland Cloud so f that.

Then this came out last night and holy crap. What a dream to be alive. Yall better start making some old school 90s goa now, you got no reason not too, the JD800 is like the Father of goa trance or something. I will likely never afford it regardless of its very very accesible price of 400 dollars. Or at least that is what I could find so far- it seems not a price is really set yet?