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


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In this video from their studio, which must've been filmed around 1999/2000. They show all the outboard racks as well as the synthesizers/drum machines.

 

Among other things a Nord Rack is visible, the video quality is quite blurry unfortunately. The JD-800 is there of course, and what seems to be an Oberheim Xpander. And the  the usual suspects, 101, 303, 909 etc.

The outboard gear is the most difficult to discern in the video, but it looks like an Empirical Labs Distressor in the racks. Quite popular for beefing up 909 kicks.

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17 hours ago, Multi-Media said:

Watch the video above, I saw a Nord (1 or 2?), 2 x something from Walddorf (1x Microwave), a 303, some "rompler" it looks like from Roland (JD/JV something?) and an EMU Morpheus ah and 2 x Oberheim something. Guess you guys can identify more...

The JD800 was very good especially for pads iirc. I believe there is a rack version (990). In theory one needs only 2 good samplers.. like F242 they had the Emulators mostly. And Depeche also...they were used a lot in their tracks, more samplers than synths. Well for more moving sound like Goa, of course a real synth with many knobs is desired.

yes, i will watch the video :) they likely had the JV-1080 rompler which was very popular at that time. Oh ofc the EMU line, like the EMU Emulator II for example.. 

 

The jd-800 was more than pads and samples, think of 4 different VAs, romplers, additive and (i dont know if they had FM capability) all in one. And 4 sources so each source could be a saw wave or a sample from the rom, or -- well see i dont know more than that about the jd-800. yes the rack version was the 990. Etnica made many of their signature sounds with the JD - someone said once, maybe it was Draeke. and filteria said once that the lead from Spiritual Healing was made with the JD aswell. so much more than pads =)

 

and hallucinogen had the very unique british synth called OSCar; looks really really wierd but sounds absolutely fantastic; youtube it and you will instantly recognise the simon sound in there.

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7 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Indeed, ask him ;) he is/was a member here :) I remember atleast that he was a veeery long time ago.

I'm gonna play around some more with recreating some AP sounds tonight, this time I will listen to the actual album at the same time, way easier to get the detune right that way. By playing along to the album.

What sounds besides the leads interest you the most? Point me to some track/album/sound :) The FX as you've allready touched upon was an integral part of their signature sound. The ping pong delay from the Alesis Quadraverb was very popular among the goa trance producers of the golden era, and if my memory serves me right I think Filteria used that one as well. This unit was/is very affordable, and gives a very good spatial 3D sound to the synthesizer sounds run through it when combined with a hall reverb. As can be heard here with Hallucinogen:

 

And here with I Savastano on the TB-303 + SH-101 or the Juno-106. 

The Alesis Quadraverbs ping pong delays can be reproduced easily on all kinds of delay plugins, particularly on Native Instruments Replika and Replika XT.

the Eventide Harmonizer was also instrumental in getting that Hallucinogen sound. 

Ah, Id love to see the Etnica/Pleadians leads re-created i find those to be particularily hard to do and ive not yet gotten fairly close. And the jd-800 was apparently the main focus in their tracks and when you think of the etnica sound; its the jd-800 that was responsible for the bulk of it. Apparently. Anyway maybe the leads of Time Dilation or Zeta Reticuli could be a big challenge, but then again the same leads are in most of their stuff.

Yes replika XT is for sure the 90s goa sound (as far as delays go anyway), i urge everyone to get that one!

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Ah yes indeed the eventide stuff of course. :) Regarding recreation of sounds, I can't really help much with Etnica/Pleiadians. As that was never a style I explored, I was always much more into the sounds of AP, MFG, Miranda among others. For Pleiadians/Etnica, Filteria and Morphic Resonance would be your best options, as they did some research into that specific Italian Goa style. ;) And perhaps E-Mantra as well? He was/is a member here too I think. Merr0w I think as well was inspired by that goa style to some extent? Don't know if he was active on this forum.

Too bad not many people participate here anymore, as there was a lot of knowledge with regards to goa trance production, among the producers who were members here.

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Your input in the thread has been amazing and at least you participate : ) 

edit: everyones input has been amazing :) 

 

Well if you feel like going towards MFG instead, thats fine with me I love mfg, how about the crazy alien sounds of We Are The Machines? :) pick any lead or sound from there, should be plenty of fun ^^ 

the bassline is really great, and it sounds like a juno for sure. speaking of cool basslines, transwave did their basslines with the mc-202 IIRC; which is pretty much like a different version of the sh-101. pwm with the sub oscillator mixed in high. evident in all transwaves stuff and sounds really good =) 

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Yes the MC-202 is very cool, particularly for acid lines since it has accent, which the SH-101 lacks. However it needs a mod in order to work better, as it has a weak CPU or flawed design or something that introduces massive lag when controlling it externally if I remember correctly. I love the form factor/portability of it compared to the SH-101.

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On 6/25/2020 at 7:01 PM, AstralSphinx said:

Yes the MC-202 is very cool, particularly for acid lines since it has accent, which the SH-101 lacks. However it needs a mod in order to work better, as it has a weak CPU or flawed design or something that introduces massive lag when controlling it externally if I remember correctly. I love the form factor/portability of it compared to the SH-101.

any progress on the MFG stuff? =) ofc, you could chose any track you want, but you specifically asked for MFG so  :) i think if anyone can do it its you. Im still working on the dancing galaxy lead, i think the sound itself is pretty much close to being finished, just need the right amount of noise and filtering, but the notes.... maybe the tuning wasnt perfect on the original dancing galaxy; cause it seems borderline microtonal at times; or im just in way over my head with that one. i even put the original to 100bpm to more easily recreate the pattern but i think the tuning isnt fully perfect on the original causing that slight microtonal feel.... Or its just a vibrato and nothing more complicated than that, but yeah it aint easy thats for sure... And whatever I come up with sounds super stale in comparison..

 

 

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8 hours ago, astralprojection said:

any progress on the MFG stuff? =) ofc, you could chose any track you want, but you specifically asked for MFG so  :) i think if anyone can do it its you. Im still working on the dancing galaxy lead, i think the sound itself is pretty much close to being finished, just need the right amount of noise and filtering, but the notes.... maybe the tuning wasnt perfect on the original dancing galaxy; cause it seems borderline microtonal at times; or im just in way over my head with that one. i even put the original to 100bpm to more easily recreate the pattern but i think the tuning isnt fully perfect on the original causing that slight microtonal feel.... Or its just a vibrato and nothing more complicated than that, but yeah it aint easy thats for sure... And whatever I come up with sounds super stale in comparison..

 

 

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 :D 

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?

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On 6/25/2020 at 3:28 PM, astralprojection said:

 

 

The jd-800 was more than pads and samples, think of 4 different VAs, romplers, additive and (i dont know if they had FM capability) all in one. And 4 sources so each source could be a saw wave or a sample from the rom, or -- well see i dont know more than that about the jd-800. yes the rack version was the 990. Etnica made many of their signature sounds with the JD - someone said once, maybe it was Draeke. and filteria said once that the lead from Spiritual Healing was made with the JD aswell. so much more than pads =)

 

 

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. :D I would love some input here from them.

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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.

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15 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

. 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 :D 

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?

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 :P

 

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3 hours ago, MikroMakro said:

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.

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. 

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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.

 

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11 minutes ago, MikroMakro said:

Indeed Moonshine, an incredible track and very advanced and futuristic sound for its time. 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.

 

Yeah I've had convos with him on YouTube. (maybe you even saw our convos :D)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. 

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Billy Cosmosis used to be active here I think? Either here or the Isratrance forum, I recall he used to create sounds for the then very popular plugin Rob Papen Albino 3, this was around 2007 or so I think. You should ask Billy Cosmosis if he used the Novation Bass Station, or the MAM MB 33 for the "fake 303" acid lines in Alien Disco :D I Love those. I think MFG used some of those as well for their acid lines on Overload and Magnetic Activity. I'm messing around some more in Logic I'll post something tonight.

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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 :)

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Cosmosis also used Virus, I have a Virus preset bank made by him. I think these sounds were originally made in Virus B, so they can be almost exactly recreated in Viper VSTi (in fact I did recrfeate some of them and some of these recreations even made it into Viper's factory presets).

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Some egyptian themed goa intro, messing around with the D-16 Phoscyon 303 clone through reverbs/delays, with a kick drum, bass, choir pads, flutes, hookpads, "airy white noise sweeps" and some arps, headphone mix so bass is probably too low as usual :) :ph34r:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IfrVXDMV5il9NC-1IgHCv0JsnoZjIgzU/view?usp=sharing

the 303 pattern is in the "egyptian" scale/mode as well to fit with the rest.

 

 

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On 7/2/2020 at 4:31 PM, astralprojection said:

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 :)

 

I did some digging, and my memory wasn't wrong :) Bill Cosmosis was indeed a member here on psynews:

https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/38368-updated-tips-and-trick-section-on-cosmosis-websit/

https://www.psynews.org/forums/profile/2838-bagginz/

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7 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

 

I did some digging, and my memory wasn't wrong :) Bill Cosmosis was indeed a member here on psynews:

https://www.psynews.org/forums/topic/38368-updated-tips-and-trick-section-on-cosmosis-websit/

https://www.psynews.org/forums/profile/2838-bagginz/

I stand corrected and my apologies :)

 

  

13 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Some egyptian themed goa intro, messing around with the D-16 Phoscyon 303 clone through reverbs/delays, with a kick drum, bass, choir pads, flutes, hookpads, "airy white noise sweeps" and some arps, headphone mix so bass is probably too low as usual :) :ph34r:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IfrVXDMV5il9NC-1IgHCv0JsnoZjIgzU/view?usp=sharing

the 303 pattern is in the "egyptian" scale/mode as well to fit with the rest.

 

 

nice! a little Khetzal-esque in the feeling of it :) 

edit: btw is "egyptian" mode pretty much Phrygian mode? Or is that a scale and not a mode? I am not musically trained Im learning as I go along. 

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57 minutes ago, Imba said:

I made some old school Juno 106 styled bass preset for Serum, added MIDI for bass and kick sample. Get it here and play around:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wv5ptu7uymte0b6/Old School Goa Bass.zip?dl=0

 

Inspired by Boris Blenn (and Radi)

Could you make a little audio example? :) for us that don't have Serum. Curious to hear how it sounds. Did you make it with a Juno 106 Sub Osc wavetable or purely with Serum's own oscillators?

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On 7/8/2020 at 2:10 PM, astralprojection said:

I stand corrected and my apologies :)

 

  

nice! a little Khetzal-esque in the feeling of it :) 

edit: btw is "egyptian" mode pretty much Phrygian mode? Or is that a scale and not a mode? I am not musically trained Im learning as I go along. 

I actually don't know which of the old greek modes it corresponds too, as I just transposed the standard scale communly used in Israeli old school goa. (Astral Projection, MFG, Mystica etc) That was usually played in the key of C, D och or E, depending on the bpm and general mood they wanted to achieve. To simplify, I transposed it from C to A, in the Key of A it sounds very particular because of the two sharp keys that are close in the scale, A# and C#. And since A is rather high to me atleast it sounds airy and elevated. And I think it sounds good for lower bpm like in this case 138bpm

*edit* I now analyzed the scale by going through all the known scales/modes and the exotic scales on https://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/

And it turns out the scale is indeed jewish in origin, hence perhaps why it was used so much in Israeli goa. It's called "           A Jewish (Ahaba Rabba) Scale
intervals:  1,b2,3,4,5,b6,b7
half-steps: 1-3-1-2-1-2-2
notes:      A,Bb,C#,D,E,F,G"

So who knows when and where this scale originated, it might have been used in some old temple sometime ;)

The Phrygian scale I've never used for goa, that is Pleiadian/Etnica/Filteria stuff :D  The scale above which I'm using to me sounds way more eastern/oriental/greek/turkish/arabic/egyptian/levant. Pure belly dance stuff. The phrygian scale to me has a more enigmatic feel to it, which might explain why it fits so well with cosmic themes. I don't think it's particularly good for hooks, but then again that could just be my ears that are atuned/used to this scale I've been using for 20 years or so.

Here it is in the key of C:

 C Jewish (Ahaba Rabba) Scale
intervals:  1,b2,3,4,5,b6,b7
half-steps: 1-3-1-2-1-2-2
notes:      C,Db,E,F,G,Ab,Bb

Compared to the Phrygian scale in the key of C:

            C Phrygian Scale
intervals:  1,b2,b3,4,5,b6,b7
half-steps: 1-2-2-2-1-2-2
notes:      C,Db,Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb

It's just one note that is different between them, so they are similar, but give a very different feel.

 

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Some other things to consider when deciding which of these commonly used scales one intends to use for goa:

AHAVA RABBA SCALE ON THE PIANO

"The Ahava Rabba scale belongs to the group of Jewish scales because of the geographical location where it was born and its typical sound. If you are looking forward to improvise Jewish music, then the Ahava Rabba scale can be an excellent choice.

The Ahava Rabba scale can be really useful if you are looking foward to create cheerful music as it belongs to the group of Major scales. It is mainly used in ethnic music or modal jazz improvisation."

PHRYGIAN SCALE ON THE PIANO

"The Phrygian scale can be used to compose melancholic ethnic music. You may also use it for modal jazz improvisation and since it belongs to the group of Minor scales it can be also useful for also composing scary and romantic music."

 

Taking this into consideration can explain the airy/majestic feel of the Ahava Rava scale, since it's a major scale. It can sound really epic when throwing in some chords.

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