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


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22 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

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?

 

Used Serum factory oscillators with a bit of tweaking. Here is short example or how it sounds without processing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/685chmgz3yakt8s/Old School Goa Beat.mp3?dl=0

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13 hours ago, Imba said:

 

Used Serum factory oscillators with a bit of tweaking. Here is short example or how it sounds without processing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/685chmgz3yakt8s/Old School Goa Beat.mp3?dl=0

Sounds crisp, the bass pattern reminds me of Tim Schuldt's "Talking Souls - Karma 209" :+1:

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On 7/10/2020 at 11:03 AM, astralprojection said:

@AstralSphinx

thanks that is super useful and helpful!! very much appreciated. i think i understand about 75% of it or so :)

 

No probs, btw been trying out Spire now, not bad eh :) Reading the manual now, and I guess the filter types named "Red" in the scorpio filter mode are the Nord Lead based ones? Being used to the Virus TI2 interface, it feels right at home with the structure/layout of the synth. By messing around some, I think one aspect it don't really manages perhaps to capture fully from the Virus, are the pads. But I've just scratched the surface so far, as far as arps, leads and basses go, and to some extent FM-bell type sounds, it's in the Virus ballpark for sure.

 

"These are the filter modes and their respective types:

Perfecto a unique algorithm that combines the best characteristics of analog anddigital filter types. Great for a broad spectrum of sounds. Modes: LP4, BP4, HP4, Peak

Acido type does not repeat at 100%, but good for simulating TB-303 sounds and not only. Modes: LP1, LP2, LP3, LP4

Infecto type does not repeat at 100%, but simulates the filter sound of a Virus TI synthesizer. Modes: LP2, BP2, HP2, Notch

Scorpio another unique algorithm by our team that combines the best characteristics of analog and digital filter types. Great for a broad spectrum of sounds. Modes: RedLP2, RedLP4, BlackLP2, BlackLP4, BlackHP, BlackBP

Combo filter consists of a series of regularly spaced spikes, giving the appearance of a comb. Modes: Mono +, Mono -, Stereo +, Stereo -"

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 Spire  can sound similar to Virus, mostly the VA and unison based stuff. Leads, plucks, pads, acid, it covers that more ir less. To my ears it sounds thinner, softer and brighter than Virus but in an actual mix they can be pretty much interchangeable (i have both).

 

It doesn't do wavetables and the FM sounds very different tho, do it's not a full replacement for Virus TI.

 

If you like Virus, check out also Adam Szabo Viper synth.

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so in your opinion that old virus of yours is still better at sound design than spire? if so then i believe you, i dont have the pleasure of working with a virus before. Never even tried one in a shop. But ive heard one, and yes spire sounds much much more software like than a real virus theres no question.. but i think that can be mixed in later in the chain, but yes this is the problem with nearly any SW vs HW scenario.

 

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8 minutes ago, astralprojection said:

so in your opinion that old virus of yours is still better at sound design than spire? if so then i believe you, i dont have the pleasure of working with a virus before. Never even tried one in a shop. But ive heard one, and yes spire sounds much much more software like than a real virus theres no question.. but i think that can be mixed in later in the chain, but yes this is the problem with nearly any SW vs HW scenario.

Virus does some things which Spire can't do. Virus TI2 has a full-blown wavetable section with some unique wavetable FX, global unison, cross-oscillator FM Also there are sonic differences, like Virus sounds bigger/fatter/darker, with much more midrange presence.

 

You can make Spire sound like that with some extra processing if you know what Virus sounds like and what you should aim at, also you can pull off some Virus-like sounds from wavetable synths like Serum and Parawave Rapid, but Viurs is Virus.

 

That "the distance" track (you know that track) was made with heavy use of Virus (and also Microbrute, so I think it's like 50% hardware, 50% software)

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I once talked with Urs Heckman (the man behind Zebra, Diva etc) at the KVR forum, he essentially thinks Virus doesn't sound good to him and has many technical flaws, like aliasing and other. 

 

It seems that software devs consider Virus to be obsolete digital tech so analysing and copying it doesn't seem to be rewarding or interesting to them. Which is technically true - the engine can alias, the oscillators can't reproduce full bandwith, the filters are far from an accurate analog model etc, etc.

 

 But it does sound great.

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22 minutes ago, recursion loop said:

 

 

 But it does sound great.

:) yes it does! And spire costs about a tenth or so vs a ti2. Still love spire, still would love to see it come to hw, sounding "more" than what it now does.  I think it would be a really fun box to be hands on with. 

 

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I've been aiming to recreate some stuff I used to do on the Virus on Spire, so far my impression is that the filter response is a bit weird/off, there is almost as if the filter is empty in the middle, in lack of a better description. As a consequence, doing long filter-sweeps feels a bit unsatisfying, it's almost as if you go from a fully closed filter to wide open way too fast or something, and it goes from fat to thin. I've been trying hard to compensate for this with the envelopes, and the on-board EQ but to no real avail so far. The infecto filter/virus emulation in particular has this behaviour, the perfecto filter behaves little more as one would expect a filter to, but it's not perfect (no pun intended). I will do some more experimenting and trying out the rest of the filters, to come with a more grounded verdict :) One thing is certain, the Virus has a more 3D-feel to its sound right out of the gate, just by default. The filters in the virus really sculpts the waveforms beautifully. And the wavetables/FM makes for some really expressive/playable sounds. Very easy for example to get a Yamaha DX7 vibe going effortlessly.

*Update*

Now testing the Scorpio filter with the Black LP2 option, it has the best mojo so far of the filters I've tried out.

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Here is the Infecto/Virus filter model with a filter sweep.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cabhbTT6Ag71r4IGHTQLTJCe8LrxEJ7A/view?usp=sharing

I'm not too happy with how the filter behaves, at times it sounds as if the filter is fading between some EQ settings. It is not piercing through as I would expect it to.

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14 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Here is the Infecto/Virus filter model with a filter sweep.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cabhbTT6Ag71r4IGHTQLTJCe8LrxEJ7A/view?usp=sharing

I'm not too happy with how the filter behaves, at times it sounds as if the filter is fading between some EQ settings. It is not piercing through as I would expect it to.

Great melody!

My favourite filter for that kind of thing is Scorpio, try this one.

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1 hour ago, recursion loop said:

Great melody!

My favourite filter for that kind of thing is Scorpio, try this one.

Will do thanks :) experimenting is great fun, I've noticed that the built in EQ has a very creamy filter quality, gonna try routing/controlling it from the mod matrix if possible.

And btw forgot to add that the filter sweep example I posted goes from almost fully closed, to fully open in the middle of the clip, back to to almost fully closed. So people understand what's going on :D 

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Equalizer in Spire is somehwat similar to Virus eq, in the sense that it can radically change the tone and turn a lame sound into a pretty cool one.

Overall don't expect that Spire would behave in exactly the same way as Virus, it's not an emulation.  It seems that they wanted to make a synth that would sound similar to Virus when making EDM and classic trance kind of stuff, like plucks, supersaw leads and such, I think psy/goa/acid wasn't their main interest.

 

Forgot to say, there is also Acido filter, did you try this one?

 

 

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1 hour ago, recursion loop said:

Equalizer in Spire is somehwat similar to Virus eq, in the sense that it can radically change the tone and turn a lame sound into a pretty cool one.

Overall don't expect that Spire would behave in exactly the same way as Virus, it's not an emulation.  It seems that they wanted to make a synth that would sound similar to Virus when making EDM and classic trance kind of stuff, like plucks, supersaw leads and such, I think psy/goa/acid wasn't their main interest.

 

Forgot to say, there is also Acido filter, did you try this one?

 

 

Yes testing the acido filter more tonight, tried it briefly yesterday, quite juicy! :) testing some soundbanks as well to get a general feel of what this synth is capable off, found one with some incredible pads. Can't wait to try them out tonight. Bellatrix Audio is the name of the company who made the soundbank, very talented!

 

 

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Damn this is like a crashcourse to spires filters =) i learned TONS from you guys. incredible discussion above.

anyway, on topic, i gave up my dancing galaxy lead :)  i was not good enough to get the melody accurate. and showing off a sound without the melody kinda defeats the purpose. i have since switched to Noone Ever Dreams :D hopefully that will be easier since at least its fully pitch coherent to my ears. if i cant do that either ill just have to go back to Nexus again, which is pretty much pitch-sterile and even me could nail the melodies. i think.

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One thing I've been thinkig about lately with regards to the production methods/limitations of the 90's goa trance. Was there a limit that most people had to how many channels their tracks usually had?

Like a physical limitation due to their atari based DAW's? Or like by how many channels their mixing desks had, or the DAT recorders or something? And did people back then for example "daisy-chain" two mixing desks sometimes to get above 32 channels for example? I personally think 32 channels is more than enough and a good limit even when working in todays DAW's. But I know for sure others might think otherwise.

Anyone who knows how many channels the tracks on the Dancing Galaxy and Another World albums had? I'm guessing that Hallucinogen's Twisted album had 32 channels max? The Etnica/Pleiadians/Crop Circles albums interest me too in that regard, as they sound very maxed out/full in the mix

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The ATARI 1040 STE's (maybe Amiga's) of the time was typically only triggering the MIDI sequence hardware synths played. The Mackie 24/8/2 - 32/8/2 were the desks to aim for at home project level, there were many others... but studios like those at Dragonfly Records may have had bigger channel counts and something like an AMEK or a A+H Sabre, something along these lines.

I guess most were played back and DAT captured MIDI sequences, synths and samplers. So you were limited by how many synths you had and how many stereo effects returns were wired to dedicated effects returns (usually you had 4 dedicated stereo returns on a project desk) of stereo pairs of channels. Unless you multi-tracked them to tape and re-used your synths for different lead lines.

DAT's are just 2 channel stereo mix recorders.

 

 

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1 hour ago, MikroMakro said:

The ATARI 1040 STE's (maybe Amiga's) of the time was typically only triggering the MIDI sequence hardware synths played. The Mackie 24/8/2 - 32/8/2 were the desks to aim for at home project level, there were many others... but studios like those at Dragonfly Records may have had bigger channel counts and something like an AMEK or a A+H Sabre, something along these lines.

I guess most were played back and DAT captured MIDI sequences, synths and samplers. So you were limited by how many synths you had and how many stereo effects returns were wired to dedicated effects returns (usually you had 4 dedicated stereo returns on a project desk) of stereo pairs of channels. Unless you multi-tracked them to tape and re-used your synths for different lead lines.

DAT's are just 2 channel stereo mix recorders.

 

 

Cool thanks a lot! That explains a lot of what I've been wondering about, I've never used DAT technology so I had no clue about how it worked in the studio environment, only knew that the DJ's used to play those. :) So basically the Atari's were nothing more than MIDI-sequencers? With a computer screen and a mouse that is? I always assumed they were used somehow in the recording process, as we do today with logic/cubase etc. So everything was recorded to DAT? Not just the full mix so to say? The separate channels as well? Or was there no such thing as separate channels recorded? And everything was just summed from the mixing desk directly to the DAT, and then sent to mastering?

*edit* read through your answer a bit quickly, so multi tracking  to tape was a thing even in the 90's goa? I've no experience with tapes of that sort either. :)  Only that they showed us some ancient tech like that on the audio engineering course (big reel-to-reel audio tape recorders). Mostly like a curiousity of how things used to be in the studios.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey folks,

I finally got the ARL-B to work, noted with the delivered patterns I can get decent results. However I also downloaded a preset for it with the file format .fxp. I do not know how I can load this in the synth? Also it can import Rebirth patterns (or called songs?), this does not work too sadly ;(

Fromt his thread: 

Same here old free VST "The BlueV2" I cannot find a menu to load presets at all, the format here is .fxb:
You guys are experienced perhaps someone can help?

Clipboard01.jpg

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