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


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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

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1 hour ago, astralprojection said:

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

Yes I have thought a lot about the use of delays on the bass in his old tracks. And I think it adds to the cosmic factor. And I would suspect that it propably works better with an analog source. Everything just melts together in the computer I feel at times. As it’s the same source that generates all the sounds.

And that the effects themselves are also separate units, in the case of Simon Posfords albums. It encapsulates the sound in a very particular way. I wonder what Simon used mostly for his basslines. Since he sold some of the gear visible on photos from his old studios. (Twisted and The Lone Deranger era). Such as the Juno-106. 

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Maybe this space ship was involved in bass duties? :D 

 

F7D541B7-4A34-45FF-AA84-E8AFC7300C80.jpeg

 

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.

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Okey I'm trying to recreate the typical big Miranda kick drums, from Groom Lake, Eyedentify and Real Rush. I'm also interested in the kick and basses of: Mystica-Ashes To Ashes, Shakta and Moonweed ‎– Micronesia, Hallucinogen-Space Pussy. Anyone know what gear/techniques they used?

 

 

:wub: 

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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)

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22 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Maybe this space ship was involved in bass duties? :D 

 

F7D541B7-4A34-45FF-AA84-E8AFC7300C80.jpeg

 

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.

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1 hour ago, astralprojection said:

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 pitca h decay.

Wow nice! :D 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!

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Now I’m listening through Twisted and The Lone Deranger. The basses are so nice on these two albums. The bass is breathing and is almost camouflaged, blending in with the rest of the hallucinogenic/alien textures.

They have this acidic driving quality to them. What I do like the most about these albums and for example Astral Projection - Another World and Dancing Galaxy, is that no album had the same bass styles. They all sounded like something unique. Galactic sounds! 

I wonder what year it was when the sub-genres all of a sudden started to have the same type of bass patterns/sounds to them? I.E Dark Psy bass, Full-On bass etc. The old school sounds might not be as clean/precise/sterile as the modern stuff. But it sure had a lot of character and nice storytelling. :) The bass in Alpha Centauri! I LOVE IT!!!

The delay or reverbs on Hallucinogen’s tracks including the bass, makes it feel so cosmic. As if travelling somewhere far out there. :D What synthesizers did Simon use mainly for his basses? The SH-101, MS-20?

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What I’m trying out right now in order to somewhat replicate the Hallucinogen bass, is TAL-101, and Arturia’s emulation of the Juno-106 + Korg’s MS-20 plugin. It would be awesome if Arturia did a SH-101 emulation as well, which captured every nuance of it. 

I’m also trying out the Arturia ARP 2600 V plugin, since Simon used the ARP 2600 for something in his tracks. Maybe for bass?

 

I managed to find this from the old Sphongle/Hallucinogen website from 2004 om wayback machine, which is really great since it contains the complete gear list used for his older albums, quite cool that both Hallucinogen and Infected Mushroom used the Behringer Intelligate for their Trancegate effect. Infected Mushroom even had a track named Intelligate. I see now that Hallucinogen preferred the Drawmer one:

The Behringer Intelligate i would love to use more, but the inputs distort, no matter how i match them.

Below that is the Alesis Quadraverb... The first FX unit i bought, and the one thing that i have absolutely definitely used on everything i have ever done. Iit is usually jammed on the ping-pong delay setting, occasionally with a phaser thrown in too.

Next is the Drawmer Gate. This particular one used to belong to butterfly studios, and when they closed down, selling off all the gear, this was one of the few things that hadn't had coffee spilt down it! This is what i use for that 'chopped up stuttering effect', usually on vocals. A couple of the knobs are a bit crusty...maybe it's days are numbered...”

 

"Perhaps you would like to know some of Simon Posford's secrets ? Simon himself gives you some very interesting anectodes about the gear he used on some tracks and the gear he likes to use.

At the end of this section, I've made a glossary for those who don't know much about instrument terms. As I know a bit about musical and gear 'life', I'll try to make in the future a little history about the intruments in Simon's studio. You could see for yourself that Simon has some great and rare vintage gear....

 

 

You want to know more about the gear and how Simon uses it? So read carefully some of Simon's secrets ;) For those who don't know well the technical terms, i made a glossary to help you. Perhaps a little gear history will follow...

Most of the first Shpongle album was done with the gear you see on this photo. Simon used only the Kurzweil K2500, the Apple Mac G3, AKAI S3200 sampler and Roland SH101 to do the work with Raja. They recorded the flutes usually at dawn. On 'behind closed eyelids' they set the microphone up in the garden, at a distance, so it would pick up the birds singing too, and while Raja Ram was playing, two pheasants came and stood at his feet, blinking vacantly at him. On the track 'D.M.T.' they used the software called Vocal Writer for Mac.

At the top of the stack is the Akai CD3000 sampler, which Simon borrowed from Raja Ram. It was drafted in for the new Shpongle album 'Tales of the Inexpressible', to cope with all the recycle files. The S3200 which has only 16Mb of RAM is below that and it was the one used in the first Shpongle album. The black machine below that is an Akai DR16 hard disk recorder. Since the sampler doesn't have much memory, Simon records a lot of stuff to the DR16.

 

 

Oh yeah, another great view of the lab. So, let's go... You can see under the Mackie the ARP 2600 analog synthetizer. Simon love the Spring reverb of this gear and if you use it in stereo, it is completely out of phase. Simon used the ARP for the bass on 'Shamanix' and some of the riffs of 'Solstice'. He finds the envelopes of the ARP a bit too slow for the style of music he makes, so he often uses just parts of it, in combo with the MS20. Sometimes he uses the oscillators or sometimes the filter. The ARP is a patchable synth, so you can plug the modules as you want or with differents modules of other patchablesynth like the MS20... He likes the Ring Mod of the ARP a lot, too.

The Korg MS20 and MS50 synth are on the right-corner of the photo. He likes to use them together too...apparently "I love the filters... you get a lowpass and a highpass... and they are both killer, in a cheap n squidgy kind of way!"

Under the stack of CDs you find a Roland SH101, another analog synth. It gets used on just about every track he has ever done. Maybe not so much recently, but only because his MIDI-CV Gate converter is broken. Other broken gear is the Oscar, a rare and wonderful synth. He did the main distorted riff with it in the track 'Alpha Centauri'. Simon has a prophet 5 which is another synth waiting to get repaired....

 

 

On the right of the Mackie there is the FX rack, the things that process the sound of Simon Posford ;) Here is Simon himself, explaining the use of them :

"Starting from the top, the black out of focus unit is a TC M2000, which i never use because the knob is broken, so i can't change any parameters. A shame, because the reverbs are lovely. Below that is some Zoom rubbish which i don't use. I wish i had that little half rack thing they make.

The Behringer Intelligate i would love to use more, but the inputs distort, no matter how i match them.

Below that is the Alesis Quadraverb... The first FX unit i bought, and the one thing that i have absolutely definitely used on everything i have ever done. Iit is usually jammed on the ping-pong delay setting, occasionally with a phaser thrown in too.

Next is the Drawmer Gate. This particular one used to belong to butterfly studios, and when they closed down, selling off all the gear, this was one of the few things that hadn't had coffee spilt down it! This is what i use for that 'chopped up stuttering effect', usually on vocals. A couple of the knobs are a bit crusty...maybe it's days are numbered...

The Bel Flanger was another refugee from butterfly, but unfortunately this time the coffe stains were included. I don't use it much unless i need a flanger with a CV input.

The Ensoniq DP4 was my second FX unit, and is also a great piece of gear... unfortunately the Flangers and Phasers are too distinctive, so i only use it for amp/distorted filter sounds, and short reverbs, on a kik drum, say.... i quite like the compressors, too.

The Eventide DSP4000 was given to me by Simon Holtom, when we started Twisted Records, in order to get the 'Lone Deranger' underway... i told him if he bought me an eventide, i would be his slave... it was pretty expensive, considering it is just an FX unit, and when you realise what you can achieve with plug-ins alone, but What a Gift!!! Stunning Reverbs...warm choruses and all kinds of buckety pitch effects, the question is what sound to choose..

The Orville, below that, is basically 2 DSP4000s in a box. Again far too expensive to purchase single-handedly, but when offered to me as an advance, i just couldn't refuse!!

Next is the AMS Phaser, another Bargain from the Butterfly Basement... a distinctive sound, but a lovely one.

Finally the 'Finaliser', from TC electronic i use on pretty much everything. When i record an instrument i compress it with that.... when i put anything in the computer i compress it, and my whole final mix gets put through it too. Although i always 'mix into it', i never finalise an already finished mix. I just wish i had the 24-bit version."

That's it for the FX rack.

 

 

You think Simon play a CD, a DAT or somethink like that during a live ? Enough of bullshit, here is Simon speaking about how his live are, the gear setup and how he uses them.

 

"Although I can't speak for other artists, I prefer to take my DR16 hard disk recorder, (well actually I prefer the organiser to hire one, so I don't have to dismantle my studio every time, and get a hernia lugging the sodding thing to the airplane, where i get charged for overweight baggage... only to have my precious studio equipment bashed around by baggage handlers!) But the reality is that I often end up taking my own unit, as no-one can ever seem to find one... Then I wonder why it goes wrong 3 months later! In fact one time, Akai refused to fix it, as it was "full of beer and tobacco...and a 5 pence coin" (and of course the sweat of 2000 ravers!).

Then with the DR16, I have 16 tracks of audio to mix live... so my gigs are more about 'live engineering/mixing' than 'live playing'. Since it is just me on stage, i don't really get time to play anything... although the mixing desk I like to use as an instrument in its own right...


I like this way of working, 'cos if the Kik drum is too quiet, i just turn it up... or add more bass or whatever, so i have full control of the sound. Of course this is an absolute nightmare if the monitoring is bad. For example at Return to the Source in Brixton Academy, they gave me one mono monitor that sounded like a transistor radio... You can imagine what it is like trying to blend all the sounds involved in a tune, along with all their FX when you can't hear a thing!!! But this way of working also allows me to arrange a track live... With 16 tracks I can have complete control over the kik, bass, hats, perc, a load of riffs... Whatever I can fill up the 16 tracks with. Normally I have everything looping on all the tracks, and sometimes one track will contain diffrent riffs, depending where you are in the song... But still sometimes 16 tracks is not quite enough, so i will sync my laptop with midi timecode or midi clock, and use rebirth or something to generate a few more riffs that I can tweak live... But there is so much tweaking to do already, just to mix/engineer the track, that I don't have so much time to tweak the external synths...

Another problem is that I have to load a new project from the Akai quite often, which takes a few seconds... when the machine is under studio conditions... so sometimes I will play a track off DAT while I reload the Akai, change the delay times, set up rebirth etc for the next few tracks... It is not ideal, but when there is just one of you on stage, it is much much harder to do a complete live set. Anyway, this should give you an idea of what i get upto during a live set..."

 

 

 

I tried to explain as simply as possible some technical terms of the vocabulary used for the synthesizer. If you want more technical details ask me, but I won't answer you individually by email. You can also send me words that you would like me to explain.

Analog synth : Analog synth use analog voltage signal in this circuit to generate a sound. Some analog synth electronic circuit are instable and so, the sound may be a bit different each time. Hear an analog synth is something that all synth lover sould make ;)

CV gate : CV, for 'Control Voltage', was used by old analog synths to communicate between each other. It's an analog signal and only the notes and the velocity were transfered. Actually there is CV gate/MIDI converter to transform the CV signal to a MIDI system. Very usefull for those who want to use their old analog synth with a computer for example.

Envelop : Envelop is using to control amplitude of the sound. In an analog synth it's called ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release). It can be use with a filter too.

Filter : Another important thing for a syntheziser... As the name explain, a filter is something to let you filtering low or high frequencies, it's depend of which kind of filter you use. There are Low-pass filter (must current), High-pass filter (most current in Psy-trance music too), Band-pass filter and some other.

M.I.D.I. : With M.I.D.I. (for Musical Instrument Digital Interface) you can communicate and transfert numeric data between instruments, computer or sequenceur. Certainly the most important thing in the musical industry.

Oscillator (also called Generator) : This is an electronic circuit who generates a wave forms. Without that a synth couldn't make a sound. Most basic wave forms are square, saw, sin or triangle. A syntheziser can have more than one oscillator. 

Patchable syntheziser : In the first time of the analog area, each module of a synth could be connected as we wanted. For example, you could connect a filter of a synth to an oscillator of another synth... Nowadays, most of the synth are built-in in a way that you can't connect the different parts of the sound generator as you want.

Ring Mod : It's something which can generate complex sound with two waveforms, by combining the sum and the difference of the frequency of the waves. Some synthezisers don't have this."

 

 

"Many of you are dreaming about it, and finally here it is, the complete equipment list of the Hallucinogen soundlab. For those who know a bit about musical instruments, you're going to go mad just by looking at the vintage gear and the most important thing which made the 'incredible twisted sound' of Simon, the effects unit. So, here are the photos of the Hallucinogen lab. By the way, the studio is currently near Stonehenge in the English countryside. It's certainly a great place for Simon to be inspired ;)

The workspace of the lab

The keyboard is a Kurzweil K2500 and Simon uses it as the master keyboard. At the left of the photo you can see a PC which is connected to a Gina soundcard (under the table), and on the right it's a Mac running with a Korg12/12 soundcard. Both computers are Midi Timecode synced together. Simon uses Logic Audio Platinium as a sequencer/editor.

In the background you can see Simon himself ;) and some very great analog synths like Korg MS20, MS50 and Roland SH101. For more details go to the -Technical- section...

The Sampler 'space center'

On top-left corner you can see the Mackie speaker. On the rack unit you find the two sampler gear, an Akai CD3000 and a S3200. The black "box" in the middle of the photo is an Akai DR16, which is a 16 track HD digital recorder. Simon certainly uses it for the mastering of a track and/or during his live performance. I hope he'll give me some insight on this... Below is the DAT & CD-R machine, Fostex D-5 and Simon doesn't like it very much because it doesn't have S/PDIF out. Most of this materiel is used by Simon during live performances.

On the right-hand side, you see a piece of the Mackie 32*8 analog desk ;)

For those who are lost in the technical terms, you will be able to find a complete glossary in the -Technical- section.

 

The FX unit

First pic is a better view of the Mackie... The computer below is a Mac, certainly used in Simon's live. Under the desk is a ARP 2600 without keyboard.

Next the console, it's the fx rack, one of the most important things in a studio...

You'll find the complete list of the Fx unit in the -Technical- section.

For a complete list of the gear, more technical things and even more details about how Simon uses them, have a look at the -Technical- section of the -SoundLabs- menu.

 

 

For those you wanted the complete Hallucinogen's equiment list, here it is. You can also find some good Simon's anectodes about the gear at the -Technical- section.

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"

 

lab-akai_sl.jpg

lab-workspace_sl.jpg

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BEE01B1F-CE84-49B0-B64C-26C7A407EE6E.gif

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22 hours ago, AstralSphinx said:

Wow nice! :D 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.

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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 :+1:

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1 hour ago, astralprojection said:

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 :+1:

Yes it’s a fascinating read. I wonder if there’s some similar studio interview made with the other titans of the old school era? I enjoyed the one that Oforia did with Astral Projection quite recently on youtube. And also with MFG. 

The workflow of Dimension-5 would have been interesting to see as well.

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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..

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34 minutes ago, astralprojection said:

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..

Yes indeed, I’m not sure which year these photos are from. But there we can see some digital synthesizers, what looks to be a JP-8000 to the left. and two Korg Prophecy. If those were used on their albums I don’t know. Occam's razor can be applied to the few things we know. Such as when these synthesizers were released, and when their albums were released. But even then that will be an estimation which might not hold up. If the photos were taken at a much later date.

The computer screens gives me a hint of perhaps between 1997 and 1999/2000ish? And also an  old school home phone can be spotted.

Korg Prophecy was released in 1995, and JP-8000 in 1997.  The position of the display matches that, of the small yellowish orange display the JP-8000 have. And also the front panel printing and the control surfaces match up.

4857C864-19F0-40AD-98CC-31AA4B155FE1.jpeg

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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.

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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.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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?

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Some older studio, probably from 2001/2002? That's atleast when the track Electric Blue was released (2002). On the Amen album. The studio setup certainly looks older based on the computer. And their age obviously, they were younger. :) I love the effects rack, synthesizers spotted, Oberheim Xpander, SH-101 and some stuff I don't recognize. Monitors seem to be Genelecs. Mixing desk I don't know.

There’s a closeup of the computer screen at one point. Were it seems to be some waveform editing in soundforge or wavelab perhaps.

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Some screen-grabs. Massive amount of gear. No wonder their albums sounded so rich and full of details. :) Literally walls of sound, on the albums and in the studio.

7830475C-E00D-4A4F-B3C0-B70586EEAE8E.png

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2AAA86C0-7071-434C-A7E2-D04EB6D9E5FC.png

7A088F9A-C1FD-44AE-A6C2-C3A3549A6DB2.png

 

I'm trying to replicate the bass sound from Astral Projection - Liquid Sun, so far I think the Arturia OB-Xa V comes pretty close. Certainly makes sense if perhaps they used the Oberheim Xpander for some bass duties. Maybe it's a Roland 101 or Juno bass? It's a very rich and full bass with some chorus I think.

The pros so far I notice in the Oberheims bass sound, is that its sub bass frequencies are maintained even when cranking up the resonance, so it gets that piercing bubbly reso envelope like in some older MWNN tunes as well. Without sounding too thin.

On Flying Into A Star, there is a massive kick drum and the stereo image is wiiiiide. :D I wonder what tricks they used back then for stereo widening? Maybe the Eventides had some nice wide reverb presets? In tandem with the Alesis Quadraverb Ping Pong.

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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

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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.

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40 minutes ago, recursion loop said:

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.

 

Nice! I currently use TAL-101 a lot and love it. :) But I'm sure Arturia could take it to the next level. The sequencer in particular is a bit wonky in the TAL interpretation. Lush-101 I did use too, but I found its interface way too messy compared to the simplistic and very effective design of the original. It did sound OK though. But I actually think TAL nailed the sound best so far.

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57 minutes ago, recursion loop said:

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

 

they do make some fine hardware tho.

I like Arturia, and I personally think they’ve reached a very high degree of detailed emulations of vintage synths. :) And they’re quite CPU-friendly. Compared to for example the Roland Cloud plugins and certainly Uhe-Diva. :P 

And yes they make some cool hardware indeed. I had their midi keyboard very nice. But I’m thinking of getting a Native Instruments one.

Btw what plugins do you like/recommend that aim to emulate vintage synths?  And what reverb and delay plugins do you like? I’m currently using Valhalla DSP for delays and reverbs. I’ve managed to get a pretty Quadraverb-sounding ping pong delay out of the Valhalla Delay.

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