Sound research from '83

[DumperZ]

Hello

I have been trying for many years already to reproduce the sound of this video of James Ingram, "Ya mo b there" 1983 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq3l4DEbXiw, at time 2'47 to 3'20 by various virtual or real synths especially the once could exists on that period, i could not reach any approaching sounds, do you know if it is possible to do something similar with virtual synth as ZynAddSubFx or MiniMoque, Triceratops or any other one ?

They hide the brand of the synths, they are very big , i still doubt what they used, no clues...

Thank you by advance.

[asbak]

Those may be Emu Emulator 1's. Samplers, in other words. So if that's the case you'll need a similarish sounding low-fi 8bit sample, assign it over the required range of the keyboard and tweak the envelopes & filter to match.

[ssj71]

You might try using amsynth, set the filter to a middle to slow attack so you get that "wah" sound. Add some glide or portmanteau or whatever its called in amsynth. That seems to me like the most defining characteristics of that timbre. You can do this with most subtractive synths.

[lazyklimm]

fairlight cmi maybe?

[DumperZ]

hello

Thank you for your replies

asbak: From back side in the video, it does not looks like this model, absolutely flat, the one they use as a top side going over the bottom. But i don't exclude it to be a sampler, anyway they use different sounds, and it looks short for switching banks so fast. They could play it with various keyboards and set it after.

ssj71: I have been trying a lot of settings under ZynAddSubFX and AMsynth following your ideas, i could not get this wah sound setting only filter's attack, reson needs to change as well and i don't understand well , it is dependant to other knobs too. I used portamento as well.
It is very difficult for me to reach tones in both synth i tryed under prophet5 too , i don't feel well what kind of wave forms they mixed. I am not experienced in synths .

In this video, it looks like they produce that sound with a prophet http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fkcl ... ng-m_music , but it is a clip and i am not even sure the keyboard correspond to the sound simultaneously. It seems not to be a prophet 5, which one is it ?

Sound is a science, same like a cooking recipe, when everything mixed, always difficult to recognize ingredients.

[DumperZ]

Hello lazyklimm

It look like this keyboard is always working connected to the computer ? No trace of it under they keyboard, i don't know, and look flater always clear grey. It sounds like a very nice technology for eighties by the videos i could see.

[DumperZ]

I did some workaround on this sound with ZynAddSubFx and i have something getting close to the sound of this video but still be quite different.
How may i post my config and instrument files from Zyn in this forum please ? By this way perhaps someone will be more experienced to see what is wrong on it .

Thanks

[caonoize]

Those may be Emu Emulator 1's. Samplers, in other words. So if that's the case you'll need a similarish sounding low-fi 8bit sample, assign it over the required range of the keyboard and tweak the envelopes & filter to match.

I think you're on to something. If you listen really closely, there do seem to be weird formant shifts of the sort one hears with early sampler music. (e.g. Todd Rundgren's "A Capella") Sadly, the I'net is not helping me corroborate this.

[asbak]

Yeah caonoize I was wondering if it could be some kind of primitive choir or vocals sample, tweaked a bit and being played an octave or two above the range it was originally sampled at. All in glorious 8bit presumably.

[DumperZ]

Yeah caonoize I was wondering if it could be some kind of primitive choir or vocals sample, tweaked a bit and being played an octave or two above the range it was originally sampled at. All in glorious 8bit presumably.

Yes you are right i was going on this idea too, i used Choir2 preset from ZynAddSubFx as base to modify enveloppe but i am not yet on something close enough.

[asbak]

I think there are some old sample collections of the Fairlight floating around on the Interwebz, may be an idea to get hold of these and to audition the choir/vocals samples on those. (Not saying he used the Fairlight but there may be something similarish sounding in the collection).

[DumperZ]

Thanks for introducing fairlight, i didn't know yet about it, checking on retro websites , i could find nice samples, not yet what i was searching for but i still discover so nice sounds.