mcgraham

Where is the Retweet button?

Just wanted to report back and reinforce the idea of 'getting one oscillator to sound good'. I was just fiddling with my Microkorg XL and trying to work out how one patch I've made sounds so good to me. I just fiddled til it was 'right' and dont' really remember what I did to it. I've had a look and it's literally just a single sawtooth with a mid-range cutoff point. No 2nd oscillator. What 'makes the patch' IMO is a bass boost at around 140Hz. It gives it all the balls you need to sit nicely in a mix. I imagine an dedicated analog bass synth like a Moog Minitaur has that bass 'heft' inherent in the imperfect VCOs, whereas the digital ones are perhaps 'too' ideal.

Nice rig! Any chance of a bigger picture? I think these are a great introduction to analog synthesis and makes you realise what it can offer over/instead of digital synths. For example, I absolutely LOVE the sawtooth on the Mono. If I could have that sound on a keyboard I'd be immensely happy. Similarly, the two oscillators on the Duo can be tuned to the same pitch octaves, but then blend in cross-mod to get additional filth and mild detuning. The filter reeeally breaks up and screams on both, but the Duo takes the prize (IMO) for how it behaves when oscillators are blended together w/ cross-mod... stupendous.

To the OP, try listening to each of the oscillator wave types with the filter wide open, no resonance etc. Get a feel for what each one sounds like in the bass frequency range. Each wave type has it's own characteristic sound. Personally I really really dig sawtooth if you're going for a single oscillator. It's got the heft and weight of triangle (without being as soft as sine) but with the edge and growl of pulse/square without the edginess dominating the overall sound. That's just my personal taste though. Try fiddling with the Gaia to get ONLY one oscillator and go through each type, try and get a feel for what each one sounds like, in the same way you can identify a Telecaster vs a Stratocaster or a Les Paul, etc. [quote name='Green Alsatian' timestamp='1350936318' post='1845362']A lot of people think you need multiple oscillators (which produce the 'voice') for a great bass sound, but in reality, if you have one good oscillator, you can do very good synth bass sounds. I had a Yamaha CS-5, which had one oscillator and I was able to wring decent bass sounds from it (you only need one bass string to play one note!).[/quote] Spot on Green Alsatian. In fact, often having more than one oscillator going can damage a good bass sound unless you know what might be going wrong and know how to fix it. E.g. if you've got two oscillators, then detuning one relative to the other can cause phasing effects that cancel out important harmonics, such as weakening the fundamental frequency or even cancelling out the frequencies in the low mids that give you the punch you want from bass sounds. Of course this can be avoided by careful tweaking but it's a real risk. Like many guitarists find out, a setting that sounds great in isolation can totally disappear or fail in a live mix.

The Bleep Labs Nebuluphone (sp?) looks AND sounds amazing! Onboard programmable sequencer?!? arpeggiator? multiple VCO shapes? MENTAL! Tenori-on looks really cool. I'm really wanting something it, as I'm hearing (at least in my head) a lot more sounds where a sequencer is needed, where the sonic 'movement' and progression within the song comes from tweaking the settings rather than changing the notes per se.

Got the Monotron and Monotron Duo the other week - THOROUGHLY enjoying them both. The Duo in particular is a great instrument. The original Monotron is an excellent outboard analog synthesis tool. People might call them toys, but their sound is anything but. Also they have particular quirks and idiosyncrasies that you would associate with real instruments, so it's as much about learning 'what happens when you ... ' as it is about just touching the ribbon strip. Felt the need to post this just because of how much I'm enjoying them. Planning on doing a short YT vid to explain what I'm doing with them. Anyone else enjoying them?

I can confirm he's got it. That's why he's being immensely quiet here, as he's making lots of noise there. He's also getting ready to go on tour tonight, so you'll need to forgive him whilst he runs around manically!

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1349726280' post='1829772'] Like I said earlier..... it's all in the parameter control. I really like having it in the band now although at first I was a bit sceptical. It's opened up a lot of possibilities that were not there before.... the band sounded awesome before we bought this in... we sound f***ing awesome now ;o) [/quote] Agreed. I've heard some really clever use of vocal effects, often used about 10% lower than most people would set it, and it's the difference between 'cheesy' and 'woah!' #technicalterms

On a more constructive note, I don't like these sorts of things when they are used as blatent cheats, e.g. a full band where none of them can be bothered to put in the effort to learn, however difficult they each find it. I don't have a problem with others using them where there is no other way they could find some harmonies, e.g. a solo acoustic act where the soundman is poor, some technology to polish up the vocal sound (not saying autotune, but eq, comp, etc) plus a low-level harmony can really make a solo performance come alive.

I know that guy!

I think I can count myself as exclusively fretless now. Haven't touched my fretted for a good few years now. Certainly haven't gigged with it in years. Great bass but the fretless is 'just me'.

Is that what Muse sound like these days? That song and sound was like U2 and Queen shoved in a blender. I'd happily listen to the sound, but it's a shame to hear a band that had an original sound years ago 'evolve' into something we've already got.

Yes, yes they do. Considering moving on my fretted W&T at some stage, just cos it doesn't get any play time. Not sure though.

The sound is epic. I've had professional musicians comment how they didn't even realise it was fretless til they came up close, simply because it sounds as punchy and as solid as a fretted bass would. Good intonation helps too

Any excuse to show my fretless off... [url="http://www.wtbasses.net/Libraries/neck-through_01/Zoid_33_fretless_front.sflb.ashx"]http://www.wtbasses....front.sflb.ashx[/url] [url="http://www.wtbasses.net/Libraries/neck-through_01/Zoid_33_fretless_body.sflb.ashx"]http://www.wtbasses...._body.sflb.ashx[/url] [url="http://www.wtbasses.net/Libraries/neck-through_01/Zoid_33_fretless_rear.sflb.ashx"]http://www.wtbasses...._rear.sflb.ashx[/url]

just sold a guitar amp to Jon. Can be trusted, also good to have a natter to about gear in general!