I have been trying to recreate the slow LFO modulation on the keys in this song.

1:19 if you want to hear it mostly isolated.

It's a classic phasey resonant filtering that I hear on pads / keys in a LOT of early - late 90's house and downtempo but I can't for the life of me figure out what creates it!!!

Currently about to try my old small stone but i'm already fairly certain that isn't it.

I have tried Phasers / Auto Filters & have exhausted myself going thru Logics modulation plugins with no luck.

I have tried phasers on the Orville and even just modulating the delay time on my synth - NOTHING

Someone here MUST be familiar with where this effect originated from?? Please HALLLPPP

 

I'm losing my mind a little here - IS IT A COMB FILTER??

IS IT EMU Z-PLANE TRICKERY?? I should probably go to bed..

 

If there was comb filtering on that, I missed it. Sounds to me like slow "analog" tremolo, which is a little different in L/R. Those analog tremolos had a more complex response than digital volume modulation, sometimes they'd filter the signal too (gently).

As an idea how to get there, try duplicating your pad track, and then apply some tremolo and possibly gentle lowpass filter modulation (different in the L / R channels), and when it sounds pretty close, start blending it with your dry signal until it's right.

If you add very short delay (under 7ms), 100% wet on a duplicate of this duplicate, you'll get some cool combing happening that you can then blend in too, if you like that effect. Make it a simple interchannel delay, i.e. left channel might be 5ms, right channel 7ms or whatever sounds good. Pick a delay which lets you fine-adjust it in increments smaller than 1 ms. Then this delay signal itself can be filtered or EQ'ed to give you even more creative control. Duplicate, blend. You get the basic idea, it's very powerful if you calmly apply it like this, getting closer and closer to your desired sound with layers, until you're there - or maybe even made something that sounds better than theirs!

PS: If you use Nebula, there's a fucking fantastic analog tremolo library by Cupwise, this gets you this type of sound and thousands of "authentic" variations for it directly. Unique little thing that library - there's no plugin that sounds like it.

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2017

I second what @Satai has said... it sounds like a sample of an ep with a very nice phaser and slight tremolo to me..
you might be getting pretty close employing the small stone actually...

here is a Rhodes with a small stone and trem ..that sounds pretty similar to me...
you may hate this song.. but it's Richard Tee actually playing the Rhodes..and he was a master.. as you may know
and was also a master at applying these effects to keys... just attend to the intro ..gets pretty buried after that

I have tried in vain to replicate the Rhodes sound.. with any number of emus and phasers,
and nothing comes close. So.. I tend to think you would more or less need the original
gear to approximate it

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 21, 2017

@Satai Will give this a go this afternoon - I hadn't thought about it in like Haas stereo sounds but this sounds like it could work out well.

I'm getting really close with a resonant filter w/LFO tuning the resonance to be around the same frequencies but, I realised that there isn't really attenuation to the high frequencies so unless I had a dry / wet mix on said filter (which I also tried - sounded rubbish) it wasn't going to work.

Hopefully what you've suggested will give me some direction into getting that resonant wash without applying any filtering!

@Herr Durr yeah, this is a great example of Rhodes done right! Small stone wasn't quite right but definitely a lot closer than I had got with stock plugs.

Heres to another day obsessing over something that should be fairly simple but is not!

 

plugins i would go to if this was me in no order but usefull
h-delay
soundtoys/echoboy
soundtoys/tremolator
eventide
but as @Satai said its down to manipulating Left and right channel differently and blend them with the dry sound and filter to taste.

maybe stop comparing what you are doing to the original (going forward) but spend enough attention and time untill it feels right to you and your ears and especially to the tune/otherinstruments it has to live with/inn.

 

The phaser on that Joel tune was a Small Tone pedal..

 

Yeah @reliefsan I hear you 100% and off the bat i'm not usually concerned with copying anything too heavily - I like to reference but happily tread my own path with my productions.

Having said that, there is something about this effect that fascinates me - it's probably some old cheap unit or off a Roland romper & I just never stumbled across it's magic.

It just keeps popping up - I hear it over and over on records and in sample packs. I have used chord / pad one shots with this on myself in the past (example below) and not really given it a second thought until I was recording some synths in yesterday - I came to processing them & was like 'thats the sound I want for this synth' but just couldn't hit it!

Anyway - I'm back in the studio now waiting for some geezer to come fix my stupid old oven. Gonna give @Satai 's idea a whirl. Will try H-Delay & Waves Doubler & possibly spend an hour patching something up on vSigX for the Orville if I don't get anywhere!

@reliefsan - Wasn't Tremolator offered free recently or am I imagining things?

 

Forgot to link the Soundcloud example - HERE

Way more subtle but it seems to be the same ballpark to me.. Maybe I should find a better example. If anyone is familiar with Legowelt I feel like some of his synth sample packs have some things that hit it.

 

whatchu talkin' bout @Moogerfooger

Did you mean: small stone pedal

Just the two of Us another example of Richard Tee's genius​

 

@Herr Durr Yeah that's the one here. Just hooked mine up after my Pianet - it sounds good!

 

@realpancake like the dreamy tune.. but the beat is kinda taking over in spots ... hmm

this sounds like it could end up a really nice chillout track... if you focused on the keys sound

 

ENSONIQ DP4 !! (hardware) for good phaser/filter/other effects typically from 90.

But you can try "Applied.Acoustics.Lounge.Lizard.EP-4" i guess you can get similar results.
try the bank CLASSIC TRACKS for example.

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2017

@zukunft ARE YOU SURE?! This makes me very happy if it's true!!

 

Exactly right not, but I think proving some preset and tweaking a bit you're going to get something very similar or a good base to keep investigating.

 

@realpancake

im glad you took my words as they where meant. as encouragement and not as away of bashing. Its just that we all tend to go off the path sometimes and forget ourselfs in the process when we are working with music. when we are working sometimes our minds get in the way.
It sets up this unreachable goal named "perfect" - and the ussualy place we find "perfect" it outside ourself when we hear a piece of music or hear a sound or see a picture or image that moves us. makes us feel something special in that moment. - at that moment it feels perfect.

The sorounding setting, the scene and the story are all perfect at that moment in time. in our minds we can go back to that exact moment and describe how it feelt like. its perfect. - and now back to the sound/music that we sit and work with. we want to make that "hit all the markers" that i tried to describe above, to recreate or to create "that perfect moment" ....... and now i had to make a phone call and im back and lost my trian of thought!

about the track
woha man! sounding great so far
i can now really hear how sweet "that sound" will fit with this! just keep pushing! and be sure to come back and share your secrets when you hit the mark

anyway, this track reminds me of good old kruder&dorfmeister tunes. great times back then. i remember discovering so much indredible music back then! im happy your keeping the genre alive in 2017!

 

@reliefsan - I just spent an hour listening to K&D, thank you for showing me this stuff!

I watched something the other day that touched on a similar point - how it's important not to work with an ego as it stifles your creativity. Something like if you can rid your mind of constant comparison / jealous thoughts & work with out ego creativity will flow boundlessly.

It was on Chefs Table se3ep1 this Korean monk who happens to be like an incredibly good cook. She was fascinating - I really recommend watching it if you have the time!

I'm really glad you enjoyed the track too, thanks for the words!

 

@zukunft That was cruel but thanks for the tip - those units actually look pretty good.

I found the track that the chords were sampled from -

It also has a vaguely Mr Fingers esque bass in which is quite a vibe, kind of like a square wave donk.

Knowing this dates said phase / modulation unit to pre '94 which narrows it down a little.

 

Heres a little soundcloud clip of what I've been trying all your ideas out on.

I ended up creating a send for the synth with 2 dual mono tremolos on - Logics own & Tremulator (thanks to @Satai & @reliefsan) followed by a subtle MicroPhaser & a ModDelay also from within Logic. I haven't hit any of these too hard as I didn't want to completely wash the sound out.

I also got my Pianet out & hooked thru my Small Stone (S/O to @Herr Durr for the inspiration)

I'm now continuing my search for the elusive modulation unit that create *those* sounds but maybe with a little less urgency. Thanks!