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What is the secret to creating breathy pad sounds??


BLive

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I have a JP-8000 and I can get tons of sound out of it, but none of the presets really have any breathy vocal type pad sounds. I can create a bunch of other pad like patches, but what is the secret to creating vocal like choir sounds? I know it may be complex, but if someone could give me a quick rundown I would really appreciate it. thanks!

 

 

Brian

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First, add a decent amount of noise. Then, if you have several oscillators at hand, you could try to emulate wovels by spacing 2 or 3 oscs by the ratio value between wovels formants. It works very well... Oooohh and aaaahs !! Oh yeah, chorus is mandatory too.

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Then, if you have several oscillators at hand, you could try to emulate wovels by spacing 2 or 3 oscs by the ratio value between wovels formants. It works very well... Oooohh and aaaahs !! Oh yeah, chorus is mandatory too.

 

 

Sorry Im kind of a beginner. I have 2 oscillators, I know that. But I dont know what you mean by "wovels" and I also dont understand "spacing oscs by the ratio value between wovel formats" If you could kinda explain what that means to a synth noobie Id really appreciate it. You are really a big help, thanks.

 

BLive

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I think he meant "vowels." I'm not sure how to accomplish the kind of breathy sounds that you want, on the JP8000. It has a few key limitations. The second Oscillator is really more of a Sub oscillator, so it's not a true 2 full oscillator synth. Also, Noise has to be selected as the oscillator type. The JP8000 doesn't have a separate noise parameter, like most synths.

 

I know my MOSS board uses dual bandpass filters to make aa ee oo vowel sounds. The JP8000 uses a single 12/24 db filter, so you can't do independent filter settings, like on dual or quad filter synths.

 

You will definitely need to do a dual layered patch. One will need to be Noise. You can program a velocity sensitive filter to it, so that the noise kicks on louder, when played harder.

 

The second patch could be a fast attack sound or a pad. I don't do a lot of programming, outside of the Super Saw patches. The JP is definitely a pad synth.

 

With rompler synths, it's different. You take a Yamaha "Itopia" or Roland vocal wave and you can filter and layer them how you want. The breathy vocal is already built in.

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wovels = vowels. as in "aaaah" and "ooooh"

 

"Vowel Formants" is the other term used... plug it into a google search along with the word "frequency" or perhaps even "acoustics" and you'll find the data our parisian friend is referring to.

 

sometimes if you can put a "chiff" or a small burst of noise at the beginning, it can help.... you'll need some slightly more complex envelopes so you can assign one to the noise that is different to what the rest of the layers of the pad are doing.

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A random guess is that you'd have to get a rompler of some sorts for the really choir like "breathy" sounds - at least if i guess correctly at the type of sound you want.

 

IMO basic anlog just doesn't do those too well - unless you use very advanced stuff with multiple filters and so on...

 

 

About formants: As far as i have understood it a "vocal" sound is defined by formants which are several accented frequencies across the spectre. Shifting the frequencies of the formants gives different types of "vowels" A - E - I and so on...

 

But, don't trust me entirely on this, this is just what i have gathered from reading on the net :D

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Originally posted by grumphh

IMO basic anlog just doesn't do those too well - unless you use very advanced stuff with multiple filters and so on...

 

There's one very basic analog machine that does that incredibly well : the Roland VP330... I know it's specifically designed for that but... :cool:

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Originally posted by Jack Luminous



There's one very basic analog machine that does that incredibly well : the Roland VP330... I know it's specifically designed for that but...
:cool:

From the description at "vintagesynth":

Filter - 18 VCFs: 54db/oct bandpass; 1 VCF: 54db/oct lowpass and highpass filters; 20 VCFs: 18db/oct lowpass filters w/ dynamic range of 60db

 

You want to call that basic analog? :D:D

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Originally posted by grumphh


From the description at "vintagesynth":

Filter - 18 VCFs: 54db/oct bandpass; 1 VCF: 54db/oct lowpass and highpass filters; 20 VCFs: 18db/oct lowpass filters w/ dynamic range of 60db


You want to call that basic analog?
:D
:D

 

Haha... That description is for the vocoder part of the thing.... It already does very good sounding vocal choirs on its own with a 2 fixed bandpass filters, an octave divider and a chorus section. Pretty basic really !!

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Originally posted by Jack Luminous



Haha... That description is for the vocoder part of the thing.... It already does very good sounding vocal choirs on its own with a 2 fixed bandpass filters, an octave divider and a chorus section. Pretty basic really !!

*LOL* Point taken - However, i would still claim that two bandpass filters are not basic analog ;)

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Originally posted by grumphh

*LOL* Point taken - However, i would still claim that two bandpass filters are not
basic
analog
;)

 

Ok then. I agree 2 independant bandpass filters are not that common on synths but you still can do something somewhat similar sounding with 2 resonating lowpass filters . Now that's more common !!

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A random guess is that you'd have to get a rompler of some sorts for the really choir like "breathy" sounds - at least if i guess correctly at the type of sound you want.

+1

 

It mostly boils down to the right source material which are not standard analog waveforms. Most romplers have at least several waves that will work well for choir/breathy type sounds. Beyond that detune and chorus help.

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Originally posted by NightChildren

Run your synth through an external analog filter.

 

 

+1000000

 

It takes a good REAL analog filter to get breathy pads - I have yet to hear a VA with filters that sound as good as the real thing. The more filters (multiple configurations), the better.

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If you had a JP8080 you could have used the vocoder and sing yourself.

 

Anyway, vocal choir sounds are hard to make on a substractive synthesizer...

You could maybe try to utilize a highpass filter with lots of resonance, and let it cut at about 1000Hz. experiment. Be sure to use an osc wave with lots of overtones like a saw. (or supersaw :))

 

maybe use a very slow lfo that's modding the filter cutoff frequency for like 5 or 10%. or is that not possible on the jp8000?

 

 

 

effects are also key to make such sounds.. like phaser.

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I find the wavestation only so-so for breathy pads, there really are only a handful of good waveforms for creating them in the wavestation's rom.

 

Of course so-so is a lot better than any va. The only va that really does a decent job at breathy sounds is the v-synth.;)

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Originally posted by flat earth

get yourself a D-550 or Wavestation A/D, to add to your JP8000.


These guys excel at breathy pad sounds!


:)

 

+1

 

 

The Kawai K4 can also have a cool vocal like quality, and it's also dirt cheap.

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For REAL cheap you can get a Roland MT32 with great D-50 vocal pads. Here is a sample from an earlier monthly mission: I'm Not an Animal. The aahs and layered opening solo voice were done with the MT-32, rack mounted, no less!

 

However, I realize getting another synth is not what your asking for...

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1) I've had some success running my VA through the vowel filter on my Alesis Akira effect unit. My VA is a KS-Rack, but the patch I use is just a gently modulated, lightly filtered (12dB/oct) sawtooth, and any VA can to that.

 

2) If you don't have a vowel filter, perhaps a phaser would work. Important: set modulation depth to zero, resonance somewhere in the middle. Then fiddle with the center frequency until you get something that you like. Again, use a gently modulated lightly filtered sawtooth as the source material.

 

3) If I recall correctly, the JP8000 has filtered noise. Try combining a sawtooth on osc2 with a tiny amount of high pitched noise from osc1, filtering just enough to take the edge off. It won't be vocal, but it will be breathy. Also try a triangle instead of a sawtooth.

 

-Ron.

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