Help on specific sound?

Hey guys,

This is probably a noob question, but I am trying to create that cool sweeping sound that you hear in the beginning of "Let it Whip" by the Dazz band.

You can hear it here:

I've made something that sounded like it on the R3 (needs to be on the R3 as that's my gigging board), by messing with virtual patch function and just routing the filter cutoff to the modwheel... and also making the saw wave more digital sounding with the Osc 1 mod... it sounds good... but I'd like for it to sound better.

Any help?

That sounds like an FM/cross mod sweep to me. Set osc 2 to modulate osc 1 (or vice versa). I don't have an R3 but on the Microkorg/MS2000 you select sine wave for osc 1 and then the osc 1 control controls the amount osc 2 modulates osc 1.

Then route the mod wheel to control the amount of modulation and tweak the tuning of the two oscs to get it to sound the way you like.

Ohh gotcha... I'll try it out.. thanks a lot!!

it could also be a resonant filter sweep - the upwards motion is the filter oscillating.

A high pass filter on the oscillator (before the main resonant filter) and voila.

That was my first method. I ran two filters... first one on high, second on low... but I couldn't get as high a filter sweep.

This sounds indeed like a plain resonant sweep with very high resonance. Cut off the lows with an EQ, alternatively.

You don't have to route it to the cutoff if you just use the filter envelope to do the job.

Remember, simpler times, simper synths .

So how would that cool stepping sound it makes? It doesn't sound smooth... like its stepping rather sweeping smoothly.

My band does the song and it is a filter sweep with some extra resonance. I used a preset on the S90 called WideSweep and edited the ADSR a bit. I have a Master set up with that sound in the middle of the keyboard, a synth bass on the left and the brass stab sound up top. I do the Rhodes sound on my Electro.

That song gets a little bit monotonous after awhile, but is a pretty good dance tune.

On 2nd listen, I think it is a resonant filter now.

It's stepping because whatever synth was used probably had limited resolution/scan speed on the filter cutoff knob, which was being used to sweep the filter rather than an envelope or a higher-resolution modulation controller.

I couldn't ID the synth readily in the video. Any ideas what it is?

Yeah... I'm programming all the sounds cuz it like some couples favorite song and we're playing for one of their birthdays.

If you want it to "step" like that, you may be able to do it by routing a controller like the mod wheel to filter cutoff, and set the depth to MAXIMUM and then move the wheel slowly, just enough to achieve the desired sweep. This way each digital "step" of the wheel will make an audible change to the filter. You'll only have to move the wheel a small amount. Also, try different modulation sources, such as the pitch bender instead of the mod wheel, to see if it has coarser "steps".

Or it's just someone turning the knob manually and twisting his arm in such a way that they have to reposition it from time to time.