AK/A4 specific wonky sound help

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

I still haven’t fully got my head around AK synthesis in a 100% ‘I need to do THIS to achieve THAT’ kind of way. Not enough hours in the day atm to study that stuff like I’d like to :confused:

I understand a lot of it and In general I do OK just going by ear and stoked on patches I’ve dialled in on AK. The times I most often hit walls is when I’m intentionally trying to totally replicate something else. Id love to dial this exact sound in. The envelope/lfo/swelling of the wonkiness etc… I only had half hour to try it but felt like I could only nail certain aspects. Got close with the tone, close with the fluctuation levels. But felt like I was fumbling around in the dark trying to get the exact behavior/envelope/lfo of the tone and fluctuations bang on. I’m not sure I’m using the correct parts of the synth for modulating each element of the sound :confused: So many angles on the AK :wink:
I have a bunch of sounds in AK in this kind of ballpark and it’s killer for sculpting that kind of sound from scratch going by instinct. But duplicating this specific one might take me a long time fumbling around :confused:

Seems like a sound that someone more in the know could dial in easy…any takers? If someone can advise where I need to focus, or if they can dial it in and post params pages pics, that’d be heroic :wink:

It’s the first synth sound at the start of this DT tutorial.

Thanks!

Edit - listening to it again, is it two synths? Wondering if the bass notes have different modulation to the lead notes? Too tired to process info with my ears/attempt programming it tonight, will check it out again tomoro and try again…

#2

You’re referring to wonky old VHS and tapes etc.

This synth has it built in -

Separate effect -

Good Reaktor effect -

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/11003/

#3

Thanks for the links :slight_smile: Yeah I have Warped Vinyl pedal which’ll probably give me the sound pretty quick but I feel like its possible without pedals/other synth (Ideally leaving my pedals free for guitar other stuff)? A few of my other AK patches are close to this…

You think the warble on that synth in the video is just from age/tape? Sounded dialled in to me? Is that exact (or thereabouts) warble/swell not possible on AK for some reason? Wrong env/Lfo shapes or something?

#4

Exactly. Apart from the EQing and saturation which gives it some charm…Ideally want a smooth random LFO for the pitch warble (which the AK doesn’t have). The trick is to control the intensity of the LFO when you want the warble effect, so that it only happens sporadically. Should be a way to replicate a smooth random shape using the sine wave and modulating the speed as well as intensity (maybe try with the joystick)?

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#5

This type of thing is definitely more suited for a plugin or hardware tape-effect.

It is possible with A4/AK. Naboo has some good ideas.
You have to think about more than just the pitch, which seems to be a fairly-standard tri/sin wave assigned to the osc’s global pitch/freq.

The second component I hear is the swelling of high-frequencies which seem to match the rise of the pitch modulation. You can try to emulate this by assigning the same LFO you used for pitch to maybe filter 2 cutoff, perhaps with the notch filter. (Use filter 1 as the sound’s main filter, in LP mode.) Once you have created a horn or brass-like tone with filter 1, filter 2 can act as the sort of “phasing” effect.

Alternatively, you can mess around with the chorus–keep it very tight, light FDBK, and try to match the pitch LFO of the main sound.

That’s how I’d do it, but I’d probably just prefer to use a plugin effect.

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#6

Thanks for the tips guys. Yeah, those suggestions are the things I was fiddling around with yesterday. Couldnt match the LFO/Env behavior tho. Couldnt get an LFO to swell in the same way with the same rhythm/transition shape. Kind of had it using env2 instead, but how do I loop that? Is it possible?

Simple manual joystick modulation was closest I got but Id like to be able to do it via hands free modulation…Shame you can’t record joystick automation in to the sequencer and have that running and modulating what you play live. I think Korg minilogue does this IIRC? would be pretty fast/easy route for things like this…

Pedal would prob be sensible option like you say, but they didn’t have pedals for that kind of thing back then as far as I know so Im just curious how to do it internally/whether it’s doable on AK…

I’ll try again later today…

#7

Sounds to me like it’s maybe two synths? The bass/pad notes sound like they have an LFO (not random tho, smooth and regulated on pitch (nd poss filter), while the lead brass possibly is using filter/pitch envelopes instead of lfo? Only listened quick on phone tho…

Might be a good excuse to dig in to AK multi modes and split the keyboard :wink:

#8

Hey, glad that you like my bass sound in the video. As you say its hard to explain how a synth in detail works in common, but in case of the bass sound its all about distortion, finding the right sweetspot in the filter and the filter envelope. Of course you need the a bit the similar waveform in the oscillator, but i guess what drives the bass is the really awesome overdrive in the DT. I wish every Elektron box would have this.
But if you wanna have this bass sound as a sample, you can download for a 1$ donation the whole sample pack on my patreon site and the track too. http://www.patreon.com/monowelt

Thanks

#9

Hey, I’m confused :confused: you said before that this synth sound/part (in the tutorial intro) was just the original soundtrack to the library footage? Think there’s been a misunderstanding somewhere :wink:

#10

Ahh, i thought you mean the sound of the intro where the font comes up. The bass sound is sampled from the Novation Basestation 2. Sorry for this misunderstanding.

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