Restore my Faith

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T06:05:13.000Z

Hey guys,
Check it out, I recently added an A4 and an Octatrack to my setup and holy crap do I looooove the octatrack… It’s a savage beast that fits so well with the ungodly powerelectronic/ industrial mess I make and I just love it to death.

But the A4 on the other hand… I dunno man I feel like the face it has revealed to me so far has been just a little too clean and mellow for my purposes and honestly I’ve been thinking pretty seriously of letting it go and buying a Virus B so as a last ditch attempt to get my head back in the game before I give up and just sell it off I’m reaching out to you, my fellow elektronauts, to restore my faith and prove to me that the A4 can do vicious distorted and dirty.

I know you guys are all crazy talented and I’d love to hear you put together some of the nastiest, noisiest most unusably ugly patches possible with the A4 [and some guitar pedals and whatnot if that’s how you get down] and just crush my skull with some face ripping, ribcage rattling, eye gouging, foundation cracking insanity.

heavy drones, piercing shrieks, metallic scrapes, sub bass from hell. whatever you got.

I want to believe.

Barfunkel · 2014-04-16T06:23:44.000Z

IMO, the A4 can’t do full on mayhem (or at least I haven’t found such sounds yet), but slapping distortion on top of it does miracles.

Then again, very few synths does that right out of the box, it’s more about the processing to get that sound.

This is all A4, with some distortion from a Boss KM-60 mixer. I don’t usually do this kind of stuff, I’m sure an expert in that field can do way better.

https://soundcloud.com/user4904810/lovecraft-acid

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T07:09:08.000Z

Yeah man alot of the magic is definitely in the processing but I’ve found that a lot of the tricks and pedalchains that’ll really coax the nastiness outta my other synths seem to fall flat and feel a little wimpy when applied to the A4.

This is some of the kind of gross ugly bullshit i’m shooting for.

and especially some of the low distorted synth sounds on this album come pretty close to the kind of muck I traffic in:

I was so stoked to finally have a 4 voice ‘real’ analog but I gotta say I’m feeling a little let down cos I’ve thrown everything I got at it and it feels like it really just wants to do dance music but man I’d really love to be proven wrong.

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T07:33:01.000Z

also this is so far the heaviest I’ve heard anyone get with the A4

but so far my efforts are not even close.

t · 2014-04-16T07:48:17.000Z

You really don’t need an analogue synth at all to produce the kind of heavily clipped/distorted/overdriven sound examples you’ve posted above. Actually, most of the examples you post sound distinctly “digital”.

Getting to this kind of sound from an analogue source is more about using distortion and overdrive effects pedals and extreme gain clipping (turning the channel gain on a cheap Behringer mixer all the way up can be used very well for this, for example).

You’ve probably already figured out that using the sample editor on the OT for dirty digital clipping works very well?

A reason to keep the A4 might be because you like the sequencer. If that’s not the case, then you might be better of getting something cheaper and a few nasty effects pedals.

Have you tried the Microbrute? The Steiner-Parker filter on the Brutes can probably get you closer to the kind of dirty and metallic sound you’re after, and you can get very crazy results by routing the “mod matrix” outputs at the top right through external effects.

Finally, some tips for getting dirty on the A4:

[ul]
[li]Turn the OSC level all the way up to get some clipping before the sound goes into the filter.[/li]
[li]Try extreme PWM speeds and depths.[/li]
[li]Play around with the sync options; metal sync can be extremely dirty. Don’t forget that you get the best results by changing the pitch of the oscillator synced to using an ENV or LFO.[/li]
[li]Set OSC 1 to “Filter Feedback” and play around with cutoff and resonance on filter 1 for some extreme feedback effects.[/li]
[li]Use the overdrive on filter 1.[/li]
[li]Use the ability to route the output of the previous track into the current tracks (set OSC 2 to “Neighbor”) to increase gain.[/li]
[li]Route the output of the headphone jack back into the external inputs.[/li]
[li]Use extreme LFO modulations (speed & depth) on pitch, amp, filter cutoff, etc.[/li]
[li]Abuse the effects. Especially the delay can be very effective for noisy drone sounds if you turn overdrive up and tweak the feedback.[/li]
[/ul]

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T07:49:17.000Z

All those youtube links in the post above are to artists that are similar to what I do.

But I guess to make a long story short I’m mostly looking for gnarly heavy nasty distorted droning bass type sounds.

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T07:51:41.000Z

yeah the Microbrute is my main synth right now for death-droning, that and the OT have become the core of my sound in the last couple months.

t · 2014-04-16T07:54:33.000Z

[quote=““dust ward””]
also this is so far the heaviest I’ve heard anyone get with the A4

but so far my efforts are not even close.
[/quote]

The guy in the video is abusing the effects pretty heavily; I’m hearing lots of reverb and delay in that one.
Here’s a tip: Create a pattern containing just a single note of the default sound. Don’t edit the sound at all. Turn up the effect sends on that tracks and then tweak the effect parameters to see what you can do with those alone. This will help you figure out how to incorporate the effects into your sound design.

Especially this kind of droning noise depends heavily on using your delay with extreme feedback settings.

Cocker · 2014-04-16T12:29:12.000Z

Experiment with the OSC 1 Feedback. It’s savage
Modulate the feedback with the OSC 2 AM and Sync
Add plenty of Drive and shape with the Filters and LFOs
Here’s a brief experiment.

Not quite droning sounds. But kind of. There is only one trig used in this. But smoother textures can easily achieved with slower, smoother LFO and ENV settings

BLOKE · 2014-04-16T12:55:50.000Z

Not trying to be a dick here at all, but maybe the OP would be better off with a monomachine instead of the A4. Just a thought - seems to me that the mono may suit what you want more than the A4 being that it is generally bonkers.

bandersong · 2014-04-16T13:17:09.000Z

[quote=““dust ward””]
also this is so far the heaviest I’ve heard anyone get with the A4

but so far my efforts are not even close.
[/quote]

This is mostly heavy because of song writing. I don’t know that that patch is particularly heavy, in fact it sounds pretty tame to me on the noise spectrum, maybe because I’m in a noise band right now but the A4 does this stuff pretty easily.
Detune the Oscillators by a lot. Make them a full semitone apart for full on evil. Run it through Chorus for stereo width and more evil. More distortion.Crank up the distortion on the filters, there’s a sweet spot in there for mayhem. Turn up the noise and run it through a lot of delay and reverb. The patch you posted seems to evolve slowly quite a bit, maybe use LFOs to modulate the filters or even just program it yourself over a slow 4 bar sequence or even longer chain.
Again, I feel this is mostly songwriting. The vocals add intensity.

science · 2014-04-16T13:30:40.000Z

Dustward, if the A4 was what you want i would have never bought it.
i don’t think that is something most of us would be interested in.

Prints · 2014-04-16T13:43:38.000Z

Check you PM

wintermute · 2014-04-16T14:38:59.000Z

[quote=““dust ward””]
Hey guys,
Check it out, I recently added an A4 and an Octatrack to my setup and holy crap do I looooove the octatrack… It’s a savage beast that fits so well with the ungodly powerelectronic/ industrial mess I make and I just love it to death.

But the A4 on the other hand… I dunno man I feel like the face it has revealed to me so far has been just a little too clean and mellow for my purposes and honestly I’ve been thinking pretty seriously of letting it go and buying a Virus B so as a last ditch attempt to get my head back in the game before I give up and just sell it off I’m reaching out to you, my fellow elektronauts, to restore my faith and prove to me that the A4 can do vicious distorted and dirty.

I know you guys are all crazy talented and I’d love to hear you put together some of the nastiest, noisiest most unusably ugly patches possible with the A4 [and some guitar pedals and whatnot if that’s how you get down] and just crush my skull with some face ripping, ribcage rattling, eye gouging, foundation cracking insanity.

heavy drones, piercing shrieks, metallic scrapes, sub bass from hell. whatever you got.

I want to believe.
[/quote]

Have you tried the extra free patch downloads from Elektron? The Richard Devine collection particularly sounds like what you’re after, Those sound packs are pretty much my go to for nasty industrial style warehouse techno sounds

http://www.elektron.se/products/analog?section=downloads

I’ve been mainly trying to make these kind of sounds, pretty heavy and distorted and it works well! (Especially the sounds at 3:00)

dust_ward · 2014-04-16T17:18:12.000Z

yeah man i’ve got a monomachine and love it.

R7 · 2014-04-16T19:31:23.000Z

Modulating the filter frequency with a LFO up into audio rates is a quick way to get screeching metallic sounds.

subq · 2014-04-17T00:52:27.000Z

""Cocker"":

Experiment with the OSC 1 Feedback. It’s savage
Modulate the feedback with the OSC 2 AM and Sync
Add plenty of Drive and shape with the Filters and LFOs
Here’s a brief experiment.

SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

Not quite droning sounds. But kind of. There is only one trig used in this. But smoother textures can easily achieved with slower, smoother LFO and ENV settings

filthy, I like it!

dimi3 · 2014-04-17T01:25:05.000Z

hyakken has a max patch you can buy with a tight randomizer. I get gritty sounds from it and then tweak… If you are die to hold on.

Anigbrowl · 2014-04-17T02:09:55.000Z

[ul]
[li]Set OSC 1 to “Filter Feedback” and play around with cutoff and resonance on filter 1 for some extreme feedback effects.[/li]
[/ul]

Yeah, filter feedback on Osc1 is the key to unlocking the A4’s aggression. I agree that it does sound quite ‘polite’ by default but set up feedback and start exploring F1 resonance and drive and it can get very rough and textural. Note that overdrive often mitigates the filter resonance - a little of the distortion can go a long way, sometimes too much just leads to a loss of definition. Don’t forget to set the extended F1 resonance in the sound setup page. Also, consider using polyphony and unison for when you really need to bring the pain.

Also explore the envelopes and especially the envelope shapes. I find that envelopes and LFOs on Elektron gear often seem to be calibrated a bit differently from other synths, and don’t always yield the expected result, eg LFO depth often seems to go to 200% or more.

Finally the effects on the A4 can be overdriven from the amp screen. Turning the reverb send all the way up can lead to delicious howls and shrieks depending on the input material. I get great results with a HP filter and a lot of resonance on F2, for example.

""science"":

Dustward, if the A4 was what you want i would have never bought it.
i don’t think that is something most of us would be interested in.

I like dirt - it was a big factor in my purchase of the A4. Part of the charm of analog is the availability of nonlinearity and chaotic behavior.

subq · 2014-04-17T05:16:14.000Z

""Anigbrowl"":

[ul]
[li]Set OSC 1 to “Filter Feedback” and play around with cutoff and resonance on filter 1 for some extreme feedback effects.[/li]
[/ul]

Yeah, filter feedback on Osc1 is the key to unlocking the A4’s aggression. I agree that it does sound quite ‘polite’ by default but set up feedback and start exploring F1 resonance and drive and it can get very rough and textural. Note that overdrive often mitigates the filter resonance - a little of the distortion can go a long way, sometimes too much just leads to a loss of definition. Don’t forget to set the extended F1 resonance in the sound setup page. Also, consider using polyphony and unison for when you really need to bring the pain.

Also explore the envelopes and especially the envelope shapes. I find that envelopes and LFOs on Elektron gear often seem to be calibrated a bit differently from other synths, and don’t always yield the expected result, eg LFO depth often seems to go to 200% or more.

Finally the effects on the A4 can be overdriven from the amp screen. Turning the reverb send all the way up can lead to delicious howls and shrieks depending on the input material. I get great results with a HP filter and a lot of resonance on F2, for example.

[quote=“science”]Dustward, if the A4 was what you want i would have never bought it.
i don’t think that is something most of us would be interested in.

I like dirt - it was a big factor in my purchase of the A4. Part of the charm of analog is the availability of nonlinearity and chaotic behavior.[/quote]
^ all great tips, unison mode can growl…even if only using 2 tracks for it…I actually run that set up a lot, poly 1 and 2, unison, then feedback osc and use tracks 1 3 4…a4 is very versatile