Tips on getting a really 70s experimental and dirty sound?

AikiGhost · 2013-09-25T08:57:16.000Z

Im interested in getting analog sounds that sound on the verge of being out of tune, vintage and purposefully unpolished.

Eg: A lot of the “padish” tones on the New Boc Album or some of the more odd tracks on Afx Twins analord series

Anyone have any top tips for getting these kinds of non dance, non synth pop more experimental style tones?

kkonkkrete · 2013-09-25T09:17:42.000Z

I don’t have an a4, but I think it’s perfect for what you are aiming for. One thing I’ve found really useful in general in this direction is slow (less than 1Hz) sinusoidal meandering of pitch. Just a little, less than a quarter tone in total. Simple, but surprisingly effective addition to pads, like a warped record or bad tape. Even makes MnM pads sound warmer. Oh, and layering a little barely audible amount of noise.

Hope this helps

darenager · 2013-09-25T09:22:41.000Z

Yeah vibrato and noise here when doing crusty vintage warble. Random LFO to fine tune, TRI or Sine LFO to detune, or Random LFO to vibrato speed/depth.

Barfunkel · 2013-09-25T09:26:11.000Z

If I wanted the tone that’s in your example and only had the A4, I’d buy a cassette recorder deck and record the A4 with that.

The background hiss, the muffled highs, the warm bass sounds a lot like cassette.

AikiGhost · 2013-09-25T10:21:51.000Z

""Barfunkel"":

If I wanted the tone that’s in your example and only had the A4, I’d buy a cassette recorder deck and record the A4 with that.

The background hiss, the muffled highs, the warm bass sounds a lot like cassette.

I agree it does indeed sound a lot like cassette and on my MPC I almost always layer various cassette hiss samples with my synth hits and bass samples.
I do wonder if the A4 noise can filters can be used to emulate this easily.

namnibor · 2013-09-25T10:39:02.000Z

""AikiGhost"":

[quote=“Barfunkel”]If I wanted the tone that’s in your example and only had the A4, I’d buy a cassette recorder deck and record the A4 with that.

The background hiss, the muffled highs, the warm bass sounds a lot like cassette.

I agree it does indeed sound a lot like cassette and on my MPC I almost always layer various cassette hiss samples with my synth hits and bass samples.
I do wonder if the A4 noise can filters can be used to emulate this easily.
[/quote]
Definitely! Experiment with high pass filter with oscillator level rather way low with a simple sine wave, but more along the lines of “playing the filter” at or near self oscillation with trying noise levels being really slowly modulated by an LFO to give even that sound of the cassette player’s tape being kind of way you can see the larger portion of tape unevenly wound to where cassettes would actually “rub” against sides, and when “playing the filter” you can even get “shortwave radio-esque” sounds, and a little A4 reverb goes a long way. You could even connect outputs of a cassette player with an old and abused cassette that’s been recorded and erased several times and feed that into A4 external input directly into the FX track. Sorry, best I could verbalize it and hope it helps!

AikiGhost · 2013-09-25T15:26:41.000Z

""namnibor"":

You could even connect outputs of a cassette player with an old and abused cassette that’s been recorded and erased several times and feed that into A4 external input directly into the FX track. Sorry, best I could verbalize it and hope it helps!

Wow I hadn’t thought of that, what a great idea, just get an old cassette plug it into an old worn out walkman and play it through the inputs of the A4. I’m going to do that on my next track I think

namnibor · 2013-09-25T22:01:25.000Z

""AikiGhost"":

[quote=“namnibor”]You could even connect outputs of a cassette player with an old and abused cassette that’s been recorded and erased several times and feed that into A4 external input directly into the FX track. Sorry, best I could verbalize it and hope it helps!

Wow I hadn’t thought of that, what a great idea, just get an old cassette plug it into an old worn out walkman and play it through the inputs of the A4. I’m going to do that on my next track I think :)[/quote]
Another cool sound is that of an old turntable needle that does not merely ‘skip’, but makes a ‘grinding white noise sound’ with or without your choice of a particular LP’s snippet of sound trying to play. More times than not, these type sounds occur between tracks or at very end of track…hope this further helps. Am all about doing field recordings and incorporating in music as well.

johnny · 2013-09-25T23:13:57.000Z

[quote=“” darenager""]
Yeah vibrato and noise here when doing crusty vintage warble. Random LFO to fine tune, TRI or Sine LFO to detune, or Random LFO to vibrato speed/depth.
[/quote]

RND lfo to fine tune works great for emulating the inconsistencies of vintage control voltage. I think it’s the Hold setting so that a new value is set every new note. Along with vibrato and changing slide amount, there are plenty of ways to bend the A4 out of tune.

RyanElektric · 2013-09-25T23:45:22.000Z

Consider old school analog FX, like spring reverb, oil can reverb and tape echo. You can find either kits or actual old pieces on eBay. You’d be surprised just how noticeable thing like that are compared to a digital emulation (spring reverb, in particular, is amazing).

But in absence of those you could find an old 2-4 track tape cassette recorder for very cheap nowadays. If you can find very old cassettes that are well preserved, the tape will be slightly warped and it will play back with a pleasingly lo-fi wobble (that you can emulate with an Ableton effect). Record your drums on tape at hit them with an analog delay. Perfection

previewlounge · 2014-01-20T14:00:17.000Z

""namnibor"":

[quote=“AikiGhost”][quote=“namnibor”]You could even connect outputs of a cassette player with an old and abused cassette that’s been recorded and erased several times and feed that into A4 external input directly into the FX track. Sorry, best I could verbalize it and hope it helps!

Wow I hadn’t thought of that, what a great idea, just get an old cassette plug it into an old worn out walkman and play it through the inputs of the A4. I’m going to do that on my next track I think :)[/quote]
Another cool sound is that of an old turntable needle that does not merely ‘skip’, but makes a ‘grinding white noise sound’ with or without your choice of a particular LP’s snippet of sound trying to play. More times than not, these type sounds occur between tracks or at very end of track…hope this further helps. Am all about doing field recordings and incorporating in music as well. [/quote]
awesome…

fascinating tips throughout the entire thread, for synthesis in general, cheers for the share!

billywood · 2014-01-20T14:48:32.000Z

All the best tips for creating a 70s feel have been covered already, but there’s one other that I can think of: use linear envelopes instead of exponential. It’s a subtle change but can really take the feel of a sound back to that golden age.

Polden · 2014-01-20T15:00:58.000Z

Also, I find A4’s filter to sound more “vintage” if you lower the input (that is, OSC level) and add some mild overdrive (that is, in the negative range of the encoder).

invisible_acropolis · 2014-01-20T16:24:59.000Z

not sure if you can do this inside the A4, but after setting up pitch variaion, noise, and also drive or saturation (also maybe distortion), add a bit of reverb and then run the output back into another tracks input, and filter off the top end a bit and add another layer of subtle overdrive … adds a ghostly slurring effect that sounds like really old tape recordings

rockreid · 2014-01-20T17:31:21.000Z

also try a delay with modulation in it. My crusty '90’s Memory Man Deluxe has modulation and sounds very lo-fi

billywood · 2014-01-20T22:58:06.000Z

""rockreid"":

also try a delay with modulation in it. My crusty '90’s Memory Man Deluxe has modulation and sounds very lo-fi

The A4s own delay sounds a lot more vintage with gentle LFO on the delay time too.

KOTARE · 2014-01-21T02:45:36.000Z

I’m sure these aren’t new ideas,

But I go for that sound a lot. I use older samplers, Akai X7000, Ensoniq stuff, and I also use cheap old FX boards for guitars or bass. I used to smash to tape, cassette or VHS, but not at the moment, and tape echo worked great.

Apart from that, it’s source material. For stuff similar to the BOC pads on that last album I have gotten pretty good results from layering old analog polys with an ESQ-1 or SQ-80. The Ensoniq synths has it in spades, that sound. A bit of slow traingle LFO on the VCO helps no end. If you use samplers, even just to run audio through the inputs and not even touch the converters, then you’ve done yourself a huge favor. Buy a $10 VHS player and record into it, you’ll be amazed, if you haven’t already done so.

I feel as if you need outboard to achieve that particular sound, I know that’s what they do. You just smash shit around until it sounds right. That flute sound on Julie And Candy still gets me. No VSTs there, that’s actual tape degradation and saturation. The drums are so sunk in tape it’s ridiculous.

Funnily enough there was a lot of Octatrack-sounding stuff in that last LP.

clockrva · 2014-01-21T02:51:31.000Z

i know this isn’t half as fun or creative, but as soon as i decide on my Elektron unit i’ll be seeking out a Source Programmable EQ. i think those things sound incredible and they have 4 presets !

disuye · 2014-01-21T20:08:26.000Z

Another overlooked effect is putting LFO(s) on the (FX) delay time, with just enough feedback to get fake wow & flutter.

sicijk · 2014-01-22T09:09:23.000Z

Great suggestions in here! Thanks!!

I add my 2cents.

A4 has 4 layers.

So using unison and trk sounds for Poly and layering a hiss noise (plus static hum) on T4.
Then some more random noises (call them whatever you want) on T3

Then T2 and T1 could be the main synth sound divided into 2 prominent spectrum areas (overlapping also, why not)

Creation of the sound is already covered i believe.

Then you’ll end up with a reallly customizable patch (speaking of the Kit)
where The Sound can go in many directions