80s synth tricks, a technical question

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Ahh... those beautiful beautiful leads.

A good example of it would be the lead synth line in Prince's "Delirious" from 1999. It's when they accent a particular note by making it all "wobbly." So could somebody explain to me how to write a patch that does this? My guess was that you tie the mod wheel to the the speed or depth of an LFO that modulates the pitch? I tried something along those lines, but I just can't make it sound quite right. Any suggestions?

While I'm at it, and since the early 80s saw an incredible array of synths being used all over the place... examples of best/worst moments of synths.... and for those of you have a more technical knowledge of keyboards, how did they do it....

― Udbhav Gupta (udbhav gupta), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 15:44 (twenty years ago)

I haven't heard the Prince song, but maybe when you are describing is portamento - or sliding between two notes. Programmed with the right timing, the slide can be made to go slightly down and back up to the note which creates a kind of pitch wobble. Many synths have a portamento wheel to the left of the keyboard which can be wobbled manually too.

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

its not portamento, that's pitch slide. a lot of keyboard patches have this programmed as a function of the modulation wheel, but its not a normal modulation. does anybody know what i'm talking about, and is able to give a more obvious example. they're all over the place, prince used it a lot. i'm drawing a blank for a reason.

― Udbhav Gupta (udbhav gupta), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 15:55 (twenty years ago)

i thought of another example. the chorus of p.y.t the synth response to michael jackon singing "pretty young thing." it's the last note of the keyboard plays.

― Udbhav Gupta (udbhav gupta), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:08 (twenty years ago)

Pulled out Thriller to check that out - wow, I don't think I'd ever noticed that before. What a neat little sound! Hum, I wonder. I have a feeling that there's something simpler than we suspect going on here. A close headphoney listen would probably help but I need to go buy razorblades. I have a vague suspicion that the main synth part isn't doing anything weird at all, just playing the two notes really quick, and there's some additional noise/sound/sample/synth coming in for one quick little sqronk? Ehhh, that doesn't seem right either. What it mainly reminds me of is when I was in high school and we discovered that you could break the classroom Casios by recording songs that were too long - every single patch would then sound all fucked up, too high, too low, always out of tune, until you rebooted the keyboard. I realize this doesn't help very much. Maybe there's some kind of detune simultaneous with a scrambled pitch....something?

― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

My guess was that you tie the mod wheel to the the speed or depth of an LFO that modulates the pitch?

bingo

Any suggestions?

Don't know what you're trying to write patches w/or what equipment yr using, but any softsynth will do this. and just about any analog or modeling synth also. if it does not sound exactly the same, that is because you are not prince (probably)

― bangelo (bangelo), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

actually, to clarify that, the speed and depth of the LFO should be constant; the control should be over how much of the LFO is incorporated in the final signal

― bangelo (bangelo), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

A close headphoney listen would probably help but I need to go buy razorblades

Most inexplicably magical ILM phrase since "Sonned by a wite kid after a AOL beef"!

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

thanks bangelo...so the lfo definitely controls the pitch? i guess i just need to tinker with it a little more. sqronk is definitely THE word to describe that particular effect

― Udbhav Gupta (udbhav gupta), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 16:54 (twenty years ago)

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newanswers.php?board=12

― sovietpanda (sovietpanda), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:18 (twenty years ago)

Keep working on assigning LFO adjustment to the Mod Wheel. I've been able to get this effect no problem just by playing with LFO.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:43 (twenty years ago)

Sounds something like the effect I get out of the LFO delay slider on my Juno - hold a note down for a short bit, and the note stays straight; hold it down a bit longer and it goes wobbly. It's a nice effect.

Think my SH-09 has it too, pretty sure it's do-able on an MS20 with enough patch wires, and probably every single softsynth ever.

― stevepaperjam, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 19:41 (twenty years ago)

This is a much easier-to-use effect when tied to note velocity on a good keyboard.

I can hear the Delirious patch in my brain, it sounds more like an octave effect with a slight LFO on the octave tuning.

― caspar (caspar), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 19:53 (twenty years ago)

a lot of the old rolands had a button what was called 'LFO trigger', which would modulate the pitch of the v- or dco's pitch at a particular depth when pressed--could be handier, faster and more predictable than moving a mod wheel.

― blanph morgan, Friday, 12 May 2006 20:41 (twenty years ago)

The effect on "P.Y.T" sounds like sort of a vibrato to me, although I didn't realize synths were able to do that back in 1982.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 12 May 2006 23:47 (twenty years ago)

blanph's theory sounds about right, I tried it out on my Juno 60 and it sounds exactly the same. It's the LFO trig button.

― JohnFoxxsJuno (JohnFoxxsJuno), Saturday, 13 May 2006 09:09 (twenty years ago)

Yebbut at that time Prince was an Oberheim man through and through. (The OB-SX in particular is all over his early-'80s stuff.) The Jupiter-8 does have an LFO trig button, but he's unlikely to have been using a Roland back then (and particularly not a "second-tier" design like the Juno-60).

― Palomino (Palomino), Saturday, 13 May 2006 16:56 (twenty years ago)

sorry, I meant the LFO trig is used on the synth response in PYT

― JohnFoxxsJuno (JohnFoxxsJuno), Sunday, 14 May 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

Well, a Jupiter-8 was definitely used for the Thriller sessions, so I guess that's that one solved.

― Palomino (Palomino), Sunday, 14 May 2006 21:38 (twenty years ago)

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