From ucivax!ucla-cs!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!network.ucsd.edu!ivem!simon Mon Oct 21 21:21:07 PDT 1991 Article: 23107 of rec.music.synth Path: ucivax!ucla-cs!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ogicse!ucsd!network.ucsd.edu!ivem!simon From: simon@ivem.ucsd.edu (Simon Lee) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth Subject: Nitzer Ebb type bass...HOW? Message-ID: <1991Oct18.231308.15672@network.ucsd.edu> Date: 18 Oct 91 23:13:08 GMT Article-I.D.: network.1991Oct18.231308.15672 Sender: usenet@network.ucsd.edu (News System) Organization: San Diego Microscopy and Imaging Resource/UCSD Lines: 21 Originator: simon@ivem Nntp-Posting-Host: ivem.ucsd.edu What is a good synthesizer, old or new, analog or digital, for DEEP, mystic, bass sounds? I'm looking for something that sounds like Nitzer Ebb's, Nine Inch Nail, Front 242's, etc. (ie industrial/acid house). Anyone have an analog synth they wanna sell for a reasonable price that can do the above? I have a Kawai K5 and its bass sounds sound like me thumping my desk >^P Anyone try to get a good bass sound out of this? I don't have any effects box as of now so maybe that's all I need. Also, what's a good setup for this kind of music? (ie. drum machine/sound, keyboards/sounds, effects, etc.). Any suggestions? -- * Simon Lee * Microscopy and Imaging Resources * * simon@ivem.ucsd.edu * Intermediate Voltage Electron Micro * * sulee@ucsd.edu * UC San Diego, Dept. of Neuroscience * From ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!metlay Mon Oct 21 21:23:30 PDT 1991 Article: 23126 of rec.music.synth Path: ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!metlay From: metlay+@cs.cmu.edu (Mike Metlay) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth Subject: Re: Nitzer Ebb type bass...HOW? Summary: Stack'em baby Stack 'em Message-ID: <1991Oct19.183527.95552@cs.cmu.edu> Date: 19 Oct 91 18:35:27 GMT References: <1991Oct18.231308.15672@network.ucsd.edu> Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Lines: 40 Nntp-Posting-Host: organ.music.cs.cmu.edu In article <1991Oct18.231308.15672@network.ucsd.edu> simon@ivem.ucsd.edu (Simon Lee) writes: >What is a good synthesizer, old or new, analog or digital, for DEEP, mystic, >bass sounds? I'm looking for something that sounds like Nitzer Ebb's, >Nine Inch Nail, Front 242's, etc. (ie industrial/acid house). Hmm. Well, Nitzer Ebb uses an Xpander for a lot of that stuff. NIN uses an Xpander and a Prophet VS, along with an Emax. Front 242 uses mostly Emulator II's or maybe Emaxes nowadays. >Anyone have an analog synth they wanna sell for a reasonable price that >can do the above? There's a guy at CMU selling an Emax. Xpnaders and VSes are harder to come by these days. >I have a Kawai K5 and its bass sounds sound like me thumping my desk >^P >Anyone try to get a good bass sound out of this? I don't have any effects >box as of now so maybe that's all I need. An effects box won't save a bad sound (unless the sound is a rock guitar and the effects box is an MXR BlueBox, but that's another post). The K5 can do just about anything, but requires more patience than I have. Kurt Geisel and John 3 love theirs, and may have good patches for basses-- but I doubt it. Kurt also has an Oberheim, and so does John. >Also, what's a good setup for this kind of music? (ie. drum machine/sound, >keyboards/sounds, effects, etc.). > >Any suggestions? Most people stack several analog synths with a sampler, and use either a sampler or a whole slew of drumboxes for percussion. The rule of thumb, according to the Art of Noise and every other successful technodance band I know od, is never to reuse a drum sound from song to song. NEVER. -- metlay | "Be careful-- you really don't want to the leader of the gang, er, Team| snap off your wanger in the midst of a | performance." metlay@organ.music.cs.cmu.edu | --sound advice from the Nickmeister From ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!csn!ub!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!metlay Tue Oct 22 19:41:33 PDT 1991 Article: 23261 of rec.music.synth Path: ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!csn!ub!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!metlay From: metlay+@cs.cmu.edu (Mike Metlay) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth Subject: Re: Nitzer Ebb type bass...HOW? Summary: analog, drum sounds, and wangers Message-ID: <1991Oct22.171603.112072@cs.cmu.edu> Date: 22 Oct 91 17:16:03 GMT References: <1991Oct18.231308.15672@network.ucsd.edu> <1991Oct19.183527.95552@cs.cmu.edu> <2903A959.19147@ics.uci.edu> Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Lines: 24 Nntp-Posting-Host: organ.music.cs.cmu.edu Dan, to answer your points in order: 1. I did NOT answer your previous post. I don't consider myself an industrial artist, because I find sampling a royal pain in the butt to do properly and have other ways to make dance-thud noises. You're right about 242 using samplers. mostly. But analog is right in there as a source, because the sound bites are too short to lose much in sampling (see john 3's recent post). 2. To get good drum sounds, sample ANYTHING, chop it short and overdrive it, then tune it down five octaves. Instant drums. Don't laugh-- try it! 3. The "wanger" is the modulation pressure-bar that Roland installs on the left-hand sides of their keyboards. You push it forward for modulation. According to Nick, it won't go past a value of 110 out of 127 unless you really push hard, and hence risk snapping it off. Feh! New .sig in the works, -- metlay | "Be careful-- you really don't want to the leader of the gang, er, Team| snap off your wanger in the midst of a | performance." metlay@organ.music.cs.cmu.edu | --sound advice from the Nickmeister From ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!sco!jondr Thu Oct 24 01:00:53 PDT 1991 Article: 23336 of rec.music.synth Path: ucivax!orion.oac.uci.edu!usc!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!sco!jondr From: jondr@sco.COM (Dances With Voles) Newsgroups: rec.music.synth Subject: Re: Nitzer Ebb type bass...HOW? Message-ID: <20755@scorn.sco.COM> Date: 23 Oct 91 19:06:09 GMT References: <1991Oct18.231308.15672@network.ucsd.edu> <1991Oct19.183527.95552@cs.cmu.edu> <2903A959.19147@ics.uci.edu> Sender: news@sco.COM Reply-To: jondr@fscott.UUCP (Dances With Voles) Organization: Mangled Bloody Carcass Of Sound Productions Lines: 42 Someone somewhere asked: >>What is a good synthesizer, old or new, analog or digital, for DEEP, mystic, >>bass sounds? I'm looking for something that sounds like Nitzer Ebb's, >>Nine Inch Nail, Front 242's, etc. (ie industrial/acid house). You need an analog synth. No question. I know that producer Flood who did Nine Inch Nails and a recent Nitzer Ebb track is a big Xpander fan (ref: the 9" Nails interview in Keyboard a while ago). You might be able to get away with a Roland unit if you EQ the bass. But, basically, any analog synth will get you straight to the industrial realm without too much trouble. Make sure you route some kind of modulation to your filter! Dan Harkless asked: > That's a good point. I realized that in listening to Front 242. >They never do reuse drum / percussion sounds. Guess that pretty much limits >you to a sampler. But where to obtain the drum sounds??? Anywhere. I had great success sampling a snare hit off a Severed Heads record that had lots of other stuff going on at the same time. I slowed it down and it sounded pretty intense. Compress it. If you want a booming kick drum, put a felt hat over your microphone, run the mic into a compressor and a good 1 or 2 second reverb and tap the hat. Instant 808-ish muffled thump. Whap things. Bang your mic onto a desk. Mix sounds - I took a drum stick hitting a wad of crumpled cellophane and added a drum stick wrapped in a sock hitting a big metal pot. Weirdness, but effective. Sample everybody's records and tune the sounds out a tad. I've got disks filled with stuff taken from Skinny Puppy, F242, Tackhead (adrian sherwood gets the best drum sounds), Madonna (don't knock her, she's got great... um... producers, yeah...), Public Enemy... Don't worry if there's other stuff going on at the same time the drum you want strikes - it sounds better that way, even! You can tune the drum strike so the pitch of the background matter matches your song and you've got instant coolness. I could spend days locked in my room with a sampler. I often do, in fact. Percussion is the easiest thing to sample because the envelopes are generally trivial. -- Jon Drukman (pure acid hell) uunet!sco!jondr jondr@sco.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved to adore.