Lead to Owl City's Fireflies

[tpantano]

Hi, I've been working on the intro to Owl City's Fireflies for practice with my R3. I've gotten pretty close, and was wondering if anyone could help me get closer. I'm thinking all I have left is some adjustments to the drive and EQ, maybe a change in the filter, and possibly using a DWGS sine instead of a regular one. Any ideas?

Here's what I have so far:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/fireflies_lead.r3p

I programmed the first few notes into the sequencer, just hit a B flat to trigger the pattern.

(In case you don't know what song I'm talking about, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMr52bCXNdU)

I know that I won't be able to get an exact replica with the portamento (as it does that slide thing at some parts but not all), but it'd be nice to get the sound closer.

[axxim]

Hi tpantano,

since I cant hear your results now, I only can tell you briefly what I think about the sound you are seeking:

Its like a hard attacked flute so sine would be right. Since there are short notes, it is hard to get an exact auditive idea of it. I think the main characteristic of that tune is how it is played and what FX are applied. Maybe you should try to record it as MIDI. For the glide you can use the pitch bend or vary the portamento time where needed via MIDI CC# (don't remember what number it has, so better take a look at the last pages of the R3 manual). Once you have the MIDI, you can go and adjust the patch parameters to fit your taste or maybe you will see (hear), that you allready have done the sound you were looking for.

[tpantano]

I have two sines, using a drive and a enhanced high pitch EQ. There is a quick attack quick decay on the amp, and the same for a negative EG1 with no sustain. I have LCR Delay and Reverb turned on, with a little bit of portamento.

My main problem is tweaking the sine via EQ or Drive to get the same starting tone used in the song. I think he may be using a DWGS sign, I'm not sure.

[X-Trade]

You might get better results with a triangle. There is no point in EQing or filtering a sine wave, you'll only be changing its amplitude. Of course drive and waveshaping will have effects... Anyway, I say a triangle is often better for woodwinds.

[xmlguy]

This particular patch seems to be a blend of sine + square, where the sine is used for the root note and a synced square for the upper harmonics, with a blend of more square than sine. The primary note you hear is not the root note of the patch - if you listen closely there is a deemphasized lower note below it an octave down.

This is a rather complex patch because I can hear many elements. There is a heavy LCR Delay that's synced to the BPM. It uses legato portamento on some of the notes. It uses a musicbox style hard attack, which may be a done with a completely separate timbre because the level goes down during the legato portion. It could also be an inverted filter envelope on a high pass, which gives a similar clickity attack. The score is also going to be difficult to get right, because some of the notes are just echos in the delay effect, and some notes are just portamento glides between other notes, to give those "slide whistle" legato phrase.

I listened to a few of the most popular youtube versions that purport to show you how to cover the arpeggio on piano, for example, but I know they got it wrong. The portamento is throwing them off, and obviously piano can't do portamento/glide, so they are usually sticking in an intermediate note that doesn't exist.

I don't think that the lead arp can be reproduced accurately with merely one patch, because I think the portamento increases during the legato portions, unless you automate the portamento in your midi track. The notes have a more complex timing and pattern than what a regular arpeggiator can do.

[tpantano]

Well, a just added a click made of noise with a quick attack. im going to fool around with changing osc 2 to a square.

[tpantano]

Some updates to the sound:

P06- Changed Osc 2 to a square, set it to sync, and put it down 2 octaves (24 semitones)

P07- Set OSC1 to 90, OSC2 to 110, and turned down the punch to 40 (note, I'm probably going to get rid of punch/fast attack in timbre1 and make a seperate timbre out of noise in timbre 2, for more flexibility

P08- Set cutoff to 100

P13- set WS Depth to 20

And that's all I've changed so far, still needs work.

Also, I've noticed that when using the mod sequencer on pitch there is no portamento at all, and no clicks from attack- is this because rather than hitting new notes each time, it simply hits a note once and then changes its pitch over time?

[xmlguy]

Yes, the mod sequencer doesn't trigger the envelopes - it doesn't do key on/off. I wouldn't depend on the mod sequencer or the arpeggiator - the actual pattern is too complex. This seems to be a midi sequencer only track. The notes are not even lengths - and the notes don't match the clicks, so there's at least two midi tracks here, I think. The portamento needs to be increased for the Eb-F-Eb legato notes.

[Eat-Static]

Hi ,
How are you getting along with your patch tpantano ? I've read with interest everybody's comments on the structure of the lead sound your trying match. I agree with Axxim it sounds like a flute sound .

Good luck anyway .

[Eat-Static]

Hi ,
spent some time on this . This was the best i could come up with .
I looked up how to create a flute sound on soundonsound and the rest was experimentation .

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4751606/FIREFLI ... %201.5.r3p

Eat Static

[JohnDNU]

IF YOU LIKE OWL CITY, YOU’LL LOVE THE MUSIC OF FREDDY WEXLER! MODERN POP MUSIC WITH AN ELECTRONIC SOUL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfr1CY2gJYg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfr1CY2gJYg</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfr1CY2gJYg" target="_blank"> 
<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7478897/freddyandowlcity.jpg"> 
</a>

[tpantano]

SPAM YAY

[themusicman2001]

Hi tpantano - any chance you could post an mp3 version of what you have created - I am curious.

Thanks.

[tpantano]

Hi tpantano - any chance you could post an mp3 version of what you have created - I am curious.

Thanks.

I think I deleted it quite a while ago :-/ and anyways, it was nowhere near perfect.