Ratatat/Pursuit of Happiness Synth

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Sun Jan 09, 2011 3:46 am

I'm trying to recreate the very first sound used in this song, Ratatat uses it and similar sounds in their songs. I'm assuming it was made with a synth, but it could be a guitar under really heavy effect processing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xzU9Qqdqww

I've tried starting with a Saw, synced with a heavily detuned square to add in some weird harmonics. I'll then pass it through a resonant lowpass, and finally through a comb filter- here's where I try to really get that sounds characteristic. I'll set the cutoff point to a multiple of 12, and the resonance all the way up to 127. In order to make said resonance follow the sound, I add +1.00 keytrack. Then, I modulate the cutoff using EG1 Int, this time sticking to multiples of 6 since the real value used is double what you set the knob to.

I get a very vaguely similar sound, but no matter what effects and drive I apply, I can't get it close to the sound in the song.

Do you think I'm right, is it comb modulation that creates the sound? Any ideas on wave selection, cutoff start points and modulation amount, and effects that could get me closer to the original sound? Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Rosen Sound · Post by **Rosen Sound** » Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:49 am

im gonna say thats a guitar.... to my ear, if im wrong i wouldn't be surprised, but hey thats the fun in synthesizing, try recreating it!

tpantano · Post by **tpantano** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:56 am

robbinhood wrote:im gonna say thats a guitar.... to my ear, if im wrong i wouldn't be surprised, but hey thats the fun in synthesizing, try recreating it!

From experimentation I'm actually pretty sure it's a synth. it's simply a matter of getting the right starting waveform/pulse width, high pass cutoff and modulation, distortion, and possibly comb resonance.

Here's what I have so far:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/ratatat_efx.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715217/rata_efx_r3.r3p

my main problem is both including the bassy frequencies yet having it end up at the right harmonic. I think this could be accomplished with two timbres and complicated ADSR work.

Blankman8503 · Post by **Blankman8503** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:22 am

While I can't say on any sound for sure, Ratatat runs guitar and bass through countless effects and their synths but most of their sounds are played via guitar or bass. Its amazing to see live by the way.