Pacman noise

3DOFan · Post by **3DOFan** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 8:53 pm

I was wondering how to make the Pacman waka-waka sound effect with the Korg R3...
(I should probably remmember how to do this, but I really don't)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswzriFIf_k

I figured someone here might know how it was made.

thehighesttree · Post by **thehighesttree** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 10:41 pm

You're gonna have to learn to deconstruct these things by ear if you wanna call yourself a synth wizard, otherwise you're gonna find yourself standing on stage with your proverbial pants down someday, or otherwise recognized as a pretender. Got it?

Now, any time you're trying to emulate a sound, you can start by asking the following:

1)What sort of tone is it? (generally: buzzy = saw, hollow/computery = square/pulse, hum = triangle)
2)What's the filter doing? You NEED to know what the effects of different types of resonant filters sound like, and it's not really easy to explain, so I won't. It's 2 knobs, just play with them.
3)What changes occur over time?

~
1) I'd say the Pacman sound is probably a square wave, based on fuzzy memory.
2) Can't really say based on memory, but see below...
3a) This is the complex part. There's an LFO for sure, otherwise it wouldn't be a repetitive, distinctive WAKA-WAKA cycle. What shape LFO? Well, when I pronounce the syllables, it seems to somehow slope ("wah") then hit an abrupt part ("kah"). Can you think of 1 of the shapes that has a slope that resets abruptly? You SAW it mentioned above, hehe... What parameter is this LFO controlling? A Wah Pedal is a band-pass filter...that may or may not come in handy, I honestly don't know, but I imagine it totally will.
3b) The pitch seems to go up and down with each syllable if I remember right. A Square wave synched to 1/4 notes controlling pitch might be handy...

With other synth tones there's usually many other things to consider, but the Pac-Man sound is a good primer because it's probably just the 3 big ones above. Let us know how it comes along. Keep in mind this is just me mentally working out the sound without synth access right now.

ltpitt · Post by **ltpitt** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 12:10 pm

This is GREAT information for noobs like me!

Thank you for your time and effort

3DOFan · Post by **3DOFan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:38 pm

well, it doesn't exactly work lol, I was able to make a pacman noise, but it wasn't the waka-waka, it was like that ghost noise. The bandpass filter didnt really do anything for me either. Anybody else try?

ltpitt · Post by **ltpitt** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:26 pm

I didn't try because I'm fighting my way to study Somebody Told me by Killers :/

Here's I've found info for you: http://spinnation.tv/videos?task=play&i ... t=listview

It's not specifically for a synth like R3 but maybe you can steal orientation and ideas.

Sorry if it is not useful I'm not an expert :/

Robbedoes · Post by **Robbedoes** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:55 pm

Apart from programming synths, I also programmed Atari sounds. (Now I really feel old.

)

The wakka sound was not created by a filter because the first Atari's didn't have one.

It was actually done with PWM on a square wave. So set OSC1 to pulse, and set it to a narrow pulse. Use LFO1 to modulate PWM (set lfo to aprox. 5Hz).

You also need to frequency modulate VCO1 with LFO1. To do this use one of the patch chords.

Makes any sense? (Did my best to write this in English)

I tried it my self and it came a bit close to the real thing.

Regards,
Rob

3DOFan · Post by **3DOFan** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 9:37 pm

I tried what you said and it kinda worked, it wasn't quite right, but it was pretty close. I don't know if I did what you said correctly though because you were speaking in Analog synth terms.