black953mj wrote:Now to do an in depth deconstruction of what you did so I can learn a thing or two. The sub harmonic stuff is what I just couldn't get quite right.
Thanks again!
I'm happy to help
Okay, so honestly this was a really simple sound in terms of making it, but "hearing" what's all inside of it was the more tricky part.
Initially, I heard only 1 sound. I mean yes, two tones, but it sounded like a single oscillator with a wobbly LFO. I'm still not completely convinced it's actually an LFO, but more of a funny ENV associated with pitch but you don't hear the sound long enough before it's re-triggered.
Anyway, when making the sound, I recognize that the majority of what you'll hear on an album is going to be EQ'd and compressed for the final master mix. Take that, and add YouTube compression to it, and you have a poor representation of what the real sound is meant to be. If you can get past that, then you have to imagine what the source sounded like.
There was some peculiar harmonic content that was sitting lower in the sound, so I had to add a second oscillator and drop the volume way down.
(I'm not at my keyboard right now, so I don't remember the exact waveforms but I can walk you though my thought process)
Once I had the base of the sound, I needed the sounds themselves to interact. Most sounds will layer on top of one another like layers of a cake, but what I needed was for them to become intertwined somehow. Also the raw waveforms were too buzzy and needed some high end taken down a bit.
Instead of using an EQ to remove the buzzy sound, I chose a cabinet emulator effect. This works twofold; When you have a speaker simulation, the waveforms start to work off of each other. If you think of real-life physics, you have two waveforms that are coming out of one speaker (arguments sake) - The speaker will have the occasional resonance where the cone needs to be in but the OTHER waveform suggests it should be out, and weird harmonic things can happen.
This is what I wanted to emulate, so the cabinet effect brings that all together. It forces the waveforms to interact with one another, even if it's all virtual to get this phase-y sounding sub harmonic resonance. It's super subtle but it's definitely something that makes the sound hit properly.
In the PCG, if you look at the second OSC, you'll notice I turned the volume down. If you turn it up, take a look at how the character of the sound changes completely as the harmonic content thickens. I turned it down to add flavor, but not hot enough to make it sound like two oscillators.
Anyway, hopefully that helps - I can give you more specifics once I get home and in front of the board, but I get the feeling that tonight is the Jordan Rudess lead sound programming so I'll be around to toy with it a bit.
