Creating a reverse whoosh sound

mortenaudio · Post by **mortenaudio** » Sun Sep 29, 2013 7:46 pm

Hi, I am trying to create the short reverse whoosh sound heard on David Bowie's Cat People (Putting out fire), first heard 17 seconds in. Simply don't know where to start, any hints?

(Tips on the longer whoosh starting 7 seconds in is also of interest, but this I may be able to do on my own)

Thanks!

Morten

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Sun Sep 29, 2013 8:20 pm

I don't know the song but I would probably just create the sound using the MS-20 engine. Depending on how bright the sound is you will have to choose between the white or pink noise. Play with the filters an EG to get the effect that you want.

Yuma · Post by **Yuma** » Sun Sep 29, 2013 9:03 pm

To help out a bit, here's the video of the song:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VpdHMaccjw4" frameborder="0"></iframe>

mortenaudio · Post by **mortenaudio** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 7:09 am

jeremykeys wrote:I don't know the song but I would probably just create the sound using the MS-20 engine. Depending on how bright the sound is you will have to choose between the white or pink noise. Play with the filters an EG to get the effect that you want.

Sounds like a good starting point. Thanks!

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:52 pm

Now I remember the song! Thanks!

TheWolf · Post by **TheWolf** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:00 pm

You may want to listen to the intro of the song playing backwards....

So, take the sample of a conga tap (at least I guess that's it) and flip its time axis. Of course, doing it the hard way using the MS-20 engine is probably more interesting.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:09 am

Myself, I'd do it the hard/fun way. I'd make the sound myself but that's just me. Can't spoke for the Op.

jeebustrain · Post by **jeebustrain** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 3:08 am

TheWolf wrote:You may want to listen to the intro of the song playing backwards....

So, take the sample of a conga tap (at least I guess that's it) and flip its time axis. Of course, doing it the hard way using the MS-20 engine is probably more interesting.

If you know how subtractive synthesis works, it's actually far easier to just do a simple white noise oscillator and wrap an envelope around a filter sweep than to track down a sample and build a program with it playing backwards. You could do this in about 2 minutes in AL-1.

mortenaudio · Post by **mortenaudio** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:07 am

jeebustrain wrote:If you know how subtractive synthesis works...

Nope. But I tweak, twist, slide, fiddle, read, listen and learn. So it's coming

Managed to create what I wanted in Reason a while back, and while I could sample it on the Kronos, I learn more by creating it myself.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 12:14 am

mortenaudio wrote:
jeebustrain wrote:If you know how subtractive synthesis works...
Nope. But I tweak, twist, slide, fiddle, read, listen and learn. So it's coming Managed to create what I wanted in Reason a while back, and while I could sample it on the Kronos, I learn more by creating it myself.

That's the spirit! Subtractive synthesis is easy, really. Just imagine that the sound from your synth is pretty much wide open. The knobs just bring down frequencies that you don't want.
Granted this is probably as basic an explanation as one can get but it does kind of give you the gust of it.

I highly recommend finding articles on the net and reading about filters. That will help you a ton!

Best of luck!