# 2wei synth sound ?



## DanPhaseMusic (May 11, 2020)

Hi There

I’m trying to get something a bit like the sound that comes in playing the riff at 18secs in this track



Is it a synth ? Can I heat some kind of distorted Lo spicc strings in there ?
Any help much appreciated.

Cheers

Dan


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## DanPhaseMusic (May 11, 2020)

Thanks for the reply. Any suggestions on which libs could do it ?


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## AlexRuger (May 11, 2020)

Sounds like it's just a bass guitar that's picked and highly processed.


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## AlexRuger (May 11, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> He's talking about what's going on at the 18 second mark.


Yes...I know.


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## AlexRuger (May 11, 2020)

Gene Pool said:


> You must be listening to something else; it's not a bass guitar—not even close.



Both these guys and myself come from JXL’s camp, and this (among loads of other techniques in this track) are right out of Tom’s playbook, and I’m just relaying how I’ve seen literally these same people make literally this same sound.

Jazz bass with both pickups on, tone all the way up, run through a bright/scooped/very overdriven amp -> a couple modulated filters (probably one LPF and another for the wah-like mid boost) -> Cubase’s auto-pan plug-in -> some sort of reverb and perhaps some other sugar and spice.

There’s probably a couple synths doubling it, but I’m 90% sure that’s how the meat of the sound was achieved.

Edit: and to be clear I'm talking about literally at 18s. Obviously a few seconds later another few layers (a synth, some strings, etc) are added.


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## AlexRuger (May 11, 2020)

We're talking about 00:18 to about 00:27 right? At 00:34 there's a new element introduced with obvious bow noise -- clearly some stac low strings patch probably OTT'd to hell  -- but up until that point I'm hearing zero bow noise at all.

The 00:18 - 00:27 16th note riff is so clearly a bass guitar to me. Like I said, super heavily processed, but a bass guitar nonetheless.


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## DanPhaseMusic (May 12, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> We're talking about 00:18 to about 00:27 right? At 00:34 there's a new element introduced with obvious bow noise -- clearly some stac low strings patch probably OTT'd to hell  -- but up until that point I'm hearing zero bow noise at all.
> 
> The 00:18 - 00:27 16th note riff is so clearly a bass guitar to me. Like I said, super heavily processed, but a bass guitar nonetheless.



Hi Alex 

Thanks very much for the reply. I'll try the things you said. At the risk of being cheeky i don't suposse you'd care to elaborate on what you meant when you talked about loads of the other techniques in this track ? I'd LOVE to know what you meant if your feeling generous !

Thanks very much

Dan


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## doctoremmet (May 12, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> The 00:18 - 00:27 16th note riff is so clearly a bass guitar to me.


Yes agreed. First thing I thought was “Hang on? These are strings?? I’d swear I hear a plain bass guitar...”


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## karelpsota (May 12, 2020)

DanPhaseMusic said:


> Is it a synth ? Can I hear some kind of distorted Lo spicc strings in there ?



Are you talking about the thing that sounds roughly like this?




I used a synth (because I'm lazy) but it's definitely something more organic that swells nicely on the attack.

I'm guessing it's their strings ran through some rock bass guitar processing. Like a lower Wonder-Woman e-cello sound.

I also don't think it's wrong to assume they layered a bass guitar for low-end consistency.

In any case, the processing it's definitely: disto -> cab -> EQ -> dely/reverb.

(Note that it could also be all synth if you're a wizard, but less likely as they introduce a buzzy synth patch later)


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## DanPhaseMusic (May 12, 2020)

karelpsota said:


> Are you talking about the thing that sounds roughly like this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Thanks very much. Thats pretty close. Love your sound packs btw.


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## karelpsota (May 12, 2020)

DanPhaseMusic said:


> That's pretty close. Love your sound packs btw.



Thanks man, I love studying that stuff! Huge fan of 2WEI. (and glad the packs are useful)

I tried with a cello. It's somewhat closer to the vibe. Obviously would need the exact string part to process it right.




(Still trying to figure out how to position the sound further without those gross reverb tails... any tips welcome)


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## DanPhaseMusic (May 12, 2020)

karelpsota said:


> Thanks man, I love studying that stuff! Huge fan of 2WEI. (and glad the packs are useful)
> 
> I tried with a cello, it's somewhat closer in the "vibe". Obviously would need the exact string part to process it right.




Yeah man ! You gotta tell me how your making that ! Pleeeese....i bought both your packs


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## karelpsota (May 12, 2020)

Hahaha! Sent you the files via pm @DanPhaseMusic


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## LudovicVDP (May 12, 2020)

@karelpsota I'm curious: which synth? Pretty sure it's the processing that is more important than the synth itself... bus still curious


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## karelpsota (May 12, 2020)

LudovicVDP said:


> @karelpsota I'm curious: which synth? Pretty sure it's the processing that is more important than the synth itself... bus still curious



Indeed, the synth is 100% irrelevant 

But for those curious, it's the basic saw wave in Serum ran through filters, disto and reverb within Serum. Then some extra stock Ableton amp and Pro-Q (just because the UI is bigger).

In the second version, I layered Tina Gua Cello Legato... with no legato. Same processing with SerumFX.

It could sound better with vintage emulations, but I prefer to work fast so I use whatever is easy.


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## LudovicVDP (May 12, 2020)

Thanks !! 
So fun, right?


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## AlexRuger (May 12, 2020)

DanPhaseMusic said:


> Hi Alex
> 
> Thanks very much for the reply. I'll try the things you said. At the risk of being cheeky i don't suposse you'd care to elaborate on what you meant when you talked about loads of the other techniques in this track ? I'd LOVE to know what you meant if your feeling generous !
> 
> ...


Nothing really specific...it's more of a general vibe and understanding of his production process. Having worked for Tom for a while, I'm just very familiar with his approach and school of thought. He's pretty rigorous about passing that on to the people that work for him, so I can hear it clearly. And beyond that, everyone that comes out of there ends up picking up a certain aesthetic as far as producing aggressiveness. It's just a color that I can easily pick out, having been around it for like two years straight.

Though, I also _know _that Christian and Aljoscha came up under him (Christian was gone by the time I got there, but Aljoscha and I worked together for about 9 months before he went back to Germany and began working with 2wei), so I'm sure that familiarity colors how I hear it. And it's not like Tom, like, _invented _every aspect of his sound...he's just taking influences and putting his spin on them his own way and developing stuff, moving things forward, as we all do...but he does a lot of things pretty specifically and has a well-defined sound in certain arenas, and like I said, teaches that quite extensively to the people that work for him.

I guess the bottom line is that I hear this track and go "ah, yeah, that's a Junkie alum." Just like how you might be able to hear that so and so came up under Hans, or whoever else, especially if you came up under him as well. People with strong sounds and well-defined approaches to producing those sounds often end up adding a dash of that color to the people that work for them -- it's pretty unavoidable.

It's way more than I'd ever care to go into in a post, and Tom's definitely described parts of his approach far better than I ever could elsewhere, e.g. Studio Time, so I'd say just dig into those.


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## DanPhaseMusic (May 21, 2020)

Sorry only just seen this thanks very much for the reply


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## nuyo (Jul 27, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> clearly some stac low strings patch probably OTT'd to hell



Does JXL and his people use OTT ? He has never talked about it and it seems like one of the tricks he definitly would have talked about in his videos ?


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## AlexRuger (Jul 27, 2020)

nuyo said:


> Does JXL and his people use OTT ? He has never talked about it and it seems like one of the tricks he would definitly would have talked about in his videos ?


It's probably for the best that I don't get too in the weeds with regards to what he does or doesn't use, etc. I don't want to come across as speaking for him, considering that I don't work for him anymore, and especially because he's so open on social media anyway. 

I'd say just go ahead and ask him yourself next time he does a Q&A!


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## synthesizerwriter (Jul 27, 2020)

The cellos are a good pointer that using this type of processing chain on orchestral samples can give some very useful textures that sit somewhere between real and synthetic... There are some very simple examples in my blog: https://blog.synthesizerwriter.com/2020/05/a-synthesizer-programmer-looks-at.html


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