Lead Patches

TheWeeeez · Joined: Apr 10, 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Florida

Hey everybody. I'm brand new to the board as well as brand new to the 2X rack mount. I just wanted to start a thread on your favorite analog synth leads(artists/songs) and ideas on how to approach recreating them. I'm not sure if any of yall are into the same stuff as I am but I figure thats all for the better. there are two leads I'm trying to work on right now, Jan Hammer's solo on Stratus(Billy Cobham/Spectrum), and Herbie Hancocks Chameleon lead. Chick Corea had some amazing patches with Return to Forever featuring Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke, & Lenny White. I know the presets have some stuff that they site some of these guys but they don't have the guts that i hear out of some nord leads i've seen on stage. Thanks for your time and I look forward to future discussions on this forum.

Wout Blommers · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:32 am Post subject:

Are you sure all these guys are playing the NordLead?

Wout

EdisonRex · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:42 am Post subject: Re: Lead Patches

TheWeeeez · Joined: Apr 10, 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Florida

Wow Edison. what an awesome post!

Wout, certainly none of these cats were playing a nord lead but the nord is comperable in mechanics to analog synths of the time.

duplicating the filter settings of a minimoog is exactly what i'm talking about. The rolloff dB tips are great. were these guys mostly using saw waves?

Has anybody heard of the band Raq? they have anasty keys player who uses two nord leads in his rig. man does he rip. check em out.

www.raqmusic.com/

EdisonRex · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 4:07 am Post subject:

Other than the classic buzzsaw lead (all sawtooths), harmonically, pulse waveforms are more interesting. On Return To Forever's Where Have I Known You Before(1974, Polydor 825 206-2), on the first track, was a particular solo timbre which was more a combination of saw and pulse mixed, with a non-resonant filter stopped down.

Harmonically a sawtooth is the richest. If you look on a spectrum analyser you can see that a sawtooth wave has all harmonics, where a 50% pulse has only odd harmonics. When you sum a saw and a square you get a doubling of the odd harmonics, yielding a more "woodwindy" sound. A lot of those fusion players didn't go in for high Q settings on their filters either.

Also watch the envelope settings both for filter stopdown and VCA attack and decay. A little (and I mean a little) increased attack on VCA with a slightly longer attack on filter cutoff boost gives a nice breath attack, for example.

The Nord is particularly suited for these kinds of sounds, by the way. Try a saw on VCO 1, 50% pulse on VCO2, set the filter to 12dB rolloff and play around with the Fc and you'll see what I'm talking about. Also change the VCO2 pulse width, which changes the harmonic structure, and you can see how much you can change the timbre.

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:44 am Post subject:

Good advice!

Trivia:
Live sound is something else. Consider that there might be limiters/compressors/preamps/transformers and such in the signal path. You will also perceive a loud mix differently. The room will add some artifacts and in general everything is driven more hot than you would ordinarily do in a studio.

When you want to recreate a certain synth lead you must also consider the signal path.

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:02 am Post subject:

I´m sure it will not be uncommon say 7 years from now to have emulation/convolution devices in hardware synths. These will add various "famous" signal paths. Laughing

EdisonRex · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:05 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:13 am Post subject:

TheWeeeez · Joined: Apr 10, 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Florida