"Weird" spanish synth melodies

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
buffered
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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by buffered »

Alot of that stuff is done with simple modular patching. it’s more by ear and practice. Not really musical theory. Simple sequences being modulated by a simple system with varied cv timings. Turing machines, noise to s&h then quantised etc. also delays are being used. Run a five step rhythm with a 8 step filter cutoff pattern then decay controlled with non synced lfo etc. Dunno, just what I hear.

buffered
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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by buffered »

Also instead of trying to make it sound good, start by trying to make the most fucking annoying 5 note sequence, let it run for 30mins, then whack a kick drum under it. Dial back to something decent.

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by Lost to the Void »

buffered wrote:Alot of that stuff is done with simple modular patching. it’s more by ear and practice. Not really musical theory. Simple sequences being modulated by a simple system with varied cv timings. Turing machines, noise to s&h then quantised etc. also delays are being used. Run a five step rhythm with a 8 step filter cutoff pattern then decay controlled with non synced lfo etc. Dunno, just what I hear.
It really isn't.
Mulero doesn't use modular
Nor does Reeko.
Polegroup typical sound is quite fm. There was a thread about it here a few years back.

Stanni uses old russian/Ukrainian synths.

Overcomplication....

This is basically millsian/hood-esque bleep territory with clonkier sounds.
Mash keyboard (or use modal sequences), loop. Maybe loop polyrhythmically.
Use simple metallic fm sounds or analog fm, play with envelopes.
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buffered
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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by buffered »

Yep you’d know more than most. I guess what I meant was in terms of sequencing, keep it simple. A few routings. Let it run.

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

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Yeah, for sure. Keep it simple, retain movement and variation within the sound itself.
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over9000
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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by over9000 »

thx for the tips prophän & hades

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by Prophän »

I did a quick experiment to try what what suggested and here is what I came up with so far :

I made a simple patch in live's operator, nothing fancy a triangle and a square routed individually (no fm) both detuned short amplitude envelopes, square wave is weaker in volume tho, I also modulated the square wave's volume using a high range square lfo, I put the patch in mono mode, and send the channel to some delay.

I put a Phrygian mode scale on the track. and proceed to record, then , I litterally smash random notes for 15 seconds or so, then I quantize to the 1/16 using a big but not perfect amount of quantization (something like 94% for example), then you make your loop 5 sixteenth long and just cycle trough the loop until you find a part you like.

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by Amøbe »

while it's not a bad idea to try out some other scales, I really don't think that the character in your examples comes from the scale. Besides the last one it doesn't sound dissonant or very foreign to my ears. I think that the synth sound (and modulation of that) combined with some atmospheric processing will get you closer to something like that.

In regards of making those riffs, then they sound like standard motifs (as they have for the last 600 years). Try and do something like step movement countered by leaping movement or only three notes in one direction before you change direction (or a combination three steps upward and a leap down). These are good rules of thumbs.

And no arpeggios.

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by Prophän »

Amøbe wrote: Try and do something like step movement countered by leaping movement or only three notes in one direction before you change direction (or a combination three steps upward and a leap down). These are good rules of thumbs.

And no arpeggios.
Not sure if I understand correctly

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Re: "Weird" spanish synth melodies

Post by Amøbe »

Prophän wrote:
Amøbe wrote: Try and do something like step movement countered by leaping movement or only three notes in one direction before you change direction (or a combination three steps upward and a leap down). These are good rules of thumbs.

And no arpeggios.
Not sure if I understand correctly
If you have a standard western scale (like the phrygian). It consists of 8 steps (the eight being the octave). Harmony is the end product that comes when more than one melody is played at the same time - this is what's called counterpoint (and this is also were we find the source of chords). So if you stay in a scale you're more or less safe as far as making sure things don't sound off.

Now you can jump around this scale in a few different ways step wise (going from step 3 to 4 to 5) or you can leap (step 3 to 5 to 8). basic rule of western counterpoint states that step wise motion works best if it's counterbalanced by leap wise. Another rule is that a melody shouldn't go in one direction (up or down the scale) in much more than three moves.

Now keep in mind these are rules made for baroque church music, so don't follow them too much. But a lot of great melodies still moves like this :)

EDIT: By saying no arpeggios I meant don't just to play triads - you don't have to move much away from a triad for something to sound spacy and psychedelic and shit (stuff like step 1-2-5 sounds great for instance)


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