What are these sounds? How do I acheive them?

A

aceover9

New member
I am using FL Studio.

First one is right at the beginning of this song:

DJ JAZZY JEFF & THE FRESH PRINCE - SUMMERTIME (STREET RECLUB MIX) - YouTube

Sounds like some kind of organ. It's modulating in some fashion I believe. Opening and closing. I have no idea where to start to try to get this sound going.



The second one is harder to place:

DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince - Summertime (Jazzy Jeff's Mix) - YouTube

Starts a little into 5 seconds in when the minor intro completes and the main beat kicks in. There's that subtle sound in the background. Again it sounds kind of like an organ or maybe a muffled piano. Many songs have subtle backings like this to fill the song and set a tone and I can't seem to find or achieve anything like that.


Last one (kinda):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ehdgvOYQI

OK, I know that HAS to be a piano at the very beginning but it's got something done to it so that it makes it very nice and atmospheric. It fills the song well. My songs always suffer from not having something like that to back them up. It sounds like it's the same instrument that comes in during the second chorus at 1:56. It sort of flutters in and fades out, flutters in fades out (repeats). It sounds amazing and I've thought of something similar for a song I have but... no luck on achieving it.

I have the same problem finding good strings like you hear in songs like this:

DYNASTY WARRIORS 7 BGM - Hide Emotion

Which I've posted here before. People were gracious enough to link me to some products but they were all out of my price range. It would be nice to know where to start on engineering a similar sound out of something like sytrus or some kind of 3x Osc VST. Something free. Or at least cheaper.






Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
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First two are rhodes or other electric piano. One has a phaser/flanger on. Your daw probably has a phaser, if not, get the free blue cat one: it's nice.
You can probably get a rhodes just by googling rhodes vst or electric piano vst.

Third track, the piano might have a bit of chorus on, but I'm not very sure about that, and I could be wrong.

You can't make realistic sounding instruments using a synth. You really need samples or sample based instruments.
I quite like the free 'orchestral strings one'.
 
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I'll try that definitely! Thanks!

With a sample based instrument would there not be more to it than just implementing a sample? How much EQing goes in to making a set of strings sound like the fourth video posted above?
 
rhodes with its own modulation (they shipped with phasers built in) for tracks 1, 2 and 3

what you hear at 1:56 in the 3rd is an arpeggio played 3 times on a rhodes. there is also a more substantial piano playing block chords behind it

try these two freebies

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/4front_e_piano_module_by_4front_technologies

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/4front_rhode_by_4front_technologies


as for synthesising strings Walter (now Wendy) Carlos would disagree with you as would several other prominent electronic based musicians/composers such as Tomita and the companies that produce the synths in the first place

the mks80 and the tx812/212/dx7 (from the mid 80's) had great string simulations. My string lines created in the 70's on a roland modular system 100 were believable as were many others who used moog, korg, yamaha and roland synth modules to create their sounds

for the track concerned using a saw wave, slow attack, fast decay, moderate sustain and moderate release on the vca and filter should get you close

for better emulation using a library like miroslav philharmonick or any of the string libraries for kontakt or even garritan gpo will get you there quickly. the key is not so much eq as levels and choosing the right articulation from the library - in this case you would use a lush sound and then bring the levels down so that it is not taking over the mix
 
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Awesome. Thanks for the info. I'll check some of those suggestions out first thing when I get back into the studio tomorrow (more accurately today).

Those two freebies you mentioned... were there supposed to be links? I didn't see any in the post.

I hope some of those suggestions for the strings are free or at least cheap.

Thanks again!
 
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