Whats the Sound in Ludacris - The Potion??

B

Big Money Dilly

New member
Hey Guys,

Im trying to figure out the sound for the main melody of The potion.

Im thinking it must be a wind instrument thats been messed with or something, but i could be wrong, and it cud be a synth sound. My friend reckons it sounds like a cheap sound from an old Spectrum computerm but im not sure bout that.

Any ideas? i wanna work out how to make a sound like that, it would be an interesting learning experience.

Thanks!
 
Thanks Kossae, i think i'll download the Reason demo and check on this.

I was thinking lastnite too, if i had reason, would i be able to hook my comp to my fantom X, and have one of the channels on my Fantom X Sequencer take in a sound from reason? So i can have most of my track going on from the fantom's internal sound generator, with the external sound from a software program using one of the channels!!

Might be the wrong place to post that question, but it was on my mind.

Anyways, im gonna check on this sound designing from reason now!
 
Is it really a lead from the Motif?

I saw the video with timbo showing that beat off to Jay-Z from within his Korg Triton.

I like the sound because of the fluidity of it. It has consistency, and doesnt break or lose anything. Its like a really nice wind instrument but it isnt, if ya know what i mean. How would i go about making one. What Waveforms? Im guessing Sinewave, but dunno if any other wave wud be needed.
 
It's like a sine with a little noise (tweaked the cut and res) and a little bit of a soft attack. I'm sure it's not that simple and I may be totally off.

I doubt it's a preset. If you look at the beatmaking videos thread in the newbie forums and download the 'fade to black studio sessions' video. At 7:56 he plays the 'potion' beat, right before he stands up to eat the rest of his banana. I don't know where he's getting the sound from, probably a sound module off-camera. But he starts the sequence on a keyboard that's under his triton, I can't make out what it is. It's a smaller workstation, only 61 keys (I counted 5 octaves in the video). Though it might be a 76 key station but the way it lines up on his stand I'm pretty sure it's a 61.

As for my attention to detail - what can I say... I'm a fan of his.
 
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that keyboard under the triton is his ASR 10 i think. probably has the triton and other modules hooked to an instrument in the ASR. but...i digress
 
As for my attention to detail - what can I say... I'm a fan of his.
Click to expand...

I'll add my name to that list. Out of all producers, timbaland continuously impresses me with what he does. And always has the longest lead times when trying to work out how he's done something.

I just love what he's done on LLcoolJ's latest album. Im trying to figure out how he got them drums on 'Feel the beat' by LLcoolJ, since they are absolutely what ive been trying to make myself for a beat ive been working on. They sound like 60's/70's studio drums. (think i might post another thread for that)

I did have a mess around with a sinewav patch. Didnt get very far.
 
yea in the FTB video he has a triton and an asr 10 so the sound could be sampled and then brought into the asr 10 im sure u could make t hat sound in reason's subtraktor or the malstrom. BUT then again lol he uses LOTS of vsts (their is secret weapons he says lol) so i wouldnt be surprized if its from some vst we all know about or even a freie one.
 
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its funny how tim puts a triton in front of the camera to make it look like he actually uses it, but dont be fooled he don't use a triton, he may have one in the studio but you'll never hear any triton sounds on his production. his main piece of equipment is the asr-10 and through that comesheavy sampling. Throughout the years tim was known as a keyboard producer but in reality much of his production is sampling and that sound from "potion" more than likely is a sample than a synth patch. in the early days you could here more synth than sampling from his beats (a la ginuwine, aaliyah's first albums) he had alot of roland sounds in those productions. these days it sounds like he's going for that lo-fi sound especially with his drums, its cool it shows evolution and how he's switched up the sound over the years, even the neptunes have switched it up going for that simplistic sound and they no longer use those spacey kicks and snares that they would use on every beat, now they use alot of 808 sounds.
 
The descending sound that sounds like a horse shaking its mouth? (if ya know what i mean), how you know Timbo is doing that?

The main melody doesnt sound like a flute to me, is that what you was meaning by "The flute sound is an indian flute with phat modulation"?

Hmmm insightful to the descending sound though, cheers!
 
Hello...I think this is my first post in here. I have another question...Timbo's percussion that I hear in alot of his productions...the door slamming/tom sound...what sound is that? He, by far, is the best! his shyt amazes me.
 
What's the world comin to when people don't know what a sine wave sounds like... Ah well, I didn't know what the 808 sounded like til about 6 months ago lol. Elaborate on the sound ur talkin about or give a song example Proper.

And yup, Timbaland's definitely my second favorite, within 1 millionth of the Neptunes. I just like them a lil more because they're more personable.

-Donovan
 
Yep oALTAIRAo, it does sound like a sine wave, but i think we both know timmy did a lil processing on it. Maybe its a bit of filtering to get the right texture, and some clever knob turns. I was just messing with a sin wave on my Fantom-X and it sounds real similar, so im just guessing its my inexperience that can't get it to sound that nice.

Also, i just had an accidental breakthrough with that decending sound. That decending sound, to me is just the same sin wave with a square wave LFO on it. Then give it a pitch depth of around -10, and then hit a note and use the pitch bender and u basically get an oscillating squarewave (that is self-oscillating and self-looping to keep sustaining itself) that is descending (due to the pitch bending down. - I feel im on the right track with that decsending sound, but mine sounds terrible compared to Dj Timmy Tim's. I'll work on it sometime, its a great way to learn synthesis simply by figuring out things like this.

Anyways, i thought id share that with you, and hope it is of use to some people. Keep working on it if anyone is trying to get these sounds figured out.

Peace!
 
When you guys talk about that descending sound, are you talking about the sliding coo sound? I've been trying to figure that one out also. I thought it was just some sort of sampled wind instrument. I'll have to fool around with the sine waves tonight.
 
no, the descending sound that 'im' talkin bout is the sound that comes in every 4 or 8 bars or something. It just is a sound that is kinda sounds like, umm, its descending in pitch :).

But the original post was about the main melody of the song, but both sounds are interesting. They both have the same texture too, so im guessing they're both made from the same sound.
 
It's descending because of "portamento"... Look it up.

And it's funny how people always worship Tim and his sound skills. I love Timbo, my second favorite producer of all time, but you gotta realize he's been doin this since before a lot of us were born. He BETTER be makin some hott crazy out there ish! :)

-Donovan
 
portamento. That's the glide effect u get when going from note to note right?

Is your thinking on this, that tim is simply, playing a downward scale pressing each note and the portamento is giving this effect?

I dont think thats the case. i believe if u did that then portamento wud just make the note glide into the next note, but doesnt aid the 'stuttering' nature of that sound, if ya know what i mean ;)

Have a go wit the square wave, to get what i mean. Simply a self oscilating square wave sounds almost just like that sound.

This post is funny. I mean, i asked the question, and over time ive come to work alot of it out lol!

Hey oALAIRAo, i was thinking the same thing, bout how these dudes have been doing this stuff for years and we're merely beginners. I was saying that just to tell myself to stop rushing and just let time take its course, since im not gonna quit music now, im just gonna get better!
 
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