i dont think fatness is a case of a number of oscillators. the purest, biggest sounds i come up with (not necessarily in volume mind you but in terms of presence) are single oscillator sounds. pure saw on audiorealism bassline. i can only imagine what its like on a real TB but i can hear the difference in my 303 lines with those of fatali on the track city of god. theres a lovely warm analogue hiss and warmth and a slight pfffhhhh kind of muffled fuzz along with the sound thats gorgeous on the real TB.
the more oscillators i pile on the virus, the more complex the sound becomes but it loses its purity in the process. pure sine basses and pure saw 303 type leads. those are the kinds of sounds i try to get in the music i write. and i think they sound much bigger than some of the more complex patches i produce. im going through i phase where im going back to basics and discovering some of the purity and simplicity in sound. i think ive been bogged down too much with multi oscillator, multi filtered, multi effected, multi timbral patches.
unison? thats one way of making a sound artificially bigger. increasing the volume is a not so subtle way of making a sound bigger. as is distorting/overdriving it.
the jp's supersaw imho sounds fat. but not when you over do it. when you overdo the detune, overdo the chorus it loses its purity. its a really fine line but retaining some of that simplicity and just enough of the pure saw wave sound, it really sounds amazing to my ears.
i think when i talk about fatness im referring to a quality that a sound has. in particular, a warmth and a presence without the need to artificially increase it via bass boost type effects/overdrives/compressors/unisons.
in the case of TBs - sure a good distortion only makes it sound better (especially for some hard psy leads. HELL YEA!) but you dont feel as if you need to heap on the effects to get it sound better. it already sounds great and big and FAT. all the effects you put on it, that just accentuates an already great sound. just accentuate an already BIG sound. pretty shit description i know because i havent really described it - jsut described everything around it and said 'well its not that'
but you get the idea right?
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