Replace Moog Sub Phatty With Virus

[CleverConQueso]

Howdy-

I'm looking for advice on making a musically useful howling resonant filter lead and also a musically pleasant slow vintage-sounding filter sweep similar to what comes out of my Moog Sub Phatty almost without doing anything.

I'm hoping to consolidate down a bit for my live setup by replicating my favorite Sub Phatty patches onto the Virus. The Moog Sub Phatty has the notorious ladder filter which resonates so musically. I've given it a lot of thought and the way I've come to describe this to myself is that the resonant tone is thicker on the Moog. When I patch this through a delay (DL#7 on my Kaoss Pad KP# in my case.) you get these thick screaming howls that are loud and hard to ignore but musical and pleasant. Or when you LFO the filter slowly you can bring out this satisfying buzzes that pad the sound and give great depth and motion.

When I try to reproduce these on the TI by watching the very cool boot camp videos and using the 'how to program analog manual' the resulting resonance is more of a screech with a harsh high component to the tone that easily slips into a hold-your-ears/apologize/reach-for-the-mains sound rather that something you can tweak and fiddle. They suggest using the 'analog' option for the first filter then tweaking the saturation level and adding 'feedback 1' from the 'analog character' menu. Doing this and throwing the signal into a delay more serves to wash out the sound than showcase it when compared to what I'm getting out of the Moog.

I should mention that we're not looking to do a side by side replacement for the total sound, rather just trying to get at that aspect of filter behavior to give me something to fiddle with.

I downloaded a bunch of the sample Moog-style patches from the Virus site and they focus on other aspects of the Moog like modulation but not really on making the filter shimmer.

One of the (old) theories of why analogs sound nice is that the oscillators drift across the frequency a little causing the sound to appear thicker. Throw this into a delay and the wobbles are accentuated into a chorus. I imagine you could make the case that the filters used to drift a little too with the same resulting thickness. However, nowadays the devices are digitally stabilized so that have to put some f that stuff back in or simulate it elsewhere. I digress.

Any advice for making a musically pleasing, howling, screaming tweakable resonance sound?

Any advice on a similarly thick filter sweep?

Thanks,
-CCQ-

[TweakHead]

Well, I think you should be using the 4 pole analogue filter, because it's the closest there is to the Moog's 24db ladder filter on the Virus. I don't know if you're after the self oscillating sound by itself or combining it some other source. Either way, you can probably find some sweet spots for it and modulate only on that range: filter cutoff and resonance at the same time, with some soft knob locked to the range and settings you know that sound pleasant. But to be honest, you may want to put another low pass filter in series with cutoff link turned on, just to blend the harshness (digital kind) from the tops a bit, or use the EQ for the same purpose. I think you can get very close, but with a lot more work. I sometimes find that even adding effects like chorus with no movement on it can help make it sound more warm and "analogue" in some situations - even when going for a dry sound of another machine. Don't know... But my programming advice when dealing with more then one parameter is finding the sweet spots on the extremes and then placing the knobs there and placing the amounts so that it can only go from one sweet spot to the next - in between it usually sounds good to.

But if you're looking for that sound and you're able to use software, if you don't have such a wild beast like Monark or Diva - probably the best and fastest way to get there, try this one 'cause it's free:

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-noisemaker

and don't underestimate that one! it sounds better then most stuff you have to pay for! And I've done some experiments with self oscillating filter being modulated by an LFO myself with that, I'll show you the raw example:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...4/talcoiso.mp3

sorry for the ear piercing highs on this, but that's what I was testing atm. Cheers

[CleverConQueso]

Thank you, TweakHead. I love the TAL products. But as you guessed, I'm trying to stay all-hardware since it's for gigs.
Taming out the worst of the highs with a EQ, chorus and the second filter is a good idea. I've got a couple of stabs at the sound I want and also an example of what I'm hoping for. I'll post them here, good idea.
-CCQ-

[CleverConQueso]

Moog Sub Phatty -
Moog Sweep Dry > Moog Sweep Wet > Moog Wah Style Dry > Moog Wah Style Wet 1 > Moog Wah Style Wet 2
http://www.101si.com/sounds/Moog Examples.mp3

Three Virus TI patches first with no external delay then with.
http://www.101si.com/sounds/AV Examples.mp3

And the patches, mostly borrowed from BC.
http://www.101si.com/sounds/AV Examples.mid

<EDIT> Added two more patches using TweakHead's advice.
http://www.101si.com/sounds/take3and4.wav

[Berni]

Some good sampling stuff here, nice one. Don't worry about the newbie thing it just means you're new to the site. Mine says pro but I wouldn't go that far, Lol.

[oli@bass]

Originally Posted by CleverConQueso

They suggest using the 'analog' option for the first filter then tweaking the saturation level and adding 'feedback 1' from the 'analog character' menu.

I tried to find out what's exactly meant by that option but am unable to figure out. Would be nice if anybody could give some more detailed instructions about that options.

TIA

[oli@bass]

Originally Posted by oli@bass

I tried to find out what's exactly meant by that option but am unable to figure out. Would be nice if anybody could give some more detailed instructions about that options.

TIA

Never mind, found it.

It's in Episode 3 of the Bootcamp videos:
https://youtu.be/34mS_DhsVHA?t=3m47s

The Character option name is not "feedback 1" but "vintage 1".

[Timo]

Originally Posted by oli@bass

The Character option name is not "feedback 1" but "vintage 1".

Was scanning my Virus for that, the only "Feedback 1" option I'd seen refers to the delay/reverb rather than the character section.

Vintage 1 it is.