Commodore Remix

A piece by Hubbard that I've been wanting to remix in the Berlin School genre for some time now... the original is a real masterpiece in my opinion, and rather complex, but I think I managed to replicate the first part pretty ok... it's one of those tunes that need to have some of the original sound in the remix to get the spirit of the original into the remix....

The sound you hear is a patch that I created on an Evolver Desktop synthesizer using it's build in sequencer. The patch took about 2-3 hours to complete... it's one of those typpical Hubbard sounds with sync between oscillators, so it took some tweaking and analyzing of the original to get the tone right.

I tried to give it the same "sound", but still add something different... hope I succeeded (?)... in the end, some stereo delay will be added or some other FX, not sure yet...

The Synth:



The Sound:

http://razmo.ziphoid.com/DeltaIngame.mp3

OK... I found that the sound was a bit too C64 like... it needed more personality, but still have the feel of the original somehow... tell me what you think

It's still only the Desktop Evolver playing, but I separated the two sounds in the stereo field, and placed a delay in dead center.... gives a better panorama in my opinion.

well, this is nothing that I would listen to - It fits good within the Game, if you are focused to play "Delta" as a "background-noise". And that`s exactly what it is; some noise. Not what I would call Music X)

Anyways you did your best to create some effects on your own.

SarahKreuz31 wrote:well, this is nothing that I would listen to - It fits good within the Game, if you are focused to play "Delta" as a "background-noise". And that`s exactly what it is; some noise. Not what I would call Music X)

Anyways you did your best to create some effects on your own.

It's "Berlin School" (try listening to some Tangerine Dream) which is probably the reason... the original was inspired heavily on Pink Floyd if I recall right, which had some Berlin School elements in it... if you do not know the genre of Berlin School muic, I can understand your point of view ... but music it WILL be... in the end... but maybe it depend on the listener

Oh yes I like this!! oh yes I do.. The only! and I mean only! bit that sounds 'off' is around the 2:05 mark where the higher notes come in' it's very abrupt but its a wip so hell can't argue.. Delta's always been one ( and I'm a Galway boy heh ) of my fave Rob tunes because of the way it feels compared to his other work and your version hit's all the er..er .. right notes heh

You planning on turning this into a fully fledged version? Hmm

AndyUK wrote:Oh yes I like this!! oh yes I do.. The only! and I mean only! bit that sounds 'off' is around the 2:05 mark where the higher notes come in' it's very abrupt but its a wip so hell can't argue.. Delta's always been one ( and I'm a Galway boy heh ) of my fave Rob tunes because of the way it feels compared to his other work and your version hit's all the er..er .. right notes heh

You planning on turning this into a fully fledged version? Hmm

I have to add, that everything you hear in the demo is live played... nothing is sequenced, and I actually use the pitch-wheel to make those bend notes which is a bit "rough" ... even the filter sweeps is live-tweaked too... this is sort of like the typpical Berlin School way of doing it, but I'll certainly automate my movements when the final tune is done... I'm a perfectionist, so don't worry

In fact I've worked on the Evolver patch some more today... one thing I had a problem with was that the bassline was not playable by itself... both the bass and arpeggio followed eachother on the keyboard which made it impossible to make the bass notes of the piece, as the arpeggio pattern always stays the same.

I sorted this by removing the arpeggiated oscillator from MIDI, so now I can play the tune right.

One of the problems with many of hubbards sounds is that it involves ringmodulating or syncronizing two oscillators together... on hardware synths this is not really a problem, but it becomes a problem because Rob almost always play two different melodies with the two synced/ringmoded oscillators... that's what gives his tunes these wonderful FX'ed and tuned textures... the problem with this is, that almost no other synths than the C64 SID chip allow you to control the oscillators on different MIDI channels... had the Evolver not had that build in sequencer it would not have been possible to do this.

And yes... I have plans on turning this into a fullfledged version that last AT LEAST those 11-12 minutes that the original did, and very possibly also much longer... normal Berlin School tracks can easily last for more than 30 minutes... and either you like this genre or you don't.... normaly Berlin School is completely percussionless, but I think I'll try to see if I can make it a bit percussive at times as well, but this I have not yet decided.

One thing I'm certain of is, that this piece will end up sounding VERY analog... because I intend on using only analog gear with it... it's kind of like a Berlin School signature sound, that it's analog.

Thanks for your reply AndyUK...

I'll have to look into this Berlin sound you speak of.

Very good emulation of the original, looking forward to seeing what you will do with the end result.

Analog-X64 wrote:I'll have to look into this Berlin sound you speak of.

Very good emulation of the original, looking forward to seeing what you will do with the end result.

CHeck out this site ANX, and make a search on Berlin School... there is lot's of video's on the subject

http://www.synthtopia.com/

You can also always search on YouTube for "Berlin School" or names like Klaus Shultse, Redshift (Mark Shreeve), Ashra, Tangerine Dream....

The typical Berlin School music was invented in the 70's... they used analog sequencers to make rhythmic pulsating bassriffs that they constantly change over time by tweaking knobs on the instruments... it's usualy very monotone, but still progressively dynamic, often being played along to with pads on other synths... rarely any percussion is present... it's music to relax to, and float away... in fact Trance Music today is an offspring from this genre... many call Klaus Shultse the godfather of Trance Music because of this...

Thanks Razmo

I'm going to record a "Berlin School" just for you

Wow, Razmo!
You've nailed it, dude!

Totally brilliant!

Can't wait for the full version!

penguin wrote:

Wow, Razmo!
You've nailed it, dude!

Totally brilliant!

Can't wait for the full version!

Thank you Penguin... glad you like it so far ... it's just one of those pieces that need care in getting the original feel... in my opinion at least, so I'll do my best.

Top stuff Razmo..
You have nailed the sound, and atmosphere perfectly, and playing it live

Agree with you about this being a top Hubbard classic, the use of filters for 1986-7 is amazing....

Paul

Danceaway wrote:Top stuff Razmo..
You have nailed the sound, and atmosphere perfectly, and playing it live

Agree with you about this being a top Hubbard classic, the use of filters for 1986-7 is amazing....

Paul

I agree... the filters is very important in this tune, as well as the sync'ed bass and arpeggio... without this sync you would not nail the sound as well... especialy when the bassline starts to use vibrato or bends, cause this is when the arpeggio start to have this special metallic sound... the sync effect is not really apparent until you start to analyse the sound, but the arpeggio is synced to the underlying bass, so that when the bass plays higher notes than the arp, the arp start to sound metallic which is why Hubbard placed all those big bends and vibrato, since that makes the sync effect much stronger. That, combined with the filter makes the sound. Luckily the Evolver synth has digital distortion which is used here to give it that edgy sound of the original SID V1-4 distortion resulting from bad resonance...

And thank you for the comment

Messed around with the Patch again... check the link above... Added more modulation and more bass variation.
Still, it's live tweaking, so don't expect notes to be on time... it's still just messing around with the preset... none of the arrangement has been done yet at all...

I decided to use an external FX processor for the delay this time, and centeret both arpeggio and bass... think I'm done with the patch now...