This is part of the bass line from a synthesizer waltz that I’m composing. The sound was played on the Roland Juno-106, which I can’t seem get enough of these days. No processing was applied. All you hear is the chorus along with the LFO modulating the VCF for a long, slow filter sweep. Oh yeah, and I was manually tweaking the cutoff, and probably the envelope amount as well.
Speaker Rattling Filtered Saw Octaves
Dear ACB readers, I am looking for a Roland MKS-80 rack mount synthesizer preferably with the companion MPG-80 programmer as shown in the photo above. I have a very specific project in mind using the GMS and something like the MKS-80 together. There are several of these synths available on eBay and even a few on craigslist (although not in my area). Unfortunately the prices seem somewhat inflated, so I am asking around the old fashioned way. Please contact me directly (keston [at] audiocookbook [dot] org), or in the comments, if you know of one available for sale. If you sell me yours you’ll have the pleasure of being able to hear sounds and phrases that I produce with it here on ACB, and a mention in the liner notes for the second Ostracon album. Thanks!
One thing I hadn’t explored yet on the Roland Juno-106 is how well it produces synthesizer effects. This is the sort of sound that I would normally create using my Sequencial Circuits Pro-One, and admittedly the filter on the Pro-One is a little more agressive, but I decided to give it a go on the 106. This sound was made using the filter self-resonance discussed in detail in the article Eerie Pseudo Oscillator Microtrack. Using the LFO on the VCF creates the wobble, then I adjusted the LFO manually for speed modulation.
Resonant Wobble
I found this synthetic guitar-like sound on my Roland Juno-106, tweaked it a little bit, and then ran it through some delay and reverb. The envelope gives it a similar sound to an electric guitar played clean. If I wanted it to sound more realistic I would stagger the attacks and perhaps distort the signal, but I like the synthetic nature of it. If I wanted a realistic guitar, then I’d record some guitar. Imitating acoustic or even most electro-mechanical instruments with synthesizers is something that was a necessary step in the evolution of synthesis and modeling. These days we appreciate how synthesis sounds apart from the modeling and reproduction of traditional instrumentation.
Juno-106 Synthetic Guitar
I produced this arpeggio on the Casio CZ-1000 using an upward pattern over several octaves.
CZ1000 Upward Arpeggio