Anybody got any tips on turning those thin, whiny digital saw waves into a nice fat OB-Xa analog sound? Nothing I try - effects, chorus, messing with the TVF, LFO's - works at all.

I'm using a Roland XP-80 with the Vintage Synth expansion board, if that helps.

The quickest way to create the sound you need is by starting with a preset that is at least close to what you are looking for. The "Jump" sound is in the synth brass category. So audition some of your synth brass type presets then when you find one that is close to the sort of sound for playing the "Jump" line, and then tweak the synth parameters until you find the tone you are looking for. Apart from saving you a lot of time you will also learn from existing patches and the tweaking will give you a feel for what each of the parameters do.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 06-16-2003).]

Well, I know what all the parameters I'm messing with actually do. The problem is I can't find a way to manipulate those parameters to get a sound that rich. The modulation on the XP-80 all seems too fast, and every sound comes out without that sort of fuzzy "breaking" in the wave. Anybody have any ideas?

Not too familiar with the XP-80. Are you able to set individual gains for the parameters. I've got the sound for it created within my T3, no distortion, but I had to really tweak the individual gains on each parameter, particularly the Brass blend.
Just my thots....

What settings did you modify? (Cutoff seems to work well, but then there's not enough bass in the sound.)

Let me check and I'll get back to you. My keys are at my rehearsal place right now. Gimme a day or two. ..L

This is a simple thing. There's a lot of that SAWTOOTH sound in many synths. What I did was layered 2 voices or program then set the other one to a lower octave.

Dan

I tried the octave-layering technique. It made it sound like two thin, cheezy digital saw waves instead of one.

The trouble is ridding the sound of that "smoothness" that all digital synthesizers seem to have...

Use two identical sounds (sawtooth eg) and detune each slightly for fattness. That was the key to the mimimoogs' success, only with THREE sources.

Do you mean detuning as in setting the pitch a fraction of a step off, or as in applying a random-wave LFO to constantly change the pitch in fractions of a step?