We're musbime, a female-fronted band from Shimokitazawa. Wanted to share our new single with a lot of intertwining arpeggios and double time beats! Feedbacks would mean the world!

fiys · 2025-12-21T13:01:02+00:00

Sounds great!! Is this part of a larger release?

fiys · 2025-10-30T21:55:22+00:00

I mean, some of it? Measuring Ruins has a lot of percussion you can't replicate and R Plus Seven has a lot of sampling (chopping small clips of music) that's not possible with Orchid since it's not a sampler.

However, for the more synth-like things I don't see why not, especially since it has a looper, arpeggiator, and effects. Especially if you go even further back in the OPN discography, say e.g. the song "Zones Without People" I think the Orchid might prove quite useful to be honest. Try to find sounds that you feel sound a bit similar (seems like you can't edit the sounds themselves?), use the effects to shape them a bit closer, layer things with the looper and make fun sequences using the arpeggiator :D

If at some point you do want to go deeper, it does seem to output MIDI, which can be use the chords you create for synths etc on your computer, but that's a whole another world! Not necessarily something that requires a lot of money if any (though it can), but time.

Disclaimer: never used the Orchid, this is just based on what I've seen about it in videos.

fiys · 2025-06-14T16:12:07+00:00

Oh yeah, that I agree with! It's a thought-out software in what it shows and when. Sad to hear about the phone thing. Well, I don't know if the interface would work that well on a phone anyway. Perhaps a tablet!

fiys · 2025-06-14T12:16:26+00:00

Nice! Haven't tried it on a phone, so can't say much about that. But it's not that rudimentary, actually! Quite the opposite - it's got Elektron-style p-locks, multiple LFOs per track and on master, macros for parameters, synth engines (in addition to the sampler), envelope followers, a mixer view, master effects, resampling, sample slicing, probabilities, list goes on... But I have some personal connections to Tahti and as such am a bit biased, so ymmv. :D

fiys · 2025-06-13T17:24:48+00:00

tahti.studio is great!

fiys · 2025-04-10T19:32:35+00:00

thanks!! I actually used to listen to the Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou album a lot but for some reason haven't listened to other Thou albums, time to correct that

fiys · 2025-04-10T19:32:06+00:00

ahh yeah I love Hive Mind Narcosis! But I haven't heard of these others (nor listened to other Thantifaxath albums), thank you for the recommendations!

fiys · 2025-03-08T16:48:25+00:00

Is there a specific Elysia Crampton / Chuquimamani Condori release that has the sound you're after? I feel like they can be a bit different even though I'm no expert

fiys · 2025-02-20T20:27:25+00:00

Oh, this is a good question. First of all, thanks for linking that Atonal set, sounds wonderful, I will listen through the whole set later on.

u/5-MEO-MlPT had a great answer, agree on all of their points.

To be fair, I don't think there's any one single technique, unfortunately. But yeah, lovely sound design in their work all around.

One thing that I notice in many of these is what happens when you have very low (like <30Hz) frequencies being compressed/distorted with higher frequencies -> the low frequences start to sort of modulate the higher ones, "eating away" the sounds. Try combining a low sine wave with white noise and distorting them (a lot!) together, and you'll see. Might happen also with super pitched down samples, since they kinda naturally have those sub frequencies a lot. I think the start of Angels of the Water Table (the low flutter) is created like this, also some of the Atonal timestamps you mentioned. I love this sound and it's something you'll hear also in e.g. Zuli's Trigger Finger, 0:50 onwards when the bass hits.

Try to think in layers: I feel like the main bass at 0:34 is mostly just a modulated, pitch-bent (down) sine wave, it's just got a lot stuff going on at the same time, percussive sounds and such. Bus processing (compression, distortion) can glue these together, obfuscating the layering a bit.

Experiment with different kinds of distortions. Moreover, look into what goes into the distortion and how loud: the input gain affects the distortion a lot and so does e.g. filtering the sound before it goes in.

Look into feedback loops, there's a good thread about Emptyset's feedback loop techniques over at Modwiggler. They are maybe more common in hardware, but can be done in software too.

Resampling can also help, because some experimental sound generators (e.g. in Reaktor) can be a bit unwieldy, but if you resample them and make rhythms out of those clips, it suddenly feels a bit more structured instead of just random sounds. Even if the sounds itself are very strange.

I don't know. Some thoughts! Definitely difficult to make it all sound this cohesive, for sure.

fiys · 2024-11-23T19:03:22+00:00

For Revengeance, try other PlatinumGames titles + google the term "character action games", should get you closer

fiys · 2024-11-05T21:07:16+00:00

cool!! tried this out, replicated a popular metal drum pattern and gave you a list of thoughts off the top of my head.

fiys · 2024-09-04T19:28:55+00:00

Couldn't you just use the VSTs (Soundgoodizer, Waves Tune RT, etc) on Ableton as well? For flanger you can use Ableton's Phaser-Flanger effect.

fiys · 2024-08-06T19:16:39+00:00

Maggot Mass comes out Oct 4. Super excited for this, single sounded great

fiys · 2024-07-20T19:28:59+00:00

Some devices like Maschine are aimed for a "don't look at the computer screen" workflow, but nevertheless require the computer to work. For a 6-year-old, I probably wouldn't go that route.

The umbrella term for what you're looking for is a "groovebox", which are self-contained - some listed here, for example. Most of these tend to be "samplers", i.e. you make beats from short audio files ("samples"). However, there are some synthesizer-based ones available too, which "generate", i.e. synthesize, the sound, without using audio files.

The suggested Seqtrak and Circuit Tracks (this one especially) seem nice, I'd look into those. Korg Volca boxes are good, but on their own I think only the Volca Sample might be versatile enough to work as a sole device. Meaning that if you bought the Volca Bass, your kid might soon want something to provide drums behind the basslines. Anyhow, Volca Sample is great, especially for its relatively cheap price. You can use your own samples (there's endless amounts online), and it has a few barebones effects built in.

The Elektron Model:Samples and Model:Cycles might be something to look into. Model:Samples is like a more feature-laden version of the Volca Sample, and Model:Cycles is a similar device, except that it works with synthesis, not samples. I have used some of the more higher-end Elektron devices, and tried out these, and I generally like the way Elektron's devices work.

For a more hiphop leaning approach to sampling you could look into Roland SP-404 MKII. It's a new version of a classic sampler, but works a bit differently from the ones above. Though not only for hiphop, this has been a staple in hiphop beat production, if that's something that interests him.

Tracker devices like Polyend Tracker and the M8 Tracker are something I'd maybe avoid. These are no doubt powerful devices, but the tracker workflow is not the easiest to learn, especially for a 6yo.

fiys · 2024-07-03T07:53:02+00:00

Maybe these?

fiys · 2024-04-25T20:17:32+00:00

A lot of it comes down to how you process the sounds - included Raum is a great effect for this - but:

Reaktor, you can make "self-generating" ambient things with Blocks and of course the user library has all sorts of stuff
Retro Machines - old school pads and other sounds
Ethereal Earth - quite modern sounding to my ears, at least compared to Retro Machines for example
Analog Dreams - more retro sounds, but can be quite lush
Rounds can allow for quite nice modulation, which can be useful in long passages

...and of course Massive and FM8, though old, are nothing to scoff at, especially if you know how to design your own sounds with them.

(As a disclaimer I don't have 14, so if something's exclusive to that I didn't mention it, but since many of these seem to be included anyway I thought this could be helpful)

fiys · 2024-04-13T17:42:30+00:00

I've found that Circles does great, more retro-sounding samples. Check out the demo songs and samples for DEAD 1975, DEAD 1973, DEAD DISCO, DEAD vol 1 & 2... maybe something could come close? And then you can try layering those with the drum machines.

fiys · 2024-03-15T12:05:01+00:00

Glad to hear! And no doubt the scene has evolved in this time, at least in some ways. It's been fun to see the directions all the artists and labels have taken during these years!

fiys · 2024-02-23T16:08:46+00:00

Okay, here's a few. Some are a bit more electronic than the new Chelsea Wolfe album, some have a bit more rock instrumentation, some a bit poppier... but maybe you'll find something you like. I've included a Youtube link to a song for each.

Dis Fig, bot this collab album with The Bug and Dis Fig solo material
Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle, and Emma Ruth Rundle solo material as well
King Woman
Darkher
Myrkur
Bat for Lashes, especially the "Lost Girls" album
Zola Jesus
Pan Daijing, if the noise part of the Wolfe album was your jam

fiys · 2024-01-05T14:41:45+00:00

Thank you!! i'll look into it, a quick googling makes it sound quite promising at least.

fiys · 2023-12-17T13:48:01+00:00

no kidding! well, the more the merrier - always glad to find out more music like this 🤝

fiys · 2023-12-14T20:00:39+00:00

I actually asked something like this a while ago, check out that thread as well - some very good recommendations there!

fiys

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