interesting phaeleh sounds

[titchbit]

I've been in kind of a slump for the past month. Part of the reason is because I feel like I haven't been making enough interesting sounds, everything feels really generic and stale to me. I'm trying to make some patches similar to some of these background sounds you can hear in Phaeleh's song Plateau (below). I'm not really sure how, so if someone could give me some input on how to make the following sounds, that would be much appreciated.

1) at 0:58, when the drums stop, there are these really nice background noises that I have no clue where to even begin creating.
2) then at 1:07, there's this really cool zippy sounding thing that sweeps up and down. Not sure how to make something like that either. it sounds very bubbly/zippy, not sure how else to describe it. almost like it's being arpeggiated at an extremely fast rate. It persists throughout the song.
3) at 3:47, a very interesting pad fades in and then out at like 4:07. it sounds very bubbly and echoey, but in a digital kind of way, but that description doesn't do it justice. I have no idea how to get that kind of movement in a pad.

note: I'm not trying to make this exact song, but I want to make patches like these so I can use them in my own songs and change them in my own ways, but I think if I had these patches, that would be a good place to start.



Also, to get a better idea of sound #2 above, I'm pretty sure Phaeleh used the same patch in the following song from 5:07 - 5:25ish.

[Add9]

The zippy thing sounds like a saw or square wave with the pitch modulated like crazy, probably either manual automation or a series of envelopes or lfos modulating each other to get unpredictable pitch motion. Or it could be a sample that he messed around with. And then of course lots of reverb and delay on it.

The pad actually sounds like a really fast arpeggio to me rather than an actual pad.

[mthrfnk]

He has a masterclass video out, it was pretty good from what I remember, might be on YouTube - if so check it out, since he goes through his pads and plonky sounds.

[ActionJesus]

1 and 2 sound like a dub siren.
3 is a more complicated patch, dunno tbh

[titchbit]

He has a masterclass video out, it was pretty good from what I remember, might be on YouTube - if so check it out, since he goes through his pads and plonky sounds.

Yeah I've seen that one. It was a while ago, so I would probably learn some new stuff if I watched it now given what I've learned since the last time I saw it. It was taken down off youtube though.



Anyway, I hate to do something like this and I know it's kinda frowned upon, but I wouldn't ask this if I wasn't in a serious slump right now. It's never been this long since I've finished a song since I started producing. I think all that energy I had when I first started has slowly run out. But anyway, if anyone has some really cool patches for things like this that they want to share, I would be very grateful. I use sylenth massive & FM8.

[GregoryTJ]

Soundcloud

Simple stuff. Triangle and saw with delay and reverb, automate the pitch way up and down.
Fade from saw to triangle with pitch env or keytracking. boost the lows.

He may have used portamento time instead of pitch envs, in my remake I used both.

There is also a good chance he used filter automation of some kind on this sound as well later in the song and in the second song.

for the pad thing
arpeggio of some sort on a lowpassed triangle with tons of reverb (mostly wet)
and maybe a fade in volume env to cut some of the transients

He also may have automated a peak with keytracking or an env. I did not do this in my remake.

That is it.

[mthrfnk]

Bitcrushing might also be a good thing to add on that sound above, to give it a more digital edge.

[titchbit]

I'm looking for that zippy sound though. I tried that suggestion - a saw and a triangle, reverb, delay, and bitcrushing. Put an envelope on pitched and messed around with it, and put an LFO on distortion amount (in sylenth). Still not getting that zippy sound from #2 though. If anything it sounds like #1, which is good and I like that, going to keep this patch, but I mainly want to get that zippy sound from #2.

Thanks guys

[mthrfnk]

If you mean something like this:
https://soundcloud.com/spectrafunk/dsf/s-0mF9t

Then just automate the pitch as you want (I cba mimicking the way the pitch modulates in the Phaeleh song) and automate the wavetable in Massive to go from saw to square in a similar way to the pitch bending. Bitcrush & reverb to taste.

[titchbit]

Maybe I'm not being clear. Listen to 2:41 from Plateau. It sounds "zippy", that's the best word I can think of to describe it. Like it literally sounds almost as if it's being arpeggiated very very quickly. Or maybe a saw/square shaped LFO on volume at a rate of 1/64 or something. I dunno

I'm talking about right when the patch begins playing, because it transforms into a more "continuous" sound via some sort of automation after only a second or 2. Maybe this is an FM thing....

[mthrfnk]

Tbh I'd suggest messaging him, he's replied to me on Twitter before, he's also on the forum iirc.

[titchbit]

Good idea I'll look into that

[cset]

Sounds like a granular effect to me. Modulating grain size, pitch, and density. The source sound isn't that important in this case.

I've used U-He Uhbik-G extensively on this track, check out the background noises just before and into the breakdown - from 2.40 to 3.00 - I'm pretty sure that's what you're looking for.

[Blingley]

Typical Psytrance sound. A saw wave, or two slightly detuned from each other, ran through a bandpass. Modulate bandpass frequency and the note frequency to opposite directions. Apply distortion/compression/reverb/delays.