Vangelis / Blade Runner sound

Synth / August 24, 2010 / John / 0

This is a gorgeous gorgeous rich sound and I use it all the time. The patch is pretty straight forward on a microkorg:

1. Turn off write protect and initialise a sound bank to the defaults
2. Add a second oscillator (Saw wave) and set the level to 127
3. Detune the second oscillator – I set it to 2
4. Get rid of the pitch bend and mod controls – pitch bend rand 0, vibrato int 0
5. Tweak the LFO frequency for LFO2 – I use 53
6. We’ll use this LFO for vibrato: Patch 1, source LF2, Mod int 7
7. We need to tweak the filter to play nicely with the mod wheel: Filter cutoff 30, resonance 10
8. Patch this cutoff to the mod wheel: Patch 2, source mod, Dest cut, Mod int 63
9. Give some shape to the amp envelope generator: Amp eg: Attack 26, Decay 120, Sustain 27, Release 83
10. Add some delay: Time 26, Depth 69
11. We need to patch an oscillator 2 detune to the pitch bend wheel to give the swoopy effect: Patch 3, source bnd, Dest 2.tn, Mod int 20
12. Save the sound parameters and you’re done!

Really easy to work with – starting with the mod wheel fully back, holding a note and sweeping it forward and back will give the signature Vangelis ‘WAH’ sound, and pulling the pitch bend wheel towards you will give the second oscillator detune wail. All done. Have fun.

microkorg, Music, synth, vangelis

John

UNIX geek, wannabe cook, musician, book-lover, and all round good-guy.