Looking to recreate this Monte bass sound (80's style boogie)

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It sounds monstrous! what will I need to achieve such full sound, which softsynths would you recommend and specific processing?

Found here: https://soundcloud.com/monte-musik/mont ... w-original

(originally posted in 'sound design' but I think it's more relevant here - sorry about the double post!)

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You could get in the ballpark with several methods.

That may be a dx7 bass. I have some similar bass sounds in my old tx-416.

There are other tracks in that piece which sound like dx7, so there are good odds the fella had access to a 6 op fm synth (dx7, tx7, tx816, whatever). So maybe it is fm bass as well.

Could get in the ballpark with other synth methods, and I wouldn't bet big money that its definitely a dx7. Sounds kinda like a dx7 bass at the moment.
Last edited by JCJR on Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Thanks!

I fired up FM8 this weekend trying to recreate it but didn't get really close.. could you perhaps upload the similar sysex you're talking about? I would love to see how it's built.

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Hi Tristan

Maybe it is not a dx7 bass though it has that impression. Some of stevie winwood's 1980's recordings had a similar bass tone and I assumed it was dx7. Maybe I read sometime it was dx7, but probably just assumption.

I went thru the bass tones in my tx416 and found a couple that are in the same ballpark. I made a stripped down drums and bass demo at the same tempo and approx feel as that monte music song, just quick sequenced with a roland fa-06. The bass playing on that monte song is pretty good, a real nice feel. I don't play much lately, rusty, so it would take a lot of practicing to nail the exact bass part, so I just tried to get somewhere in the ballpark for a quick n dirty evaluation demo.

I haven't yet recorded the demo into the computer and uploaded a sample mp3. I hope to find time to do that later today.

After you hear it, if you think the tones are close enough to bother with, I could capture a sysex dump of the patches.

Tweaking fm can be non-intuitive. Kinda like driving in an unfamiliar city that has lots of one way streets. Sometimes you are almost to the destination, and in fact can see the destination a few blocks away, but have a hard time figuring how to drive there in the maze of one way streets.

Back in the day after dx7 had been out a few years, there were thousands of patches. Dx7 was good for a certain universe of sounds. In each category it was good for, there were hundreds of minor variations on the tone. Hundreds of slightly different electric pianos, hundreds of slightly different basses, hundreds of slightly different horn patches, etc.

Because there were so many patches covering the gamut in fine detail, and fm fairly non intuitive to edit, people would tend to just go thru all those banks trying to find the ones they liked best.

My set of 128 patches in the tx416 have been in there for years, just the last state of the synth last time I went spelunking thru the thousands of patches on disk. I still have the thousands of patches on backup cd somewhere, and they are probably still downloadable somewhere on the internet.

I went thru several librarian programs in the past that got too old to work on newer computers, and do not currently have a dx editor or librarian that works on any computer I own. So if one of those tones in the tx416 demo I'll upload, if you think is close enough to try to tweak, then I could see about wiring a temp midi out connection and capture a sysex dump.

It is just that even with a fm patch in the ballpark, there is no guarantee that the patch can be tweaked any closer to the desired target. Sometimes might require another programming approach to get any closer.

Will try to upload a quick demo later today.

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I dig that bass sound too. I have another song of his that uses the same patch. Since it's FM and not significantly altered between songs, I'd also bet he's bouncing out from hardware. Simplest process for most musicians, since working with FM isn't very straightforward.

That being said, I suspect this can be replicated in many softsynths with FM capability... Would need to know how the operators & carrier oscillators are arranged together though. I've never managed to get it. If I could hear or see a bit of the settings a hardware synth used, or the settings a softsynth used, I'll bet I could give it a good shot. Would love to get that kind of starting point if anyone can provide it.

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Well I apologize not replying sooner.

I had made a rough drum and bass sequence sunday a week ago from the fa06 and left the fa and tx416 running overnight. Played the sequence again monday morning. Then had to do some errands and came back monday evening to record the rough analog mix to the pc and make an mp3, only to discover that the tx416 had died.

Power supply decided to go out after 30 years faithful service. Turn it on, the lights flash for a second then go out. Arrgh.

On the hope that maybe the power supply had enough current for a single tf1 module, I removed the other 3 that didn't have the bass sounds loaded. But it won't even run a single module. But the power supply will run with no modules installed, for what good that does. :)

So sometime or t'other will have to attempt repair of the power supply. It is a switching power supply which is unfortunate. Switchers are more difficult to fix than analog linear supplies. At least in my experience. Linear power supplies I always managed to fix, but found it more convenient just to replace switchers rather than repair them. But maybe with a 30 year old switcher it will be either repair the old one or throw it in the dumpster. :(

Can neither play the tx nor dump the programs until it is fixed.

I looked up the fm8 web page and it looks pretty good as far as I can tell. But they added so many features to the fm8, just listening to the fm8 demo files on the NI website, dunno if I'd want to spend $200 on it. Maybe its lots better than an old yammie fm synth. But the audio demos don't sound anything like the tones I like in my tx. Maybe fm8 can nail all the old patches, but I can't know that listening to the NI audio demos, most of the NI demo sounds I can't envision ever needing for what I'd want to record.

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