Mallet Sound? How to make it?

[DRamos_7]

Hey, I'm trying to figure out how to make this marimba type of sound? May you help me? If you know how to make it tell me please, how to make it by synthesis or which preset its?

Many thanks in advanced

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qffsEt5Vfqc

[Kwurqx]

Personally I'd start with FM.

FM is very able to create the "chaos" in the attack transitioning into the near pure sine in the tail.

If you're not familiar with FM programming....there's gazillions of (free) Yamaha DX7 sysex patches on the web.

You can load these DX7 sysex/patches into this FREE Yamaha DX7 emulation:

Digital Suburban - Dexed
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/dexed- ... l-suburban

The example below is the Marimba factory preset (#22) on the Yamaha DX7. Only reminescent of your example...especially the attack part is way less prominent.....but you get the idea...it's a starting point.

Yamaha DX7 - the 32 classic factory patches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3rrjQtQe5A&t=676s

[ATN69]

Use 2 oscillators. Square wave + sine wave. Could also work with triangle instead of sine wave. Tune the filters to taste. Marimba sound normally have a clear transient so make sure the attack is zero and decay should be relatively short. You can use ADSR to modulate the filter for better result. Sustain should be low and with a short release time.

What synth are you using?

[Kwurqx]

Skipping through the track....

The attack at the start of the attack is a lot "brighter" then it is towards the end of the track. Not sure if it's just a Low Pass filter (on a subtractive patch or sample, or track EQ). Or modulation of say the FM modulation amount on modulator(s) in an FM patch.

Also the attack seems to be multiple attacks, like 2 with a short interval. Easily achived by modulation of modulation amount via envelope of an FM modulator or by using 2 modulators with their own envelopes on a single carrier.

But as ATN69 suggests....there are other options then FM. Another one is AM/Ring modulation (in the attack). AM is also very usefull when the sound does not need many partials.

[9b0]

I like to use resonant bandpass filters as oscillators for mallets, since they provide a natural sounding decay, that changes with pitch, so i don't have to mess with envelopes here. The filters only need a small burst of a signal to start resonating, and the result is going to be a releasing sine wave. The release time is determined by the resonance, and gets shorter as higher the cutoff is.

Using 2-3 detuned sine sources give a pretty nice mallet sound. I like to detune the sources in a way, that the frequency of each source is a multiple of the base frequency. So i'm creating harmonics, and not detune in logarithmic pitch (in semitones).

I've made a tutorial about this earlier. It's done in my modular, but the principles can be applied anywhere else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiZW1TDAgdA

[9b0]

I like to use resonant bandpass filters as oscillators for mallets, since they provide a natural sounding decay, that changes with pitch, so i don't have to mess with envelopes here. The filters only need a small burst of a signal to start resonating, and the result is going to be a releasing sine wave. The release time is determined by the resonance, and gets shorter as higher the cutoff is.

Using 2-3 detuned sine sources give a pretty nice mallet sound. I like to detune the sources in a way, that the frequency of each source is a multiple of the base frequency. So i'm creating harmonics, and not detune in logarithmic pitch (in semitones).

I've made a tutorial about this earlier. It's done in my modular, but the principles can be applied anywhere else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiZW1TDAgdA

Edit:
The same technique was used in the mallet of this video:
https://youtu.be/RSoaTf47-sc

[Skupje]

Physical moddeling +1

"It does depend on how the resonant circuitry works, some ladder filters like TB's get more resonant as the pitch increases. There is another type of insertion going on there. They wouldn't sound as good for this while resonating"

[Taika-Kim]

Yup, I recently made one in Bitwig with 18 bandpass filters and noise as input. Just place them at suitable frequencies according to the harmonic series. This is quite a complicated approach though, if you are not very deeply into synthesis and acoustics.

If you can run 32-bit plugins, DMI Hammer does very good mallet sounds: http://dmi.smartelectronix.com/hammer.html

[Music Bird]

It sounds sort of like a DX7 marimba patch, or even a D-50 or ESQ-1/SQ-80. SQ8L has a similar sound too.

[Kwurqx]

It sounds sort of like a DX7 marimba patch, or even a D-50 or ESQ-1/SQ-80. SQ8L has a similar sound too.

The free Ensoniq SQ80 emulation as mentioned by Music Bird (above):

Siegfried Kullmann - SQ8L (now abandonware, it seems)
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/sq8l_s ... d_kullmann

[Music Bird]

@Kwurqx
I recommended it because it has a mallet attack waveform that’s literally a xylophone sample. You can mix that with the waveforms and create some neat leads.

[TheProBeats]

I would use the Korg M1 if you have access to it, has some great marimba sounds!