"Thriller" MT-60 Frog Bass

[utdgrant]

Anthony Marinelli is a great source of authoritative information on the recording of Michael Jackson's Thriller album.

He recently uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube explaining the origin of that spiky / croaky bass sound in the title track:

MJ's Thriller Frog Bass - The Search

MJ's Thriller Frog Bass .... Found!

It turned out to be a Casiotone MT60 home keyboard. I sampled the sound at C#, which is the key of the song. I then imported it into Sampler 1 and adjusted the root note down a semitone.

Here is a single cycle of the waveform:

MT60FrogBassSingleCycle.jpg (24.8 KiB) Viewed 8962 times

Here is the VM patch:

Thriller MT-60 Frog Bass.voltagepreset

(48.25 KiB) Downloaded 559 times

[utdgrant]

Of course, the next challenge is to synthesize that waveform from first principles using Voltage Modular!

Here's the original sample to help you with your analysis:

MT-60 Frog Bass.mp3

(11.27 KiB) Downloaded 667 times

FrogBassFullSample.jpg (19.65 KiB) Viewed 8960 times

[utdgrant]

Here's my first attempt at synthesizing the sound using VM.

Thriller Frog Bass Synthesized.voltagepreset

(23.39 KiB) Downloaded 531 times

FrogBassSynthesized.jpg (374.21 KiB) Viewed 8956 times

[utdgrant]

OK, I think this is as far as I want to take this patch. In this variation, I've utilised a Crossfade module to provide a simple envelope-controlled wave-blending function. This mirrors the Casiotone "Vowel-Consonant Synthesis Method".

Frog13VowelConsonant.jpg (369.59 KiB) Viewed 8903 times

Frog 13 Vowel-Consonant.voltagepreset

(22.24 KiB) Downloaded 469 times

Frog13VowelConsonant.mp3

(1.33 MiB) Downloaded 503 times

[utdgrant]

OK, absolutely, 100% my final take on this patch. This time, I've used only free-of-charge modules:

Frog 13 Free.voltagepreset

(23.74 KiB) Downloaded 439 times

Voltage Modular Nucleus

Oscillator x 3
Envelope Generator x 2
Amplifier x 2
Glide

Dome Music Technologies

Simple Amplifier x 3
ACE Compare x 2
ACE Constants

Synthetic Future X R_Ware

Micro NOP x 2

Frog13Free.jpg (310.23 KiB) Viewed 8423 times

[utdgrant]

Demo of Frog 13 Free patch with a General MIDI backing of Thriller:

You Tube link