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New poster, here... Truly loving the sound of GX-80 in general. But...

Maybe I'm missing something simple. But, I believe the GX-80 factory preset "Eddie's Juneau" is supposed to capture the famous swoop sound from UK's "Alaska". But to my ears, while the sound itself is spot-on, the "swoop" aspect of the sound just don't cut it...No matter how hard I hit the keys, the swoop is barely there - too little pitch shift, and too quick; nowhere near as pronounced as the Jobson/UK original. I can get the swoop right on the Arturia CS-80 version, starting from the factory "JP8 Synbrass" patch, but with the Touch Response Pitch Bend set to 100%, although the overall sound is not nearly as rich as the GX-80 version. Also, the Cherry Audio Memorymode factory patch "Eddie Juneau Alaska" nails the swoop, although the overall sound, IMHO, falls short of the Jobson CS-80 sound, I think largely due to the lack of HPFs and quirky oscillators in the CS-80.

I believe I'm updated to the latest version of GX-80, but the Touch Response Pitch Bend, does not seem to be having very much effect on the sound. I've always loved UK, particularly that first album, and I feel like that sound is one of the (many) iconic sounds of the original CS-80. I generally love the sounds of the GX-80 and particularly the richness of it relative to the Arturia CS-80. But the pitch swoop, isn't cutting it for some reason.

Am I missing something, simple here?

Any thoughts/tips would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Terry T.

BTW, one quick note; the very first two notes, can sometimes sound sort of correct, but I think that's due to the Portamento/Gliss settings and only if the oscillators are initially "resting" at very low pitches. And when that happens, subsequent notes don't have any significant pitch swoop as they've already "glissed" to the roughly correct pitches. Nowhere near the sound or behavior I think the Touch Response Pitch Bend control is supposed to yield...

Mr. Leaf,

Yes, you are missing something simple, but not obvious. That is, the difference from one CS-80 to another. These are analog machines with 5% resistors and 10% capacitors. This means that the pitch bend time can vary almost 30% from one unit to another. We had two CS-80s as "go-bys" and matched the timing perfectly. In fact, the matching of everything was meticulous and took a very long time.

I auditioned the UK song and the preset in question and found the preset lacking a bit in authenticity. I have posted my modified version to the preset sharing thread. I could have spent more time with it, but I think it's much closer now. There should not have been any glide and it was missing delay and reverb which are quite in evidence on the recording. The preset has a long release and Eddie's sound has a quick release. Also the preset was much too bright and resonant. I have compensated for that by turning down (up) the BRILL and RESON paddles. I also don't think the touch bend timing is that different. See if you like it better. During the coding of the GX-80 I also fell victim to the "I want more bend!" phenomenon and would hit the keyboard harder and harder, so you're not alone. I think it's right. I was far from the only judge on this.

A word about matching patches:
The matching of patches just by listening is extremely difficult and quite time consuming. For example, when I was coding the Pro Soloist, the matching of the 30 presets took waaaay longer than the coding of the entire instrument. Even with an instrument as simple as the Minimoog (Miniverse), it took at least 10 to 20 minutes to match a given sound to the hardware. The tiniest bump of any knob can make the sounds different enough to say, "Nope, not the same."

Read my article to see how it was done:
https://cherryaudio.com/news/looking-fo ... ark-barton

Thanks for the feedback. We don't get nearly enough of it.

--mb

P.S. Getting errors trying to post the preset. Please stand by. Sorry.

Thanks for your informative reply!

Ah yes... very familiar with the analog variation mystique... full well knowing, that's also what gives them that "special" sound and makes the digital VST development such a tricky endeavor.

My very first synth (at age 15, circa 1976) was a Micromoog, followed by a Minimoog, which was then traded (1983) for a brand new Memorymoog, and 40 years later, I still have the Memorymoog as well as the Micro and both are in surprisingly good condition. Never really understood the issues many folks had with the Memorymoog, as I gigged with it continuously for 30 years with almost zero issues, other than occasionally needing an under the hood tuning session with the plethora of mini-pots on the circuit boards. And I still believe it was/is the best sounding analog synth I've ever spent significant time with.

BTW, now owning your Memorymode version, I find your VST very much captures the sound and fatness present in the original, albeit it weighs significantly less than my original!



I'd noticed some of the Alaska differences you refer to; particularly the long versus short release. I've already added external echo and reverb, as well. And I'll try turning off the glide to see if that helps with the swoop aspect...

Meanwhile, I tried finding your shared preset, but so far I've been unsuccessful... If you can find or point me to your updated preset, it would be greatly appreciated, as having "grown up" in the Moog architecture (so to speak), I'm somewhat less versed in the proper tweaking of the CS-80!

BTW, your comments on patch development, as well as one of your threads I found regarding the Mini VST, have spurred me to demo your Mini to see if it can do justice to what I consider to be a deceptively tricky sound; namely the Geddy Lee's Tom sawyer "Lead" (not the so-called "growl" Bass) where the phasing of the two - uber closely tuned - oscillators causes the fundamental to slowly fade out and back in. Most VSTs I've tried don't allow the oscillators to be tuned closely enough to do it right. I'll report back on my success or failure.

Sorry about the preset. For some reason I get a file extension error when I try to post it. I've posted other presets in the past and don't know what's going on this time. I'll work it out.

I'm glad you like the Memorymode, but I was not the author of that one. I did write Miniverse and will put that straight up to the hardware any day. It is absolutely spot on. No one can tell the difference in a blind test.

The secret to having the fundamental fade in and out when oscillators are beating is not only a question of tuning, but also of relative levels. They have to be exactly the same for the apparent cancellation to take place. The waveforms have to be the same too. What is happening is that when one oscillator's sawtooth flyback occurs exactly halfway between the other oscillator's flyback, the waveform is indiscernible from a sawtooth one octave higher. Thus the original fundamental "disappears". This can be a problem when trying to create multi-oscillator bass sounds. To avoid this, just stagger the volumes of the oscillators in the mixer and the fundamental will never completely go away. This is another reason single VCO bass sounds can be so strong and effective.

As far as learning the GX-80 is concerned. Don't be afraid. It's all the same VCO->VCF->VCA with envelopes. Nothing strange or unusual. People think the VCF envelope gen is weird, but it's actually quite cool. It's just an ordinary ADSR with the parameters set up a little differently. Again, nothing that weird.

My Memorymoog broke constantly and I got rid of it. So glad yours is still working. They do sound awesome. However, they do not sound like a polyphonic Minimoog. You'll have to get Miniverse for that.

--mb

Preset is in the Preset Exchange forum now.