Recording Analog Synthesizers

Tips & Tricks
1

First off, I am absolutely sick and tired of using software synthesizers. Different story, but really I find I can never those unique and dirty sounds I want, it just doesn’t feel creative and involved.

I have a Korg MS-20 mini that I absolutely love. As a standalone machine, I have no trouble coming up with excellent melodies and patches. The real problem is integrating my MS-20 with my tracks on the computer.

The MS-20 can receive MIDI signals, therefore I can use Renoise’s Phrase Editor to make a sequence that I like. Renoise sends the notes to the MS-20 and it plays it accordingly. However I really dislike this platform for making sequences. The MS-20 is monophonic, and can’t interpret the velocity and after touch signal that are used in Renoise.

As of now, I come up with a melody, or whatever I want to do. I enter the notes in the phrase, and have to add and “OFF” note after each one to stop the envelope generator. It sounds like crap. Compared to the exactly the same notes on a CV/Gate sequencer, it just sounds loose. Another issue. For example I want to make some sort ofarpeggiated pattern that is faster than the master clock of Renoise, as far as I know I can’t bypass that if I’m using the Phrase editor.

Another issue the recording process itself. I connect my MS-20, setup MIDI, Make a Phrase I like, isolate one track, record a C note in that track, then go to the “Sample” and record the sounds synced to the pattern. I think that is just garbage. The sound quality suffers horribly when I record with this method specifically. When I simply tap a key on the MS-20 and record it, the quality of the sound differs considerably, but in both cases the volume of the sample is severely reduced and frankly nulls those raw and warm waveforms. I am using the “Line in” input on my motherboard, which has a good quality on board sound card.

I really looking for suggestions that do not involve purchasing equipment, but I understand that it might be inevitable.

Here are my questions:

Am I missing something? Making some newbie mistake?

Are there any better options besides purchasing a sequencer or MIDI/CV converter?

Some sort of better solution than Renoise’s Phrase Editor?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

2

“a good quality on board sound card”

I didn’t know such a thing exists… Which model is it?

3

The line in input on your motherboard is going to sound awful. Even a cheap USB interface will be much better.

4

I’ve been sampling analog synths since the 90s. You’re going to lose harmonics and impact when you record with most consumer-level gear, including most interfaces. It just loses dimension. I have a few GBs of old Jupiter and Moog samples I made around 2002 with some very good equipment I had access to at the time (the university had a recording studio), and even those samples can’t really compare to the sound you hear plugging headphones or an amp directly into the outputs of those synths. FX mitigate this enough to make it still very worthwhile though. And I usually don’t like perfect, pristine, hyper-processed samples, I like them to be a little rough around the edges.

So yeah, pick up an interface. I have a UR22, it’s excellent for the price, but (for example) I also have an old Edirol UA-25 I got off Craigslist for $30 and for some things I like it better than the UR22 (it “colours” the sound a bit in a way I like for guitar and has a nice analog limiter built in). Don’t need to spend even $100 to get something workable.

A friend of mine has one of those Zoom field recorders, I don’t know the model, it’s one of the bigger ones, and he samples with that a lot. The results are extremely good for a little ~$300 device.

Edit: forgot to mention, I’ve had mixed results doing line in return recording with outboard synths in Renoise. It’s generally a latency issue, there’s a setting to adjust that for each track on the… I don’t know what you call it, track header? The first thing in the DSP for each track. Sometimes it drifts too but I generally get what I want recorded messing with latency settings,

5

As of now, I come up with a melody, or whatever I want to do. I enter the notes in the phrase, and have to add and “OFF” note after each one to stop the envelope generator. It sounds like crap. Compared to the exactly the same notes on a CV/Gate sequencer, it just sounds loose. Another issue. For example I want to make some sort ofarpeggiated pattern that is faster than the master clock of Renoise, as far as I know I can’t bypass that if I’m using the Phrase editor.

What I do is I use the Cx command in the Pan-column for the note. This way you can set it to cut the note after x-ammount of ticks instead of having to use OFF’s.

What it does with MIDI is it sends a MIDI-note off after x-ticks so the envelopes will be able to retrigger. The MS-20 is quite finicky about needing some time between the notes to retrigger so experiment with the x-value but I would start at about 8 or 9 and experiment from there.

7

^ that’s bloody clever. I’ve been stumbling along with Extreme Sample Converter’s buggy hardware synth “converter”. Sometimes it does a great job, sometimes it’s a chaotic mess. Or just doing it in Reaper and slicing the results in Renoise – time consuming. Thanks for this tip.

8

Ok, so I had an idea, and I’m trying it out right now, will let you know how it goes. Currently waiting for 15 minutes to go by. Based on EatMe’s method:

Make a pattern with all notes. ALL OF THEM. LPB 1, lowest possible BPM. Note off every now and then.

Trick to creating a pattern with all notes: program an octave, copy paste, use advanced editor to increase the octave. Copy paste the 2 octaves, and used the advanced editor again to incrase them to the correct octave. Copy paste all of that again, and now you only need 2 more octaves.

Now my plan is, to use audacity to split the recordings automatically into separate files, numbered in the order they appear in the giant .wav I am creating. Then I will drag and drop them into a Renoise .xrni, and use the automap-spread thing whatever it’s called I can’t remember. Then that’s it, you have your sampled instrument.

I think I didn’t use long enough notes, I need to start over, and it’s going to be like 30 minutes of wait time. But going to let it finish first to make sure audacity will do the thing I think it can do.

edit: Works PERFECTLY. Instructions for audacity:

Go to Analyze>Sound Finder and set it up logically

Go to File>Export Multiple and set that up however you want. I recommend using the file name prefix option.

Press enter 120 times to get past the freakin artist/song/etc dialog boxes.

Then drag them into an .xrni and hit “Distribute”. Perfect. Now does anyone know how to set a loop for multiple samples at the same time?