Getting that 'old school' 12Bit Sound!?

divi · Post by **divi** » Fri May 05, 2006 4:05 pm

_downsampling
_redux (a bit)
_distortion (a bit)
_EQ

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Fri May 05, 2006 4:07 pm

all those things might 'lofi' the sound, but I doubt it will be the sound he's looking for

pmestrez · Post by **pmestrez** » Fri May 05, 2006 4:16 pm

Here is a small thing that I tested and that is efficient enough to give a certain grain to your samples of rhythmics.

The goal here is not to equal the machines 12 bits and their inimitable grain but to bring closer itself of it most possible.

Take the small plugin VST MDA Degrade (http://mda.smartelectronix.com/effects.htm) that you parameterize to 22500Hz 12 bits and playing a little with the other settings.
Then, place the plugin PSP VintageWarmer (http://www.pspaudioware.com /), place the drive on 4 and play a little with the Low and Hi Cut Gains.
You possibly can cut the small background noises generated by the MDA Degrade by inserting a gate, just to make slap the samples !

For rounding a few the bass of your kick, I advise you Voxengo LF Punch (http://www.voxengo.com/product/lfpunch/)

Honestly, the grain becomes a lot of old school.

a+, and good fun!

Pierre.

lord toranaga · Post by **lord toranaga** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:25 pm

no software alternative will give you that sound.

you will have to get an old school sampler.

that is the only way.

I don't care what anyone else says.

jonathanpduffy · Post by **jonathanpduffy** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:36 pm

Wow!

Hugely impressed by the response (and variety of ideas!).

I am looking more for the sound of a 12bit sampler recording vinyl and played dry througha sequencer, fairly un processed, hip-hop style... I'm going to try all the software approaches,...but I'm tempted by the idea of hunting down an old s950 and hooking it up.

Machinate...how easy is it to physically hook this baby up?

At the moment I just use my notebook and a presonus firebox going into a standard amp and monitors... would I need a basic mixing desk to handle all the outs on the s950, or for drum use, can I pump them directly back into my sound card?

....the only thing left to do is to try and find in the uk....

J

melocoton · Post by **melocoton** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:44 pm

The key to using redux is that you have to throw a filter after the redux plugin to roll off the high end. EQ4 works fine. The problem with redux on its own is that it creates tons of aliasing while an old 12 bit or 8 bit sampler would filter that out with the filters on the DA converter. If you haven't liked the results of redux, give this a try and it should get you MUCH closer to a realistic old sampler sound.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:46 pm

lord toranaga wrote:I don't care what anyone else says.

ah yes, the beauty of internet boards...

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri May 05, 2006 5:55 pm

jonathanpduffy wrote:Machinate...how easy is it to physically hook this baby up?

floppy->s950. 1+2 out ->Firebox in 1+2. Record. Play.

It's old tech. Very straightforward.

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Fri May 05, 2006 7:48 pm

Casio FZ1 or FZ10m or EMU SP1200
BEST FOR THIS SOUND!

kooki415 · Post by **kooki415** » Fri May 05, 2006 8:14 pm

actually, to emulate the DA's you would want to throw in a filter before the redux. set it to brickwall at half the Hz of the downsampling frequency (nyquist is your friend!). that will deal with the aliasing in the original fashion.

meatfestival · Post by **meatfestival** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:15 pm

Switching off hard downsampling in redux would give similar results to the high pass filter in an old sampler. Personally I prefer the extra grittiness of hard.

jonathanpduffy · Post by **jonathanpduffy** » Sat May 06, 2006 1:55 pm

So after all of this (some of which works really well!)...I have an option on an s950 in good condition, memory fully expanded for £150.

Should I go for it? The guy wasn't (perhaps understandably) willing to lower the price.

Any tests I should do when/if I get there to see that it's working (other than turning it on!)?

It would, along with my turntable, be the only bit of outboard gear I have (aside form sound card and midi bits...).

Advice?

J

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Sat May 06, 2006 2:13 pm

Coming this summer... looks very cool... no doubt insanely expensive!

Could get you where you want to go tho:

http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Speakerp ... phone.html

jonathanpduffy · Post by **jonathanpduffy** » Sat May 06, 2006 2:15 pm

now that,...that's just silly!

blakbeltjonez · Post by **blakbeltjonez** » Sat May 06, 2006 6:34 pm

jonathanpduffy wrote:So after all of this (some of which works really well!)...I have an option on an s950 in good condition, memory fully expanded for £150.

Should I go for it? The guy wasn't (perhaps understandably) willing to lower the price.

Any tests I should do when/if I get there to see that it's working (other than turning it on!)?

It would, along with my turntable, be the only bit of outboard gear I have (aside form sound card and midi bits...).

Advice?

J

if you need the extra memory and the time stretching of the 950 (it's pretty distinctive, an effect all it's own), then that's a reasonable price especially with the proprietary extra memory that's pretty hard to find nowadays, but you could hunt down a S900 for less than that even. $100-150 here in the US, probably comparable in the UK since the s900/950/1000 was so ubiquitous in the late 80s/early 90s