Gong sound programming (synth)

[Vibrations]

Any advices for programming long evolving gong sounds?

[djsynchro]

noise, several instances of corpus using plate algorhythm with lots of inharmonics tuned to different frequencies, crash cymbal tuned way down. reverse sample of the girl next door walking her chihuahua.

[re.mark]

Not too sure how I'd engineer it myself, but look up Physical Modeling & Comb Filters.

[twisted-space]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/allsynthsecrets.htm

Check out the sections dealing with cymbals and bells and experiment.

[pbajzek]

I've gotten some pretty decent gong/deep cymbal sounds using the following method (on a Nord Lead 3, so try to adapt any specific functions as necessary):

Oscillators: 2 FM-modulated sine waves with high FM amount (very noisy tones, but different from a pure noise source). Now use Osc2 to further FM Osc1, with a quick Mod envelope to control the amount of FM- this gives a little fizzy explosion on the attack but the tone mellows a bit as it fades. I used no filter, set amp envelopes to taste for the amount of decay/release you want.

Set 2 slow, unsynched LFO's to control the FM amount in each oscillator. THis gives a nice shimmer as the sound decays.

Now either use a "chord stack" feature or just play chords of non-harmonic intervals to keep the sound from having an identifiable tonality. I have like 6 notes playing at once, a root with a cluster of semitones at the octave and another higher note.

If this is too "thin" you may want to mix in a square wave as a sub (again cluster some notes to avoid tonality). Have fun.

[Vibrations]

Thanks for your answers.