Ableton Forum

Hi synth lovers!

I have been searching for that classic ARP Omni/Solina synth string sound in a hardware unit but have not found an actual Omni anywhere recently, so I have done some research and I have found a Roland RS-09 for sale which the seller says can come very close to that classic Joy Division ARP Omni sound in 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', and THAT is the sound I am looking for!

So... has anyone here used both, or heard them both at some time and maybe can let me know if the RS 09 IS close to the Omni soundwise? I don't have long to decide on the Roland. Also, what would be a fair price for the RS 09 in good condition? Any thoughts/advice appreciated as always.

Cheers!

I had an Rs09 once nice but very limited piece of kit.
have you had a look at the arp 2600 at www.arturia.com

jamief wrote:I had an Rs09 once nice but very limited piece of kit.
have you had a look at the arp 2600 at www.arturia.com

Thanks for that jamief!

I only really want it for the one sound + you can run external instruments through the chorus effect (Like bass guitar ) and they are cheap when they turn up so I thought because I like hardware AND it has a keyboard it might be nice if it sounded right.

And yes, I have heard demos of the Arturia arp 2600 but I haven't heard the sound I want from it. (I do really like Arturia soft synths though).

I think the ARP Omni must be quite unique soundwise!

old Rolands and Arps sounded quite different from each other as a rule. The idea being the Roland sound was 'warm' and Arp was 'bright' or 'thin'

the other thing you can call Arps of that vintage is 'temperamental', IE- get your soldering iron out if you want it to make a noise.

I've got an RS202......it sounds beautiful and close as can be to THAT sound - so I suppose a RS09 could be a good bet.

Or what about this......
http://www.gforcesoftware.com/ins_vsm.php

it's the triple chorus that gives the Arp Omni and the Solina/Eminent String Ensemble their characteristic sounds.

the Arp chorus circuit uses three different delay settings, and different lfo settings for the 2 lfo's + some phase tricks with the lfo's.

the Roland RS-09 uses a different chorus circuit if memory serves....Roland experimented with so many variants i can't remember which was used for the RS-09.

the RS-09 will not give you the Joy Division sound. it's still an interesting string machine sound.

the GForce Virtual String Machine that googoo mentioned will give you the sound of the Omni, Solina + more.

Puremagnetik released a sample pack of some string machines that i think included Solina samples.

the Solina and Omni are only sawtooth waveforms run through a triple chorus......

you could load a sawtooth into Simpler/Sampler and create a 3 slot rack, each containing a chorus with different lfo speeds and different delay settings.

this will sound very close to a Solina or Omni. add some reverb and you are in Martin Hannett territory.

one last tip; experiment with the band pass or high pass settings on Simpler/Sampler.

hope that helps.

a correction i've been meaning to add;

the waveform of the solina, and variants, is a pulse wave. i'm not sure what the duty cycle is, but some experimentation will yield some interesting results.

also, i agree with angstrom. to avoid aliasing, use a multisample. a soft synth that can output a pulse wave would also be an option.

also check out d16 group syntorus and audio damage fluid for some alternates to the ableton chorus.

i don't miss my solina/eminent string ensemble, especially the weight.

thats good advice,
one thing I would add -

if you load a simple sawtooth wave into simpler or sampler you will probably find that aliasing becomes a problem as the sample gets played higher up the keyboard. Sawtooth waves contain a lot of harmonics and played in clusters at the top of the keyboard you will probably notice a degree of high pitched atonality creeping in.

the solution is to use the Ableton .ams format for simple waveforms (rather than a sample) , the .ams file describes the required harmonics for each wave on each key - this means when you play C5 the sampler doesn't try and reproduce a harmonic at C11 and fold it back down all horrible

You will probably find some presets for the basic waveforms in your Ableton Library - these are made from .ams files.
There are also a few tools around for making .ams files, I think Robert Henke made one which runs in the Max runtime, and there are others.

Thanks all for your replies.

Voder : Thanks for your detailed info. you have given me what I needed to know.

Googoo : Thanks. Yes, I am aware of the GForce String Machine. It does sound good (although if you listen to the demo on the M-Audio site you wouldn't buy it!!) Fortunately on the GForce site the demo's are a lot better.

I really wanted a hardware solution so that I could have it sitting there all set up so I could play that synth part in live performance when required. (it would be used sparingly, not all over the place).

The Roland looked like the perfect solution: small, cheap and with a keyboard etc! But alas, it looks like I will have to use a soft synth (the sample option looks better than attempting to create the sound from scratch)

... sooo it looks more and more like I may be buying a Muse Receptor instead of a bunch of used (or new) analogue synths! Weeel. maybe one real one

So, thanks again everyone! This forum rocks!

omnisphere has high quality samples of all of that kit and tons more. Not quite ready for the stage in terms of stability right now, it'll get there, however, the sound you are able to coax out of this thing is unreal! Make SURE to check it out. It's a little ahead of the times