Tone Topics
This section covers my personal researches about Sounds and Sonic-Experiments to all topics of tone. I don't want to put this off any longer ... now it's time for exactly that and … I love
this thought :o)
Herbie Hancock's Chameleon Bass-Sound
What a iconic intro … as I found the Wonderful Video from Anthony Marinelli on YT About this Topic and his realization on a ARP Odyssey MK1, I remember all my approaches over the years that don't
even come close to the original. At the end of his wonderful breakdown video he introduces a preamp distortion as one aspect to get the result closer to the original. That was the Point where I
decided to try it again regardless the fact that I haven't any ARP Odyssey available … :o)
The Sound is build from two oscillators in unison-pitch (the second one octave lower) that each create a Pulsewave. As a speciality of the ARP Odyssey it is possible to modulate the
Pulsewave-Depth from the Envelope Generator which also controls the Filter-Cutoff. These PWM creates a tonal Change between a thin sounding- to a much fatter tone.
Unfortunately both available Monosynths in my Studio, a minimoog and a MS20, don't have this Modulation feature so that I substitute with static Pulswaves instead. For the distortion I tried the
overdriven Input of my Studiomaster console as well as a Shure FP31 Microphon Preamp or a combination of them.
Listen to the holy grail first ... and it's best to use headphones for the comparison.
The Minimoog …
The MS20 …
I started my next approach with the Prophet VS. This Synth also misses the Envelope Modulation of the Pulsewaves but it could be programmed to automatically blend between it's 4 oscillator-waves. I used the waveform blends between a pulse wave 45 and a square wave 34, and for the second oscillator-pair a blend between pulse wave 46 and the square wave 34 …
Until now I like the MS20 Version at most ... because of it's own strong character :o)
My next Approach … sample the first note of the phrase with the Roland S760 ...
My last Approach … drawing the initial wavecycle of the original waveform on the Roland S330 Sampler and add a suitable VCA and VCF envelope to it. That was a funny thing, really :o)
Interresting topic : The resulting Waveform itself don't looks like a modulated Pulswave in the time-domain. It looks more like a pulse that only triggers the filter and developes it's tonal character through the filter-response controlled by a fast filter-envelope.
Interesting topic : The second note of the phrase looks a little bit different, and the audible result changes also. This looks like a difference in the Filter Decay-Envelope maybe caused through the repeated keyboard trigger on the original instrument.
My personal conclusion : The holy grail can't be beaten easily. I think that it must be feared that without the help of the raw oscillator-waves, the PWM via Envelope-Modulation, the filter-type and filter envelope from the original ARP Odyssey MK1, you don't really reach equal tonality.
From all of my tries I lastly prefer the results from the MS20 and the Roland S330 (Note 1) ... but nothing compares to the original :o)