Can we make this sound? - "Hungry Like the Wolf" Synth

Tplesko

Inspired
Hi all, playing these 2 tunes in a cover band - Hungry Like the Wolf and Heavy (Collective Soul) and they both have a similar synth tone (maybe sequencer?) - in the Duran Duran tune it starts right at the beginning. It sounds like a randomly generated tone. My question is can a Pitch block emulate this? Or some other block?

Thanks in advance - here are vids of these tunes:

Hungry - starts right at the beginning of the song:



Heavy - this sound begins at :41 at the start of the chorus:

 
here are some options.

use the synth block and set tracking to off. attach the volume of the block to a footswitch or enable it in a scene. run that into the pitch block arpeggiator.
OR - use the sequencer to alter the frequency of a synth voice (this will give you twice as may steps as the arpeggiator)

either of these would be good for the duran duran one, because it doesn't need to change to follow the chords. in fact listening again, it almost sounds random, rather than a repeating sequence or an arpeggio. if it is, i'm not sure right now how you might achieve that. i'll have to have a think (or bakerman might jump in and give you a solution)

the second one is trickier because it follows the chords, but there are only two patterns, so you could use the synth into the arpeggiator and use a cc pedal to switch between the two root notes

they're both do-able, for sure...but it'll take some work
 
i found this duran isolated vid. you can hear the synth pattern much more clearly. it does seem to follow the chords, but i'm not sure anybody would notice if it didn't...



btw, to get the notes really short, you could either use a tremolo or a square wave lfo tied to a volume block to cut off the ends of the notes (adjust "duty")
 
this sounds pretty good too - a random arp from a jupiter -


Simeon - thank you SO much as always. These are great suggestions and I will do my best to get it right and share. I am pretty average at building these, but I am improving. Thanks man!!!
 
i can't figure out at the moment if it's possible to make a random arpeggio. it would certainly be something nice to have....maybe put it in the wishlist and see if cliff can implement it? might as well add down and up+down as well!
 
Are you the only guitarist?

The "Heavy" part is a tap/pulloff thing on the 3rd string w/ 16th tremolo. There might also be chorus and (like the intro) ~32nd note slapback delay pretty low in the mix. That doesn't help if you want to play chords though.

 
wow, i didn't even spot that wasn't a synth on the track. too many notes to sequence, bakerman?
 
How many steps can the Axe III sequencer do? 64 would be enough, ignoring that the first 2 bars are actually a different pattern from the last 6.

Another solution would be a 16-step pattern and some other way to change the notes heard per measure. For example two synth voices set for D-A and C#-A with sequencer on shift modifier, then a freq. modifier to lower both voices a whole step for measures 3-4. A slow quantized LFO could probably handle that switching by starting sequencer & LFO at the same time.
 
Thanks guys, I have to admit I don't know how to use the/a sequencer so I have some work to do - if you have any laymans or simple advice or tricks, please let me know. And thanks again for all of the good suggestions!
 
ok, here's a patch for the duran arps

it's not random, like the original, but the sound is reasonably close. if you wanted to spend a bit of time on it, you could probably tweak it so that the repeating pattern is closer to one bar of the original

i made it on a II, so you'll need to convert it for the III

i've attached external 1 to the "shift" parameter of voices 1 and 2 in the synth block. this means your pedal will give you arps for the E chords in toe down position and arps for the D chords in toe up position

hope this gets you on your way


edit: i forgot to attach envelope to the arp run parameter. this is useful for resetting the sequence to stay in sync. set the min value to 45 and the mid value to 75 to keep the sequence running unless you deliberately create a gap. i'll also suggest (steal) one idea from matt's patch below, which is to have the arp sequence be 15 long instead of 16, so it doesn't feel repetitive.
 

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Nice song and are. I highly doubt that that intro from Hungry LAW can be recreated fully with the Axe fx. Not only for the tones but also for the sound. I think you will miss the attack and impact of a real synth. But you might get in the ballpark. Curious about Simeon's patch.
 
The arpeggiator is one of those things that could benefit from a few enhancements to make it more creatively useful, imo. It definitely needs a step length parameter and some direction controls (forward, back forward+back and random)

edit: actually back would be a bit redundant, because you could just program the sequence in reverse, but the the other two would be great
 
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Here's my take on it. This one takes some liberties sonically: it's 100% guitar with no synth. You basically only need to play one note and it creates the staccato arpeggio.

Like @simeon's it isn't random, but with a 15-note pattern repeating over a 16-note phrase, it isn't easy to hear that it is repetitive either. The LFOs reset when you stop and play a new note, so just stop briefly around the last 8th or 16th note of beat 4 and you can re-align the arp with your live drums and bass. The whole thing tracks tap tempo too.

Scene 1 gives you a sus2 chord around the note you play. You could play the whole song on this scene, but there are also many instances in the recording where the major 3rd appears, so Scene 2 throws it in once in awhile. To throw in lower notes as heard on the oiginal, just play the same pitch in a lower octave once in awhile.

http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=6536

Here's a clip. The metronome is NOT from the Axe-Fx. I tried to demonstrate that I could keep the Axe-Fx III LFOs in sync with the external metronome of Logic just by re-triggering when I played notes on the beat.
 
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