Recognizing the 80's blip percussion sound and how to create

[Rydizzz]

What is this blip sound I've heard on so many songs. You can hear it hear on the Ladytron track "Another Breakfast with You" at the 9 second mark. Is this sound a preset from a certain drum machine or synth? How would you create it from scratch in Logic Pro? I've tried high resonance with white noise and quick envelope to the filter but it's not convincing.

Thank you

 

[fuzzfilth]

Analog blips like these are typically made with an analog synth, and thus highly dependant on the actual circuitry, even more so because with the resonance full up, you're driving the synth at the edge of stability.

In Logic, you can try Sampler with a very short noise sample and roughly these settings (try the different filter modes, they change the sound drastically):

Or try ES2, with these settings, again, Noise source, Filter settings and Envelope 1 and 3 shape the sound:

Edited July 26, 2023 by fuzzfilth

[Rydizzz]

Awesome! This is pretty spot on using the es2. I'm going to keep tweaking away.

Thank you so much

[MikeRobinson]

I kinda miss the days, "in the 80's," when everything was so new.  Synthesizers, MIDI, drum machines that were actual machines. We were just making the whole thing up as we went along. And everybody was just experimenting with it like kids in a candy shop. You flipped on the radio (which was an actual "radio") not quite knowing what you might hear next.  "A rock band accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra?" Sure, why not?

Obviously, I don't miss those days when "computers were barely powerful enough to get out of their own way," but even computer programmers did some very remarkable things with what they [didn't] have.

A brand-new technology was inventing itself, right before our eyes, and some of us were there.  Too bad for you, "kid," if you were born too late. 😀

Edited August 3, 2023 by MikeRobinson

[des99]

Indeed, it was exciting for those reasons. And frustrating for others (having limited resources, limited instruments, limited tracks, noisy, low quality tape tracks, small samples... etc etc)

But then, part of that is that we were young, and responding to the new, cool stuff that was happening around us. Today's youngsters have amazing things that I would have *loved* to have had - being able to take unlimited pictures at any time, capture and document their lives, make movies, share their content (and monetise it) to their own fan communities, being able to stay in contact with their friends 24-hours and day and through their lives... etc etc.

Given the choice of which youth to have, I'd probably pick the modern one... 🙂

[Scriabin rocks]

I remember well when I took delivery of my (1.200 Deutsch Mark) 40 Megabyte! SCSI harddrive that I worked for in the summer holidays, to be hooked up to my Atari STF on purpose to make sequencing with Steinbergs 24 a different experience.

I have no idea what you all moan about. LOL (Just kidding)

Yeah, there was this special excitement about gear, like my Yamaha TG33 vector synth, I worked on a Christmas market to be able to afford it, or the Oberheim Matrix 1000 that followed, and so many more that followed.

Biggest regret?

Due to an international move back then, I sold everything I had horded up to that point. Boy how I wish I had stored it somewhere instead.  

For me personally, things changed dramatically with the emergence of Omnisphere, that being said, I was an early adopter of the predecessor Atmosphere as well, and well, the update to Omni was... free! 

Suddenly the synth I always I imagined, it was there, on my screen, and many sleepless nights followed.

Oh well, I am ranting... blip blip. 🙂

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Scriabin rocks

[MikeRobinson]

I subscribed to [Contemporary] Keyboard magazine, of course.  And I lusted over the "Synclaviers" and "Fairlights" that professional musicians of the day did pay "over $100,000" for.  Yet the musical capabilities of those devices were far less than what today you can get on a phone.  Or most-certainly with Logic.

(Full disclosure: As a much-younger kid, I also subscribed to Radio-Electronics magazine when the first article describing a "personal computer" appeared. But I could never persuade my Dad to buy it.)

Edited August 7, 2023 by MikeRobinson