CYCLICK SAMPLES

email: cyclicksamples@gmail.com
twitter: twitter.com/cyclickbob

Sample Synths
We all love the organic juice of analogue oscillators, and their sharper successors, the DCOs, but as
time has passed many of the sounds of the fully digital synths have been reassessed and looked upon
with the respect they are due. Whether its wavetables or samples, these beasts of the 80s and 90s
deliver sounds that you just can't get near with a room full of modular units, and nor would you want to!

This sample collection offers a set of loops in four tempos (85, 110, 120 & 128bpm) across three main
synth sound areas that digital synths have excelled: bass, pads and polysynths. The base instruments
were the Kurzweil K2600r (sample based), the Arturia V Collection (CMI V and Synclavier V) and UVI's
Synth Anthology 3 (mostly PPG, Waldorf, Korg and Yamaha models). These were programmed into a
basic form for each instrument as the three lines were written in MIDI. Once the parts were settled on
the patches were tweaked, plugins* added and the analogue chain was addressed. This consisted of
the Thermionic Culture Rooster valve preamp/EQ/distortion and a G-SSL bus compressor (DIY SSL
style VCA compressor). Both were adjusted heavily for each instrument, starting with the Rooster for
EQ and sometimes a touch of the Attitude (distortion) knob. This is a great carving EQ as the low end
can be shaped with the Bass Lift and Bass Cut, whilst the mids and tops pushed-pulled via the Mid/Hi
Lift and Mid Cut controls. The G-SSL was mostly on slow attack/release and a 2:1 or 4:1 ratio for the
pads and poly synths, but with the release tightened up for the bass and the whole thing occasionally
pushed into heavy compression for punchy sounds.

* Not a huge number of plugins were used, with only two or three per instrument. These were usually
modulations, such as the Eventide Phase, Flanger and H910, as well as the Soundtoys PrimalTap and
UAD EMT140 & 250 reverbs. On the return signal from the Rooster/G-SSL pairing the Ozone 8
Vintage EQ and Vintage Limiter came into play. The limiter was is set-forget mode to prevent clipping
and the EQ was only switched on to cut back a mid frequency, which was mostly 300Hz or 1kHz.

Stuff Used:

Kurzweil K2600r synth Antelope Audio Orion 32 AD/DA interface

Arturia V Collection UAD plugins
UVI Synth Anthology 3 Soundtoys plugins
Thermionic Culture Rooster preamp/EQ Eventide plugins
G-SSL bus compressor iZotope Ozone 8/Neutron 2 plugins
Arturia Keylab 88 Steinberg Nuendo 10.3