Getting that vintage sound...

I seem to be stuck in a time-warp and still really dig my vintage techno…favourite artists would be the likes of Slam and Planetary Assault Systems at the early nineties.

Whilst I appreciate that music and techno has moved on, I still wanna learn how to create the various timbres used by these artists and then add my own slant to it.

Can anyone point me in the direction of how to go about producing some of those "vintage" sounds - not the drums or bass, as I've got those pretty much covered…but the synth bits, and those wicked filtered stabs etc

I'm guessing that various hardware synths were used, but if anyone could recommend decent vst's that are able to reproduce those sounds, that would be great. I guess the answer might be "pretty much any vst synth will do", and if that's the case then could you please suggest ways to actually program the sounds as I can't seem to get close at the moment!

Unfortunately I don't have access to uplink any examples, which yeh makes it kinda hard, but anyone who digs that sort of vintage techno should hopefully know what I'm on about. Particular examples would be the sounds used in Slams "Groovelock", their remix of Sandals "Feet" (what a track) and pretty much all of Planetary Assault Systems output.

Any help would be much, much appreciated.

Minimoog by aturia is a really cool vst. It is a replica of the original hardware minimoog. It has loads of vintage style presets
and wiv a bit of tweekin it can make some really fat analouge style synths.

Heres a screen shot

http://www.museresearch.com/kvr/i/b/minimoogv.jpg

Features of the original Minimoog:

3 voltage controlled oscillators offering several waveforms (Triangle, Saw triangle, Saw, Square, wide rectangular and narrow rectangular). The third oscillator can modulate either the first two oscillators or the filter.
1 mixer built with an overload circuit.
1 legendary 24db/oct resonant filter.
2 ADSR envelope generators.
1 external audio input.
1 external oscillator and filter modulation input.
Additional features of the software version:

1 modulation matrix offering up to 6 different connections. 12 sources and 27 destinations.
1 LFO with sync to host.
1 arpeggiator with sync to host.
1 three-mode chorus.
1 stereo delay to be synchronized via MIDI.
Possibility to synchronize Osc2 to Osc1.

Try and check this synth out!!!!

Takes a bit of messin about wiv but U wont be dissapointed

Hope this is of some help

James Searles

it really is a fantastic synth. Im not keen on the bottom end of the sounds, but the top end is absolutely sparkling and its a really nice synth to programme.