Recreating a 90s rompler...ethereal ambient pads

[@RedMeansRecording]

Yes

[@GimmieDaDnB]

I wish so bad we could be stuck on a loop of 90s - 2013 forever

[@Thought-Forms]

Would need a massive crossfade for that but agree - so much innovation leading to a very particular sound and vibe. Think there is still an endless amount of life to be squeezed out a lot of these old synths and concepts

[@tunnis7us]

but we can, there is no reason to follow trends really, Think of all the classic rock fans or jazz fans they don't go along with what is pop.

[@happygolucky2231]

1986-1996 is all i need 😂

[@yalincokyay]

U son of a b, get the DeLorean!!!

[@Rulon-bo1ig]

Yeah those 90s pads were essentially just wavetable, fm and subtractive synths blended together to pcm samples, it was more simple for people who didn’t fully understand synthesis or who didn’t want to spend time programming their own synths. Now cause we have granular synths we can take evolving pads to a whole another level especially if we just load existing waveforms from the D50, triton, w station etc. Your videos really give you and idea. If anyone is looking for a cheap powerful pcm rompler for iPad check out king digital by AudioKit, sounds great.

[@GoneComposer]

These sounds are so magical I really love the idea of adding the Marc Tree sound and the filter modulation on the saw wave. It makes me feel like I'm diving in a warm and sweet ocean.

[@Thought-Forms]

Could listen to this type of sound on loop all day, takes you to another planet. Subtle modulation crew

[@brandontadday6288]

A lot of the pad sounds from the rompler era always gave off strong 🌊 vibes to me. There is nothing like listening to this kind of atmospheric DnB stuff whilst going on a coastal road trip and watching the shoreline towns fade as you roll past (especially at dusk, when the sun starts to fade and the sky turns that incredible magenta/pink-orange hue).

[@Lreldge]

i appreciate you encouraging people to experiment for these kind of sounds

[@lucid484]

Just bought myself a Yamaha EX5R from 1998. Sounds absolutely amazing. The best part is that ROMpler is only one of it's 5 synthesis types. I can use the sampler to sample my MatrixBrute, Neutron or TD-3 and use my own samples to use as one of the 4 "oscillators".

[@Thought-Forms]

Awesome!!! I've been gassing for an EX5 for a couple months, specifically that rack one (keyboard is too chaunky) All the synthesis methods as you mentioned...crazy possibility. One of the last great romplers

[@lucid484]

@@Thought-Forms ​​⁠Yeah, the Keyboard versions are considerably cheaper, but I already have like multiple keyboards and don’t have the space. Seems like the Racks are rare online because no one wants to give them up. And I can see why. The other one I nearly bought but missed last second (prolly buy one soon), is the Roland XV-5080. Another gorgeous sounding ROMpler where you can load your own samples and use them as an OSC. I have an MC-505 and ai’m pretty well versed on the JV sound engine. The Yamaha is definitely gonna take some time to get to know it. If you see an EX5R in good condition go up for sale (1 or 2 decent ones on Reverb now. Although I grabbed the one one with the SCSI board installed 😂). Do not hesitate. Just grab it and you won’t be disappointed.

[@MRabbitFrog]

I love this video. I recently had to sell all my gear to pay for some bills and reduced everything to an old synth and Renoise. That's it. After searching through KZbin on how I can create my own lush pads I became a little disappointed because many videos boil down to "buy this synth" or "buy this sample pack". Not good for people on a budget. But you really came through. I took a small one second sample (really just a blip sound) in Renoise made is as "paddy" as possible, duplicated it, then built on that even more. Then I threw a bunch of other short samples and they all followed the same algorithms and voila a lush pad sound from 6 tiny rough sounding blip sounds. I love all the gear and software we have today, but so much of it so expensive and in these times videos like these are gold. You can do soooo much with cheap software like Renoise, Reaper or a completely free Audacity if you know tricks like these. Just amazing. Thank you, you taught us all how to fish instead of selling us fish. Some good karma for you.

[@Thought-Forms]

Cheers mate. Sorry to hear about the gear having to go. but as mentioned, if anything, less gear drives more innovation as you do what you can with the stuff you have. a sampler is all you really need for this ambient stuff - and the possibilities are endless once you know how, as you found out :) have fun!

[@loveit8602]

Ahhh I had no idea what that was called... so gorgeous....could listen to rompler all day.

[@edwin-zone]

I love that these videos combo history lesson plus technique.

[@logicprohacks]

Stacking multiple samples in it's own instrument layer is why I bought BItwig! Great Tutorial! Love the sounds!

[@Thought-Forms]

Amen. Bitwig is a sound tinkerers dream, so much utility can be utilized in a straight forward manner. Thanks friend!

[@johncitizen8828]

Can you not also do this in Ableton?

[@ivansoto9723]

My JD-990 is one of my favorite little pieces of gear for sure. Sits right next to me on my desk. I love the sound of romplers and smooth sounds. Also got the Korg Trinity Rack and the 01/WFD. I have an obsession with pads and bells for sure and was always searching for the sound of some of my favorite 2000's anime and videogame soundtracks. Eventually found that many of them used PCM synthesis. Thanks for these sound design videos. There are hundreds of thousands of videos on subtractive synthesis. Very few on sample based synthesis, let alone on creating these styles of sounds.

[@Thought-Forms]

That JD-990 is a BEAST of a synth. TR-Rack, 01/W, and a JD-990...you have great taste! Solid trio. Got rid of my 990, but still have the TR-Rack and 01R/W. You try using Midiquest with that TR-Rack by chance? Allegedly can access all the parameters of the access engine with it Yep! So many OST's used these old romplers. Always cool to be flipping through presets and hear something familiar. Thanks for the comment, Ivan!

[@MrMarcLaflamme]

Such nostalgia, this was awesome, thank you! Wish I didn't throw out my old Future Music sampler cd's lol. Also that Rev Intensity sure does sound nice! The Final Sound was just begging for the rest of the jungle track 😛

[@Thought-Forms]

Cheers! Oh man, those CD's were awesome. Don't worry though, I've been buying them up on Ebay recently ;) Hands down my favorite reverb for the past few years, ultra lush and easy to dial in

[@johncitizen8828]

Damn, the Bitwig UI looks great - how handy are in built modulators on all devices, and the right click for devices right in the instrument?!

[@Thought-Forms]

The UI is fantastic! Workflow wise it's (imo) the best out of anything right now. The modulators are gamechanging, so easy to dial up on ANYTHING

[@johncitizen8828]

@@Thought-Forms Looks like it would b pretty easy to learn, too, coming from Ableton. Pity I'm so deeply invested in Ableton, I think switching DAWs would be counter productive!

[@declanmcnamara880]

Amazing sounds thank you again for these tutorials! My pad skills have improved tenfold sense I’ve started watching ❤

[@Thought-Forms]

lets goooo! you're on your way to being a pad guru

[@SAVANTI711]

Bobby next level as always mate.

[@VultureCulture]

Just magical and inspiring

[@Thought-Forms]

thanks friend! really appreciate it ❤️

[@yungstigmatamanne]

Damn this is the video ive been waiting on, its been this simple to get that rompler sound??? Combined with that one shot technique from before its really killer

[@Thought-Forms]

the icing comes with the sample combinations. keep the processing, but just swap out the samples. endless combinations and possibilities :)

[@HoundTakeshi]

I would also add some sort of chord memory plugin/device, for those early metalheadz pads. Other than that - brilliant!

[@shortattentionspa.....]

Phenomenal video, thanks for this. Its like you are a rogue jungle magician going against the wishes of the magic circle giving away all the secrets! Keep them coming!

[@Thought-Forms]

Thank you! Haha, I obsess over this stuff and just want to share with others as I find it fascinating

[@lunanescence]

another great video, thanks bobby!

[@kensley94]

Im completely at home, its incredible.

[@Basedboomerchadbear]

….YOU ARE CRUSHING IT LATELY BROTHER!!! …..thank you for your generous contribution to the scene !! 🙏😎🙏

[@petervier]

very helpful!

[@nsjx]

lovely result. loved when you switched the dly time in the left channel once it was built. 🤤

[@Thought-Forms]

thanks friend! those FX really make a difference :) delays especially bring these sounds alive

[@nsjx]

@@Thought-Forms what would we do w/o special sauce ;)

[@spacey_jones]

great instruction, very helpful ty!

[@Thought-Forms]

cheers mate!

[@jack3361]

Thank you so much for sharing this absolutely wonderful tutorial with us!

[@Thought-Forms]

You are welcome!

[@cl1xor]

Nice work, i do think a lot of the character from romplers is due to their gritty opamps. This year i got a u220 and jv1010, both dirt cheap.

[@Thought-Forms]

100%! Not just the converters, but also the sample quality / compression / transposition algorithms etc...can mimic to a degree in a daw by running your samples through any type of DAC processor (Tal-DAC, Decimort) U220 and 1010 are sweet synths! Still cheap, great pickups

[@younsmusic]

What a video, this final pad sound was so good I went to another world. Imma try this all on ableton while trying to learn the daw

[@VirtualModular]

This is great, I've always liked really digital sounding pads. Although I was getting deja vu watching this and realised it's almost exactly the same as the video called something like 'use this 90s sampling technique for ethereal pads'. I probably made the same comment on that one but sampling is underrated as a creative technique! Also, I've always called that a bell tree, guessing it's the same thing 😉

[@Thought-Forms]

Cheers! Can't beat digital pads, imo. Pretty similar in sound with the bell / mark tree, right? From some research: "The Mark tree is played with the fingers traveling horizontally. The bell tree is played vertically, usually with a triangle beater. The bells do not hit each other." ultimately a very similar sonic texture & sound, cant go wrong with either!

[@VirtualModular]

@@Thought-Forms ha, thanks for clearing that up. Cool sound either way 👍

[@ExpectResistance]

This is a great video. Need to sit and digest this one. Nicely done. 🖤💜

[@JustaArmada99]

Our relationship with sounds and music are like food. It brings us back.

[@djh.san1846]

This was genuinely helpful, I had been considering experimenting with this approach. Great to see you put it into practice. Would love to see what you could get out of Wavestate Native.

[@starkid9736]

perfect task 4 REASON Layer Layer Layer Layer Fx Fx FX modulate as much as u want 4 the reason folks: get this kilohertz formant filter (free) smash this in a combi with a minimixer (assign X/Y cv to 4 mix Channels) now u can change the vol of 4 channels of the mixer with the touchpad of the formant filter so u can fade organicly between them also good to cycle thrugh basses in this DnB jumpup styles this trick solves alot arrangment stiffnes (blending of elements)

[@Thought-Forms]

cheers mate, reason is a blast, need to give these tips a shot

[@Bittamin]

I’ve been preset surfing in Logic Pro through all my synths stock and some free third party synths and romplers and collecting!!! Maybe a can resample a bunch of them and layer/create my own rompler!

[@Thought-Forms]

that's the way to do it! endless possibility. mix & mash different romplers, sounds, synths and the sky is the limit

[@kharmatic9394]

this is so cool

[@hroyd]

Great video again

[@alfredomanzano8436]

Can you replicate this sound only with Bitwig or Ableton tools? Without using hardware or expensive plugins

[@Thought-Forms]

yea - ultimately you just need the ability to sample traditional analog sounds which Bitwig / Ableton native synth devices can generate (saw, sine, triangle, etc...) as well as the ability to sample random stuff sounds like that mark tree. so either samples / sample sounds off youtube, etc...and you're off to the races

[@diggyonutube]

so beautiful...need to recreate this for church worship music lol

[@oliver3llis966]

What is that magazine you showed in the start? I’ve been seeing tons of it from tons of places but don’t know what it’s from. Cheers!

[@fakshen1973]

Why is there a constant background pad playing? It doesn't sound like it's being triggered via MIDI as part of the demonstration of the rompler samples.

[@RaquelFoster]

If you think this is cool just buy a rompler already! If you like pad sounds, imagine how much fun you’d have playing with a real rack synth and a Korg SQ-1. It’s crazy to sit in front of a computer trying to recreate a ‘90s rack synth when you can easily buy a real one super cheap. A Proteus is about $100 any time you want. Besides, real romplers have a ridiculous number of extra modulations and filters and envelopes they’re using. And they have hundreds of patches you can just scroll through with about 50 things to tweak. And most of them are 16-channel multitimbral.

[@Thought-Forms]

why not both? :) but for sure! lot of romplers are still super cheap. have some legendary ones racked up next to me: triton rack, 01r/w, x3r, xl-1 turbo...and many more sitting in storage. cant get enough of em

[@Dudderlyful]

The mega multi timbral rompler revival hasn't happened yet but it's long overdue!

[@icanmakemusic362]

this is a good video, but would be much better if you muted the background audio when playing the examples

[@Thought-Forms]

cheers mate, appreciate the feedback too, noted

[@tunnis7us]

did you used only 1 marktree sample when playing chord ? So sawtooth is chord, but marktree is only 1 sample.

[@Thought-Forms]

good call out, yes! the osc1 sampler (sawtooth) has polyphony enabled allowing you to play a chord...while the osc2 sampler has 1 voice allotted. in general I think "non-traditional" samples sound best with 1 voice....too many and it can get tricky to manage the overall sound. That said....not always the case. Experiment!

[@DavidBoura]

Great! BUT NO MORE DOLPHINS 😭

[@Thought-Forms]

No dolphin ambience?

[@DavidBoura]

@@Thought-Forms needs more

[@johncitizen8828]

MOAR DOLPHINZ!!! 🐬

[@dyscotopia]

Or you could just buy an old rackmount rompler. They're not that expensive compared to a lot of retro gear

[@Thought-Forms]

yup! lot of good cheap ones if you have the space

[@Acrimonious_Snake]

The Triton, JV-1080, XV-5080 and other similar devices are NOT romplers, these are sample-and-synthesis instruments. A rompler is a device which can only play stock sounds without editing envelopes, sound source, filter cutoff, layers and so on.

[@ronnyb5890]

incorrect, a rompler is a synth wich only has onboard sounds (oscilators+samples) but you cant import your own samples, a sampler is a synth that can do both, you can import your own samples and manipulate them on a larger scale, for example, nexus is a rompler (ROM pler=Read Only Memory) and kontakt is a sampler