The Robots by Kraftwerk - Recreating a Bass Patch on Moog Matriarch

This is the 3rd video in Matriarch bass tone deep dive series.
A focus on techniques to recreate/lift sounds from recordings.
Index:
00:02 - Intro
01:30 - A bit about recreating/lifting from a recording
01:58 - Patch Comparison - Recreating on Other Synths
04:31 - Recreating on Moog Matriarch - Voice & Sequence
05:55 - Recreating the Percussive Attack
07:43 - Recreating Filter Modulation
12:49 - Recreating Delay
14:50 - Compare with original
16:33 - Reworking the voice
17:55 - Reworking Envelopes and Attacks
20:10 - Sculpting the sound with EQ
23:19 - Reworking Delay
25:20 - Outro
Patch Diagrams can be downloaded at robemusic.com/
Gear Used:
Moog Matriarch
Softube Console 1 (Eq)
Arturia Spark Drum Sampler
Moog Subsequent 37
Moog Mother 32
Behringer Model D
Dave Smith Instruments Mopho X4
Serum (software synth)
Roland re-201 Space Echo

[@RobeMusic]

mixed this one on headphones...big mistake...too much bass, sorry everybody! but think you can still get the idea

[@clayperdue1798]

Youre a Matriarch master. You really understand whats going on under the hood. A lot of the quirks and tricks arent apparent without learning the diagrams and how the signal flow actually works behind the scenes. Your videos are really helping me get more out of my Matriarch. I hope your channel takes off!

[@RobeMusic]

Thank you very much. Glad to help

[@THR-zf6ti]

So interesting how different these synths sound! And I learned so much how you proceed to get close to sound ❤

[@RobeMusic]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@_speckled_]

Thank you so much for making these tutorial videos! They are really fun and I've learned so much about the matriarch from them. Just purchased your patch book 💜

[@RobeMusic]

Glad you find the videos helpful and thanks for purchasing the patch book! Hope it helps

[@nichttuntun3364]

Expectedly great video. I thank you particularly for stretching the point of referencing and listening thorougly to an original sound source. That's important for musicianship, mixing, mastering and of course for comparing the quality of plugins and hardware. The situation today: Only a handful of people on KZbin and forums showcase such practice - and the other 98 percent try to claim, the usual suspect plugin-emulations sounded like their hardware pendants; what simply is laughable. 🎉

[@RobeMusic]

A/B-ing and referencing has certainly taught me a lot…and saved me from putting out some awful mixes in the past.

[@nichttuntun3364]

@@RobeMusic 👍🤗

[@silver7211]

Actual bass part was made on Moog Modular

[@strangersun7721]

I've never liked Kraftwerk, but i love this video. Your videos are great.

[@nichttuntun3364]

Interesting. 😀 I loved them since a child, and I remeber, in school I had a teacher, who - although specialized in classical music - praised the Autobahn album and tought as a lot about its composition technique. I never lost interest in Kraftwerk and videos like this only lets me appreciate their catalogue even more.

[@temporoboto]

💙

[@kgbinfo]

Dang that Mother 32 sounded great doing the bass patch.

[@RobeMusic]

Yea Mother 32 is an amazing sounding little synth…but before you rush out and buy one, I did cheat a bit for that patch…it’s actually 2 mothers. (Used 2nd mother oscillator running into external input on first mother)

[@RobeMusic]

Oh wait…I might have used the LFO on the mother as the second oscillator..in which case it was just one mother…but can’t remember now.

[@kgbinfo]

hahaha HOW MANY MOTHERS???@@RobeMusic

[@orthoooo]

Nice effort! I assumed they made the bassline with a Roland System 700 because I know they had one, and it sounds specifically layered (and also beefy!) in a way that a modular like that could do. And also it seems like it would be hard to double the part perfectly onto tape with a MiniMoog even with a sequencer, though I guess it's possible. Wonderful patch they made there. And the Matriarch: Yes, she could really use logarithmic envelopes! Probably not the kind of thing they could add in an update though. Looking for a good snappy (CV controllable) envelope module for it, too. Theres just a few things it doesn't do well.

[@RobeMusic]

the envelope really sounds punchy…I don’t have experience with a Roland 700…but do have a Roland 500 and it has real snappy envelopes…very similar sound to the recording. but the resonance sounds very “moog” to me. you’re almost certainly correct that instead of overdubbing they most likely had a layered patch. maybe I’ll try the same patch out on the Roland 500. (would be much easier to layer the sound on that for sure!)

[@orthoooo]

@@RobeMusic Just listening to the track again, and it seems even more complex now. Like somehow the bassline has a lot of tonal variations in the highest and lowest notes without it sounding the slightest bit unnatural, rather the opposite, somehow totally natural.

[@orthoooo]

I tend to view the Roland System 700 with mythical status so I attributed most of the character of this patch to its "dirty magic" because it doesn't sound obviously intentionally programmed, more a product of something in its old circuit designs, (specifically the gain staging and resonance qualities?) and them finding this sweet spot inside it. Obviously I'm making a lot of this up in my head, but hey what an album!

[@St33v33]

3:41 unvarnished truth

[@aenamabag]

Is it just me or does it sound like in the original there's something else controlling the resonance so that it increases pretty much with each note? You can really hear it with the final three low base notes when the resonance pitch increases.

[@RobeMusic]

yea, the resonance is definitely being modulated. good ears! I’m not sure if it’s sequenced. I think they just modulated the resonance manually like the filter..but could be wrong.

[@aenamabag]

@@RobeMusic I'm pretty new to modular synths, but is there a way to have the envelope filter modulate the resonance /harmonics without changing the timbre of the pitch?

[@RobeMusic]

unfortunately on the matriarch there's no CV control over filter resonance. in the example i did i had resonance up really high...so the filter is self-resonating (acting as an oscillator) if you modulate the filter while it's self-oscillating you will always hear a pitch change because the filter is essentially a vco at that point...(cutoff of filter controls pitch) if there was a way to modulate resonance only (like on other synths - moog mother 32 for instance) you would be able to control amount of resonance or "volume" of filter self-oscillation. So on a mother 32 you could modulate the filter with an envelope, invert or attenuate the envelope cv to resonance so when envelope triggers resonance is lower so no pitch change... that could work...But on the matriarch,...if you keep resonance lower (so filter is not self-oscillating) the envelope modulation will not affect the pitch at all. hope that answers your question

[@aenamabag]

@@RobeMusic Thanks. I think I know what you mean. I don't quite speak synth yet, but I'm getting there :)