How to get the "PBS Sound"?

[Emmer]

Hey everyone.

So I've been writing music for a while now but there's a certain sound I'm trying to get which I've heard described as the "PBS sound".

I'm sure everyone here has heard it, I know it's used a lot in BoC tracks. It's also the little hook at the beginning of OoT Vol 3.

How would you guys achieve this sort of muted, retro, analog sound? I haven't really been able to get anything that sounds like it from the Ableton Live 8 instrument racks.

Other examples include:
Under The Coke Sign
Everything You Do Is A Balloon

[isawdrones]

you got Ableton suite? I can help you out if youve got the instruments (analog, operator, etc), i dont think youll have any luck tweaking presets.


the three songs that your talking about have dramatically different tone character btw

[Emmer]

I have Ableton Live, not Ableton Suite so I have only the "instrument rack" and Impluse, not Operator or Analog.

I was thinking I might have to end up buying one of the plugins and I figured Analog seemed like the right one.

I didn't want to splurge the $160 though if it wasn't going to help me recreate those sounds.

And I realize they're all different, but I like all of them and they all have that "retro" PBS broadcasting sound to them.


Anyway, yeah, if you can guide me how to make that kind of sounds with Analog, I'll be purchasing that with my next paycheck.

[isawdrones]

you might want to just upgrade to ableton suite and get all the instruments, it ends up being cheaper in the end and i think its only 200 bucks to upgrade

[turquoise70]

i kinda liked it better when there wasn't a name for it and people weren't like man how can i achieve the pbs sound i want to be pbscore

i know that isn't like what you're trying to come across as emmer, it just strikes me as odd, i dunno. then dave'll come in here and be like you hypocrite you copy the warbly scratch sound from BoC you just don't call it anything, and i'll be like god damnit, and then that doesn't actually happen cause he ragequitted the board.

[isawdrones]

i kinda liked it better when there wasn't a name for it and people weren't like man how can i achieve the pbs sound i want to be pbscore

i know that isn't like what you're trying to come across as emmer, it just strikes me as odd, i dunno. then dave'll come in here and be like you hypocrite you copy the warbly scratch sound from BoC you just don't call it anything, and i'll be like god damnit, and then that doesn't actually happen cause he ragequitted the board.

Yeah. I haven't really heard a boc tone that truly reminds me of a pbs jingle.. Boards of Canada doesn't strike me as "retro", I didn't have that association until I came to this forum and read other peoples thoughts. I think if you have this preconception of the band as just music that references old things (not making any personal accusations here) you are missing out on a lot of the beauty.

We are just forced to use these limited, cliche terms because BoCs music is so amorphous, its beauty is that it defies definition, so a lot of stuff is lost in translation when trying to describe their music or their tones, if you know what I mean. Trying to turn their creative expansiveness into a word just never does the band justice

[BrandNewRetro]

i kinda liked it better when there wasn't a name for it and people weren't like man how can i achieve the pbs sound i want to be pbscore

i know that isn't like what you're trying to come across as emmer, it just strikes me as odd, i dunno. then dave'll come in here and be like you hypocrite you copy the warbly scratch sound from BoC you just don't call it anything, and i'll be like god damnit, and then that doesn't actually happen cause he ragequitted the board.

Yeah. I haven't really heard a boc tone that truly reminds me of a pbs jingle.. Boards of Canada doesn't strike me as "retro", I didn't have that association until I came to this forum and read other peoples thoughts. I think if you have this preconception of the band as just music that references old things (not making any personal accusations here) you are missing out on a lot of the beauty.

We are just forced to use these limited, cliche terms because BoCs music is so amorphous, its beauty is that it defies definition, so a lot of stuff is lost in translation when trying to describe their music or their tones, if you know what I mean. Trying to turn their creative expansiveness into a word just never does the band justice

Well said!

[turquoise70]

Yeah, well put man. Thanks for that.

That having been said, Emmer, the key to what you're looking for, I think, lies mostly in layering of filters (hi, lo, and band - use them all! multiple times on a single channel! play with res/Q til it sounds great), subtle bending of pitch, and various types of distortion, hiss, and compression. in other words, warp the sound. I've found it really don't matter how complex of a synth sound I start with, it's the damaging and re-salvaging and re-damaging and re-softening the sound goes through that gives it a weathered, muted quality.

But I think I've kind of underscored my point in explaining that, i mean look at it, without outright describing exactly what I do to my sounds, I pretty much just laid bare the methodology - ONE methodology of many, MY methodology - and doesn't it seem kind of cheapened? BoC's music is way more detailed than mine and it's way more complex than just a sound that attempts to imitate the tone of a musical TV bumper ad. I'd like to think my music is more complex than just one kid's lame attempt to mimick the tone of a musical TV bumper ad, too. I say incorporate the tonality and texture you like, but shoot for something more personal and more complex and more beautiful than just "this sounds like Tycho" - oops, dropped the T-word

Cheers.

[Cupz]

"this sounds like Tycho" - oops, dropped the T-word

MOTHERF.....

[turquoise70]

"this sounds like Tycho" - oops, dropped the T-word

MOTHERF.....

AAAAAAAA- *explodes*

[Emmer]

I don't mean that they are the same instrument by any means nor that "PBS" is a great label* for anything, but I don't know how to describe "that sound" any better since, as you pointed out, it's pretty broad and encompasses all sorts of effects and tones.

I think you bring up an interesting point though turquoise70 which is that while BOC does a lot with the scratchy warbly sound I wouldn't call it theirs. Almost all musicians are just trying to express something but that something is generally already somewhere in the world. And whether thats antiquity, imperfection, whatever you want to argue is the artistic element, it's just the sound that old records and tape decks were making on their own before anyone (like BOC) decided to incorporate it into their art.

Personally, I also want to incorporate that sound into my work, because of it's appeal to me aesthetically. It's also reminiscent of a time that I've come to (with the help of ISO50) feel represented a stronger point in humanity's ability to recognize aesthetics. In the same way that I love looking at old work from Otl Aicher like the stuff he did for the 1972 olympics in Munich, or at how crappy cameras like the Lomos screwed with color, saturation, and contrast, I like hearing music that sounds like it came from a similar background.

As for the "T Word", am I to understand that Tycho is rather disliked here? I know it's silly to assume that Tycho would be liked by anyone who listens to anything IDM-ish, but of everything I heard out in the world, he's easily one of my favorites. Just to damage my reputation on this forum I'm going to be brutally honest and admit that while I love some of BOC's records, like Trans Canada Highway, I prefer a lot of Tycho's stuff over BOC.**



* On the topic of labels, when I use one, it's generally just for ease of communication, not because I subscribe to it. Personally, I've deleted every genre tag from my music library because I think such labels are stupid and I like to think I listen to music that doesn't fit a generic label.

** Strange because I would definitely say his music is much warmer and fuzzier than BOC's and I definitely don't take that kind of design aesthetic.

[rick7487]

How would you guys achieve this sort of muted, retro, analog sound? I haven't really been able to get anything that sounds like it from the Ableton Live 8 instrument racks.

Save your money, get two cassette players, two cassette tapes, and record your music onto one of them. Then repeatedly replay your recording back and forth between the two players over two feet of space until the sound dissolves into soup.

What i'm sayin is experiment. If you want you music to sound analogue, play with analog mediums. I think it would be sweet if people used VHS Tapes as their medium of recording... and although it may be complete crap the first time you tried it, you just have to experiment and figure out what works. I doubt if there is an A+B=C solution for this kind of stuff, and if there was i'm sure BoC would have released a shit ton more albums over the +10 years they've been famous.

[isawdrones]

How would you guys achieve this sort of muted, retro, analog sound? I haven't really been able to get anything that sounds like it from the Ableton Live 8 instrument racks.

Save your money, get two cassette players, two cassette tapes, and record your music onto one of them. Then repeatedly replay your recording back and forth between the two players over two feet of space until the sound dissolves into soup.

well see your talking more about distortion and degradation than synthesizer sound design, all that fun distortion stuff comes after the sound designing process in my opinion

[turquoise70]

stuff

Respect. I think you communicated yourself pretty well there, i get where you're coming from.

as for tycho, i can't speak for everyone, but my thing is this - i don't hate him or anything silly like that, and i like some of his music. i just think that he is really a designer, at the heart of it, his music doesn't strike me as very much from the heart. it seems more like a design project of his. an attempt to hit at an aesthetic and that's all.

[isawdrones]

stuff

Respect. I think you communicated yourself pretty well there, i get where you're coming from.

as for tycho, i can't speak for everyone, but my thing is this - i don't hate him or anything silly like that, and i like some of his music. i just think that he is really a designer, at the heart of it, his music doesn't strike me as very much from the heart. it seems more like a design project of his. an attempt to hit at an aesthetic and that's all.

yeah you nailed it

[polar sky]

Or get a vintage analog synth and start from scratch. All sliders down, all knobs down. Start with a simple square or sine wave and adjust from there. LFO is key to achieving the "wobble sound" or "tape tracking sound". If you want to go natural with it, record it on to a tape and then recorded that on to another and so on and so on. The "PBS sound" (haha) is more of the early sounds of the synthesizer. Get some books such as the "Synthesizer Cook Book" and it will tell you how to make classic sounds by adjusting the ADSR, LFO, Filters ect.. Depending on how many oscillators you have, you can make some nice classic sounds. Make your patch Mono not Poly! Mono will give you the effect you want when releasing the notes into each other.

This is the sound you are looking for right?

Yamaha • CS-70M
http://www.vintagesynth.com/audio/cs70m_mix.mp3

[polar sky]

Yeah. I haven't really heard a boc tone that truly reminds me of a pbs jingle.. Boards of Canada doesn't strike me as "retro", I didn't have that association until I came to this forum and read other peoples thoughts. I think if you have this preconception of the band as just music that references old things (not making any personal accusations here) you are missing out on a lot of the beauty.

Well they grew up influenced by The NFB music (Canada's PBS if you will). So it would make sense people would identify BoC's early sound with what American kids grew up with, PBS in their case. A LOT of their earlier Old Tunes stuff has a lot of classic sounds as well, you can tell what they were into.

Music Has The Right To Children has always reminded me of grade school. And that makes me happy, because I didn't have a care in the world when I was a kid. That album makes me happy because it makes me feel nostalgic and that to me is what music is all about, when music can put you in another place and make you feel something great.

[Emmer]

This is the sound you are looking for right?

Yamaha • CS-70M
http://www.vintagesynth.com/audio/cs70m_mix.mp3

Yup. Again though, not sure how to make that...

[polar sky]

This is the sound you are looking for right?

Yamaha • CS-70M
http://www.vintagesynth.com/audio/cs70m_mix.mp3

Yup. Again though, not sure how to make that...

Listen to that and then start from scratch on a synth and try to recreate it. Or buy a vintage analog piece.

[isawdrones]

This is the sound you are looking for right?

Yamaha • CS-70M
http://www.vintagesynth.com/audio/cs70m_mix.mp3

Yup. Again though, not sure how to make that...

It just depends what kind of timbre you want,..Polars advice is good for that type of bubbly lead sound, but the oscillators on Analog aren't as rich as the ones on the cs 70 and other hardware units so there are a lot of subjective things to consider. Programming a sound like the pad on "everything you do is a balloon" for instance, is going to be a completely different process then programming that vintage mono lead sound.

I take it from context you haven't worked very much with programming synthesizers. Polars advice is good, It's much more efficient and rewarding to learn yourself, no one is going to have a complete answer for you because there are so many subjective factors that go into the production of a sound, it takes time and patience. All we really can give you is advice at producing general characteristics but the magic comes from somewhere else.

Tell us when you get analog and we'll talk about programming