A brutal, distorted square wave MIDI mono synth that can chew, wail, and scream.
This patch approximates one of my favourite MicroKorg patches that turns a fairly simple square wave oscillator into a brutal, overdriven lead that’s capable of very throaty screaming and howling sounds (which I used a lot on the first few Drone Assembly releases). It’s basically a PWM square wave into a resonant 24dB LPF (so in ZOIA that’s four(!) filters in series!) and then into an overdrive.
It took a lot of time to tweak all settings to get it to ‘wail’ just right though. It’s not identical, but close enough, and it’s its own thing now, as it should be!
There’s some fast random filter modulation called NOISE, and slower randomized wobble for the pitch called DETUNE.
It has Velocity sensitivity, Mod Wheel for the filter (to get directly to the chewy goodness), and of course Pitch Bend, together they can be very effective for expressive playing of brutal, wailing synth leads!
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[OVERVIEW]
-Input/Output: Stereo in/Stereo out (or Mono in/Stereo out)
-CPU load: Around 90%
-Build: Initial version built with firmware 2.80
-MIDI: I always use channel 10 and if controls are set to CC’s I use CC channels 21/36 (see CONTROLS section for details).
-CV Inputs: Unused.
-CV Outputs: Unused.
[REVISIONS]
1.0: Initial patch.
[CONTROLS]
Most controls are on the “UI” page and are labeled (see below for a “Picture Manual” in the comments).
The Stereo Output module with gain parameter is on the “IO” page.
LEVEL (sets the synth level)
LPF (sets the cutoff frequency of the 24dB low pass filter)
ENV (sets the amount of envelope controlled filter modulation)
REZ (sets the amount of resonance of the filter)
NOISE (sets the amount of fast random filter modulation)
DETUNE (sets the amount of slow random pitch modulation)
ATTACK (sets the attack time of the amp envelope; the decay time is fixed)
ZEBU LEFT/RIGHT button = Unused.
ZOIA LEFT / MID / RIGHT stomp = Unused.
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[TIPS/TRICKS]
>>> Try the different octaves! It really churns and grinds at lower octaves and screams at the higher ones.
>>> Don’t forget to use the Mod Wheel and go crazy with the Pitch Bend for this one!
[THOUGHTS/IDEAS/PLANS]
This patch is done, no future plans.
I’ll have to make some more synths inspired by this one, cause during development I found some cooool square wave-ish sounds that got buried by all the distortion and filtering in this one, so that’ll have to become its own thing!
If there’s any bugs/questions/remarks/requests or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!
Enjoy!
(Image: Nicolas Rivals)
Picture Manual here:
Attachment Manual-The-Maw-v1-664cfde1da51e.jpg