Synthesized ACOUSTIC INSTRUMETNS #1 - Stereo

This video used to be in hi-fi stereo, now apparently damn Youtube has gone back an is converting stereo videos to lo-fi mono. For high quality stereo you can listen to the MP3 at this link:
http://home.att.net/~elhardt4/Alesis_Ion_Western.mp3

This is one in a series of videos of me demonstrating advanced sound synthesis using analog or virtual analog synthesizers and subtractive synthesis. Each video lists what synthesizer was used. In addition, some standard outboard effects were used such as EQ, reverb, digital delays, and/or chorus.

Be sure to check out other related videos in my series, and check back now and then as I will be posting more in the near future.

Note that the time duration of the video shows twice the length that the video actually runs, so the video will end when the pointer reaches half of its length. This happens as a side effect to getting Youtube to play a higher bandwidth file, in this case, stereo audio.

Since I like the music of Ennio Morricone, I decided to use that as a vehicle to demo some realistic acoustic imitations. I don't have any printed music scores, so I did it by ear, improvised stuff, and threw together elements from different Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns just to create an eclectic mix. It was all played by hand on the cheap little 4 octave Ion keyboard plus expression and sustain pedals, and overdubbed using multi-track recording software.

Synthesized instruments are listed in approximate order of when they make their first appearance.

01) Kettle Drum

02) Bass Drum

03) Tenor Recorder

04) Mellotron Choir (filters modified with envelope to make it say "Wah", and NO, the lame and useless Ion vocal filters were not used)

05) Alto Recorder

06) Acoustic Guitar (nylon string rhythm guitar)

07) Whistling

08) Telecaster Electric Guitar

09) Acoustic Guitar (brighter sound, somewhere between a nylon and steel string rythm guitar)

10) Trumpet

11) Trombones

12) French Horn

13) Snare Drum

14) Mellotron Male/Female Choir (sacrificed vocal clarity for density of sound)

****** Addition MP3 Files

I plan to do an Ion synthesized acoustic drum set demo, so I'll refrain from putting that MP3 below. But here are some additional Alesis Ion audio files for those interested.

This one shows various Tomita-style passages using several of my different Ion Mellotron Choir patches.

http://home.att.net/~synth6/Ion_Tomitas_Mellotron.mp3

The following one alternates between a real Tomita recording of his Mellotron doing the "OOH" sounds and my Ion "AH" sounds. Excuse the faster tempo of my parts as I hadn't planned on doing this ahead of time.

http://home.att.net/~synth6/Ion_Real_Fake_Real_Fake.mp3

Here is a test of some of my Ion brass sounds such as trombones, trumpets, tubas, octave brass, and more going from p to f in loudnesses.

http://home.att.net/~synth6/Ion_Brass.mp3

And here is a short test of my Ion recorder playing in the left channel against a real recorder in the right to show how close to the real thing it is.

http://home.att.net/~synth6/Ion_Recorder_Compare.mp3

******

Category:

Music

Tags:

• synthesizer
• synthesis
• synth
• alesis
• ion
• virtual
• analog
• acoustic
• instruments
• emulation
• western

[v8media]

You can add &fmt=18 to the end of most tracks to get a higher quality file. Some of them you can add &fmt=22 to get an even higher quality file, but that apparently doesn't work all the time. The 18 one worked on this one. Sounds pretty dang nice.

If I didn't know this was done by a synth, I might think this sounded a little weird, but I would think filter, not synth. Very nice audio.

[Elhardt]

I've come across lot's of other videos on youtube that say to use &fmt=18 to get the stereo version, and sometimes they provide a direct link with that already added, and I have never gotten stereo from it, and that includes this video. I don't know why youtube is excluding only me from using that feature. I've had it with youtube B.S. and am going to use a different site for my stereo videos and then put little intro videos on youtube to direct people elsewhere. Ridiculous it's come to this.

[Elhardt]

READ READ READ READ

This video used to be in HI-FI STEREO, now apparently damn Youtube has gone back and is converting stereo videos to lo-fi mono. For high quality stereo you can listen to the MP3 at this link provided in the video info section to the right --->

[ermineviolin]

Awesome work, but...

Don't those instruments already exist?

[Elhardt]

To ermineviolin. Yes those instruments already exist, but I don't own or know how to play them all. Probably nobody in the world does either. Thus I use a synth which can do whatever I want as the only practical alternative. Other's cheat by using samples, but that doesn't demonstrate any kind of sound creation or programming skill, nor distinguish them from the millions of others doing the same thing.

[OHEARL]

How did you do all of this? It's amazing!

[Elhardt]

To OHEARL. Thanks for the comment. How did I do it? I bought an Ion, spent about 3 weeks playing around with it and programming sounds on it with my usual attention to detail, patience and synth programming experience. Then I pulled up CoolEdit Pro's multitrack recorder and recorded myself playing the sounds to improvised and altered Ennio Morricone tunes to demo some of those sounds. That's about it.

[JohnLRice]

Ken is an absolute master at not only creating sounds, but also at using the needed performance and orchestration techniques to create synthesized music that can often perfectly mimic traditional 'acoustic' music!

[xizorPL]

what the.....

Amazing!!!

Makes my dream about ion ;)

[ArlieWinter]

brilliant! the whistling is a remarkable sample. thanks for creating and sharing!

[tekkentool]

Absolutely stellar work, i must commend you for the way you play the patches as well. Very much pulling the expression out of them.

[DeanMcLean]

awsome, especially the voice pads which are really good sounding

is it possible to get a list of the different soundtracks in here? I recognized theGBU and For a few dollars more but not the other ones

[ANALOGPIG]

A+ that was enjoyable ! you really got some killer sounds out of the Ion.

[MrUriM]

In the beginning I believe that the sounds are synthesized...but at 1:02 when the whistling starts it sounds way to natural...why dont you upload some sound where you do some knob moves...youll get your 5 stars if you show that it is no fake...

[Moccij]

Where did you learned to obtain those "inartificial" sounds? Because it's ok to put a big effort on the synth, but messing with EQ needs some deep knowledge.. did you learn all that by yourself?!?