I had no luck posting this on the reddit forum so thought I’d give it a shot here
I’ve had an Op1-field for a few months now,
I’ve been trying to find ways to make the onboard synths sound more alive or with more character.
I’m new to sound design as a whole,
I’m not necessarily looking for an analog sound, really just looking to create more creative sounding patches that are also usable in a track.
Anyone have ideas that I can try with the onboard effects or creative uses with the LFO’s/Envelopes?
Or maybe even unconventional ways to record to tape that give interesting playback sound/effects!
I’d love to know some cool sound design tips or tricks you guys have come across to really help me open up the floodgates of what this synth is really capable of!
One thing I really wish OP-1 or OP-1 Field had, was either two LFOs or the ability for the LFO to modulate multiple things. Anyway interesting results are certainly possible regardless.
With the new Dimension virtual analog style synth, the waveform parameter changes the tone most drastically, as you’d expect. Unusually it blends between the different waveforms rather than a static choice of square, sine, saw etc.
My favourite thing to do is to use the LFO, I forget which one, but with a sine wave so it smoothly oscillates, and then assign that to the waveform. By adjusting the speed and range and setting Dimension’s waveform appropriately first, you can get some nice movement in the sound as it moves between different waveforms.
I’ve been meaning to do a video showing this and other tips but lacking time at the moment.
Also check out the Aeoner pack on TE’s website, it’s a free pack of sounds which are not sample based, they all have clever usage of LFO and effects, you can press T3 and T4 to toggle the effects and LFO off and then poke around and see how they’re made. - remeber holding Shift on T2 shows extra patch parameters like poly/legato modes and portamento (slide) time.
Adding to @beefinator ’s list:
Use the Tremelo effect with Square or Pilse wave and octave setting of green (sorry original OP1 owner here, old colors! usually +41 or -40 if you want the octave jump to go up or down first, maybe i have that backwards) and white 100 or -100. When you do this in stereo, it’s fantastic! Also, just amplitude for Rhodes “suitcase” style stereo pan, you can use sine wave but square is more true to the original.
When sampling, do two or three different octave notes, one at a time. By varying the rhythm you play when sampling, you can make KILLER arps…
Modulate high or low pass filter in Nitro with the ELEMENT LFO set to the envelope; if there’s a built in sweep in the dimension engine, it’s almost like having a second envelope…
Being an OG owner, i decided to try the Aeoner sounds and found that most of them would load but no FX or LFO settings and all of them were pitched as A sounding on F#, maybe TE broke the file format with the Field sounds…
A lot of sound design stuff depend on which synth engine you’re using. I really need to dedicate some time to making a video about advanced sounds design on OP-1 and OP-1F.
Two “effects” people often overlook are Tremolo and Random LFOs.
Tremolo can do a lot of things:
It can do normal Tremolo and Vibrato effects if you set it somewhere below half the possible frequency and dial in mild frequency (gold) and amplitude (grey) parameters.
Like @psound74 said, it can automatically shift the sound one octave up or down, like a mini-arpeggiator.
When you crank its frequency up all the way, it enters sonic range drastically changing the sound, making it metallic and distorted. It’s basic AM/FM modulation.
If you change the pitch of the sound only a bit, but there is a long-running delay or reverb, the difference between the two will be quite distinct.
Since this LFO has an envelope, you can combine it with the above to make more dynamic sounds. You can, for example, use AM/FM effect to create an attack for an otherwise pure timbre.
You can also use a downward pointing envelope with square LFO that modulates amplitude to fake a delay when all “real” FX are used for something else.
You can use it do an attack-time bend-up or bend-down for a patch.
Random LFO on Field can do many things with individual engines, but it can also make pitch of every individual voice somewhat unstable. This subtly changes how everything sounds in a very cool “old arcade” kind of way and can also give larger spread to any unison (similar to how spread and unitor params work for Cluster engine).
