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Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:08 pm
by dubdub
youtu.be/1vrLqLs3hDs

Randomly stumbled upon these demos recently and since I love anything formant-sounding I was totally blown away. I've been trying to recreate that sound ITB but it seems to be a lot harder than just putting a formant filter before a reverb. This is my best attempt so far, the wet chain is chorus -> ableton resonator -> monolake formant filter -> valhalla vintage. Already sounds a lot better than just putting a random formant filter in front of the verb. Anyone else curious to try their hand at this? The main thing I'm struggling with is getting that formant tone so present and clear as in the big sky, without making it sound overly harsh or resonant. The Chorale algorithm also sounds like multiple voices are singing, which I can't seem to nail, even with chorus and ensemble modulation etc. I've heard someone say that the formant filter might be in the actual feedback loop of the reverb, so is it even possible to get that tone right with an FX chain?


Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:16 pm
by Lost to the Void
Can't you do this with Valhalla shimmer?

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:55 pm
by dubdub
Lost to the Void wrote:Can't you do this with Valhalla shimmer?
Not really, Shimmer just has pitch shifting, no formant algorithm. It can do kind of vaguely chorusing, big shimmering reverbs but nothing with really defined formants like that Chorale algorithm. I did some googling yesterday and Sean from Valhalla even said himself that you couldn't really get that sound with any of his plugins on their own. Even with some kind of processing chain, I don't think Shimmer is the right one for this kind of sound, it's just too big and diffuse.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:57 pm
by Barskiniov
Hi dubdub,

had the same obsession, and tried several things with Ubermod and Diffuse settings on delay plugins and so on... my solutions were not fx chains but the following:

1. There are BigSky Impulse Responses (I tried Choral, sounds cool but it is not very versatile of course
2. Xenoverb has a formant algo
3. this dude made something with Magma: https://imgur.com/a/NGyx8
4.this dude (around min 5) sounds nice, but you need a zoom cdr 70, but maybe what he uses helps you (multitapdelay and so on...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESoEESn5TEg

hope this helps

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:58 pm
by Lost to the Void

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 3:18 pm
by dubdub
Lost to the Void wrote:Hmmmm, seems like this is what you need
http://www.zynaptiq.com/morph/morph-overview/
I have heard of Morph, have not tried it, will give it a shot.
Barskiniov wrote:Hi dubdub,

had the same obsession, and tried several things with Ubermod and Diffuse settings on delay plugins and so on... my solutions were not fx chains but the following:

1. There are BigSky Impulse Responses (I tried Choral, sounds cool but it is not very versatile of course
2. Xenoverb has a formant algo
3. this dude made something with Magma: https://imgur.com/a/NGyx8
4.this dude (around min 5) sounds nice, but you need a zoom cdr 70, but maybe what he uses helps you (multitapdelay and so on...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESoEESn5TEg

hope this helps
1 - Can you link me to those impulse responses?
2 - I've tried Xenoverb but it 'just' sounds like a formant filter in front of a reverb, I can do that myself easily.
3 - I've seen that but I don't think there are soundclips, so no idea how accurate it actually sounds.
4 - I'm trying to stay ITB, if I went hardware, I'd probably just save up for a Big Sky.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 3:48 pm
by Barskiniov
The Magma is not that close. The IR´s must be here: https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/1220 ... dal-around
Sorry the YT vid was about the Cloud mode. There are also some nice presets in the B2 reverb. I think maybe the original sound is just the BigSky chip spitting out reverbed/chorused Choir samples in correspondence to the input and nothing that fancy is going on.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 3:54 pm
by dubdub
Thanks. I don't think it's sample based, from 1:20 in the demo video in the OP you can clearly hear the formant filter.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 4:09 pm
by Lost to the Void
dubdub wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:Hmmmm, seems like this is what you need
http://www.zynaptiq.com/morph/morph-overview/
I have heard of Morph, have not tried it, will give it a shot.
At it`s base level it`s a formant filter and reverb, but it appears to be so much more.
I`m going to get it myself.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 4:47 pm
by dubdub
Lost to the Void wrote:
dubdub wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:Hmmmm, seems like this is what you need
http://www.zynaptiq.com/morph/morph-overview/
I have heard of Morph, have not tried it, will give it a shot.
At it`s base level it`s a formant filter and reverb, but it appears to be so much more.
I`m going to get it myself.
Isn't it a formant shifter, rather than formant filter? I suppose the way you would make a Chorale-esque sound is by morphing between a wet reverb and a chorus/vocal sample?

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:01 pm
by Lost to the Void
Well, semantics.
For all sense and purposes that formant shifter is a formant filter. I see no reason why you couldn`t get sounds you want out of it, I`m going to get a demo and try it out.

You could just get a formant filter and stick it in front of a reverb, I mean, that`s how I would tackle your original sound problem. It doesn`t seem particularly complex to me. Might require a bit of jiggling around with running the fx in parallel.

Have you had a look around in the M4L library?

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:09 pm
by dubdub
Lost to the Void wrote:You could just get a formant filter and stick it in front of a reverb, I mean, that`s how I would tackle your original sound problem. It doesn`t seem particularly complex to me.
dubdub wrote: I've been trying to recreate that sound ITB but it seems to be a lot harder than just putting a formant filter before a reverb. This is my best attempt so far, the wet chain is chorus -> ableton resonator -> monolake formant filter -> valhalla vintage.

That's what I did in the clip in the OP. But it doesn't really sound the same, since I suspect that the formant filter of Big Sky is set within the actual reverb algorithm. Other people on Gearslutz etc. seem to have tried the same and couldn't get it right either.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:10 pm
by Lost to the Void
Buy a strymon reverb?

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:14 pm
by dubdub
As I've already stated, if I were hardware-based, I maybe would have but since I'm completely ITB, getting a single pedal just for that algorithm and having to do deal with all the routing etc. would be kind of ridiculous in terms of workflow. Not to mention it's fairly expensive.

I will give the IRs a shot and see how close they sound.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:18 pm
by dubdub
I loaded the IRs in the Max convolution verb, sound nice! Thanks Barskiniov! I was never really a convolution verb user but now i'll be chasing down some more IRs :lol:

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:30 pm
by Lost to the Void
Modular environment would be best to insert a filter in to the reverb. Max4Live.

Re: Getting that Strymon Big Sky 'Chorale' sound

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:47 pm
by dubdub
You're probably right, never really got deeper into max apart from just using the devices w/o any editing, maybe worth it to dwelve a bit deeper into it.