Vagabond Synth Nerd’s Journal Vol. 161 - Trial and Error in Recreating Jan Hammer’s Guitar Sound with the TAKE 5 Synthesizer [Synthesizer Editing Part II]

Reproducing Jan Hammer's guitar-like sound with the sequential TAKE 5...

This is a report on sound creation with the sequential analog synthesizer TAKE 5, following my previous blog post,“Vagabond Synth Nerd Vol. 160”. Everyone who plays the keyboard thinks that they would like to imitate or reproduce the sounds of musicians using synthesizers.

In the case of synthesizers using today's digital technology, it is difficult to find a common denominator of sound creation because of the different mechanisms and parameters of synthesizers of each company. On the other hand, in the case of analog synthesizers, anyone who grasps the signal flow can generally understand whether it is sequential, mog, Oberheim, Roland, or Korg.

In my case, I have used synthesizers other than the Mogg, but I believe that you will generally understand the contents of this report even if you use a synthesizer other than the sequential TAKE 5 that I used. In that sense, it is possible to create similar sounds with analog synthesizers such as Roland and Korg. I hope you will find this report useful.

This time, I’m trying to create guitar sounds using the pitch bend wheel, which is a specialty of keyboard player Jan Hammer, who’s known around the world for his work with Jeff Beck.

SEQUENTIAL (Dave Smith Instruments) / Take 5

VCF (Voltage Controlled Filter), the key to synthesizer sound creation

When creating sounds on an analog synthesizer, a filter (VCF) is applied to the oscillator (VCO) to create the waveform, the sound that passes through an envelope generator (ADSR) determines the rise and fall of the sound, and the sound is output through an amplifier (VCA).
Then there’s the oscillator, filter, and amplifier blocks which are modulated by a low-frequency oscillator (LFO) to add vibrato, tremolo, and other modulations to the tone.

The oscillator that creates the waveform is a very important part, and it is no exaggeration to say that this oscillator determines the quality of the synthesizer's output sound. The oscillator of the sequential TAKE 5 is a direct descendant of the famous Prophet 5, so it sounds very good. Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was also a Prophet 5 user, said in an interview with Keyboard Magazine that the sound quality of the oscillator, which is the basis of the synthesizer, is very important.

Continuing from the previous article, let's start with the VCF (Voltage Control Filter) settings.
The most important parts of the VCF control knob are the cutoff (frequency) and resonance.

Filter Cut-Off and Resonance

Cut-off cuts off the head of the frequency range. Resonance (resonance) is a function that emphasizes the frequency range around the cutoff.
These two parameters are used to create the unique whirring sound of the synthesizer.
Increasing resonance emphasizes the frequencies around the cut-off frequency range, resulting in this peculiar synthesizer sound.

The simulated guitar sound of the Jeff Beck live recording Live Wire doesn't sound like a guitar, but it has a tapping sound. This tapping sound is an extension of the whirring sound that is created by the process of finger touching down on the fretboard of a guitar, which emphasizes the sound production process. The whirring sound is unique to the synth and is produced when the attack time is slightly delayed, and the release note is longer than that of the guitar.

For a guitar sound with zero attack time and zero release time, raise the cutoff parameter slightly from halfway and set the resonance at the same level. Fine-tuning the cutoff at this parameter position produces a tapping sound. If you want to make the sound even sharper, increase the Cut Off and Resonance scales a little more.
Applying a long delay (echo) to this floppy sound will sweeten the sound and make it sound more like a guitar.

The sound quality is created to your liking by balancing cutoff and resonance. One more thing: The “freeway jam” sound in Hammer's “Live Wire” has a square wave selected by the VCO instead of a sawtooth wave. While “Wired” uses a sawtooth wave, “Live Wire” uses a square wave or pulse-with-modulation to reduce the width of the square wave.

Another important filter is the growl effect

Now that I have the basis of the guitar sound, there is one more element necessary to imitate the humming sound.

Jan Hammer added one quirk to the Minimoog sound on his album Live Wire. The LF0 (Low Frequency Oscillator), which generally produces vibrato and tremolo, is filtered (VCF) to create a growl effect. This sound is unique to synthesizers. (The Minimoog does not have an LFO, but uses one of its three oscillators as the LFO.)

The sound played when the performance breaks around 8 minutes 37 seconds into Emerson Lake & Palmer's album Terrifying Brainstorms, “Evil Scripture #9: First Impressions,” is the sound of thise growl effect.
You can set the waveform to oscillate with sawtooth waves, sine waves, square waves, sample & hold (S&H), etc.

Waveform, speed, and strength set by LFO1

The speed and intensity of the shaking are set by FREQUENCY and AMOUNT, respectively. To modulate the VCF with the LFO at this time, set DEST (distortion) to VCF.

The MOD is set to LFO1 for SRC ASSIGN, and DEST ASSIGN is set to VCF.
In TAKE 5, this is set automatically by turning the LFO1 and VCF controller knobs while holding down the respective buttons.

Choosing Effects Pedals

Finally, there is the choice of effects pedals. Jan Hammer's sound is deeply affected by the raw sound of the synthesizer. First is the echo. Echo is now called “delay”, but back then it was called “echo”. The Roland RE-201 Space Echo is used here, but there was a time before and after the RE-201 when an echo using an electronic element called a BBD was used. I decided to use TAKE 5's BBD echoes judging by the fact that BBD echoes fit the sound of this era.

The word BBD is in the lower right corner of the indicator window, and BBD echo is selected.

In addition to this, Jan Hammer also added a flanger to the mini-mog. There is also a flanger parameter in TAKE 5, so I could have selected the flanger and applied it to the reverb depth in the two effects pedals, but I decided to apply the flanger as a stand-alone effects pedal since I put more emphasis on the long echo sound on the Live Wire album. Unfortunately, TAKE 5 does not allow BBD echo and flanger at the same time.

There is one more thing I forgot to mention. In order to make it sound like a guitar, you need to use the pitch bend of the synthesizer to simulate the chalking of a guitar. It is also necessary to practice the timing of the ups and downs of the pitch bend. It is also important to memorize Jeff Beck's guitar phrases (see “Vagabond Synth Nerd’s Journal Vol.160“).

It is relatively easy to get close to the sound that replicates Jan Hammer's guitar, so please try and experiment with trial and error.

Musicians, albums, and recommendations featured in this issue

• Artist：Jan Hammer, Jeff Beck
• Albums: “Wired“ and “Live Wire“

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