Agreed, I love his stuff. He's pretty much the only Synthwave artist I listen to regularly. Apart from the heavy cyber stuff (darksynth?) which I find grating and samey. Those tracks are instant skips for me. I prefer the (style of/stuff in) Neon Paradise mix. Ive bought all those tracks and have them in my library. He hasn't bettered those tracks in the masses of stuff he's done since. I wish he would release less stuff but with better quality control now.
RE his synths: I own quite a few Analogs and I can say hand on heart that I think his stuff is digital. Personally I think his work is underproduced to a certain degree but it is well mixed. I think he uses templates as there is a lot of repetition in his stuff once the albums pile up. You can tell a lot of the new tracks are just rehashes of older better tracks using exactly the same sounds. The closest you get to any kind of transition in his tunes is a backwards cymbal to cue a change. Keeping it basic I think is what allows him to knock this stuff out so fast.
If you try to emulate his stuff using the classic synthwave analog vst picks of Juno/Jupiter/Prophet you discover quite quickly that most of the sounds that give him his sound are 80s digital synths. There's tons of 80s bells, guitar plucky, DX style bass, choir, glassy pads etc in his tracks. Sounds way more like the Emulator 2 (uses samples) or Prophet VS Vector synth. At a guess Id say he's using some form of the Arturia collection.
In the last few days I'm trying to put together a few sampled synths that I can use for those kind of 80s digital tones on my MPC.
The synths I have found that best exemplify his sound are these. Try the demos and you will see exactly the kind of synths that make these sounds.
https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... v/overview
https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... v/overview
https://thepatchbay.io/product/tal-samp ... pen-kraft/
If you wanted to look at hardware synths that do that kind of thing you would be looking at the Prophet 12 or the Prophet X. These synths use samples so they get you right in the ballpark. As you can hear though, I honestly don't think Karl is using hardware.
https://www.geosynths.com/prophet12
https://youtu.be/rOilZ1vXLxM?si=NgtsXKuPYC2dW6eP&t=572
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RE his synths: I own quite a few Analogs and I can say hand on heart that I think his stuff is digital. Personally I think his work is underproduced to a certain degree but it is well mixed. I think he uses templates as there is a lot of repetition in his stuff once the albums pile up. You can tell a lot of the new tracks are just rehashes of older better tracks using exactly the same sounds. The closest you get to any kind of transition in his tunes is a backwards cymbal to cue a change. Keeping it basic I think is what allows him to knock this stuff out so fast.
If you try to emulate his stuff using the classic synthwave analog vst picks of Juno/Jupiter/Prophet you discover quite quickly that most of the sounds that give him his sound are 80s digital synths. There's tons of 80s bells, guitar plucky, DX style bass, choir, glassy pads etc in his tracks. Sounds way more like the Emulator 2 (uses samples) or Prophet VS Vector synth. At a guess Id say he's using some form of the Arturia collection.
In the last few days I'm trying to put together a few sampled synths that I can use for those kind of 80s digital tones on my MPC.
The synths I have found that best exemplify his sound are these. Try the demos and you will see exactly the kind of synths that make these sounds.
https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... v/overview
https://www.arturia.com/products/softwa ... v/overview
https://thepatchbay.io/product/tal-samp ... pen-kraft/
If you wanted to look at hardware synths that do that kind of thing you would be looking at the Prophet 12 or the Prophet X. These synths use samples so they get you right in the ballpark. As you can hear though, I honestly don't think Karl is using hardware.
https://www.geosynths.com/prophet12
https://youtu.be/rOilZ1vXLxM?si=NgtsXKuPYC2dW6eP&t=572
Statistics: Posted by Cashman — Thu Jul 11, 2024 11:05 am