How to replicate Nils Frahm's "Says" synthesizer sound (using Zebra 2)

Question

Firstly, please note that I'm a complete newbie to handling synthesizers so I'm not familiar to a lot of principles.

I want to replicate the synthesizer sound of Nils Frahm's "Says" track, and, if possible do so entirely with the Zebra 2 software synthesizer so I can wrap everything simply in a patch.

Here's the music:

From what I gathered from several discussions and partly found out myself, here's what I got so far:

• Time measure: 3/4, ~120bpm

• Notes for the (main) arpeggio: Eb5, G4, C3

• Arpeggiator set to 1 octave, up (the internet says 2 octaves, but that does not sound right), 8ths (?)

• Single oscillator, sawtooth wave, short decay

• Delay set to 8 dot

• Reverb added ontop of that

This is what I've come up with so far, it's of course a bit too slow:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/10xf4m8ky0yq4jr/says.mp3?dl=1

And the corresponding Zebra 2 patch:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k6534g1db13q1r8/Says%20%28Nils%20Frahm%29.h2p?dl=1

The last note of the bass part seems to be one octave too high, and I think something still isn't quite right with the delay.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this?

Answer 1

I accidently saw your topic. I have to mention that the primary waveform in his great work is square. I cover this track once. I recommend you Tal Uno VST which is based on Roland Juno 6 so the voice is exactly the same ;) good luck. I am Amir R. Pourkashefsky from iran. Stay in touch.

Answer 2

So this was asked years ago but just ran across it. The main arpeggio is a C minor chord. Arpeggio is up mode, 2 octaves. Heard this from the man himself when I saw him live. Need a delay that can do dotted 1/8th notes and the key to the thing is setting the arpeggiator tempo properly.

With the main posting here 2 octaves doesn’t sound right because you’ve got the chord stretched over two octaves already. There is no reason to do that. Play a standard c minor and use 2 octaves on the aroeggiator to make it easier.