Creating a hoover effect like Gaga's Bad Romance
The hoover is a powerful sound used across various genres, from Techno all the way to Pop music. Here is a tutorial using Ableton on how you can create your own.
Thanks to the fellow Redditor who inspired me to create this post. After some quick research it seems the synth used for the actual song was Sylenth1, which I don't have and I'm not ready to purchase at this stage. Most synths have similar parameters, so I took the challenge to use Ableton's stock and created a second version in Serum (which I have) to came as close as possible. You let me know what you think, in any case, hope this post helps you to experiment with your own settings and create your own hoover effect.
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This is what we are trying to achieve:
Let's do this!
Making the Hoover effect with Ableton's Wavetable
This is going to be the final result:
To create this sound, you need to create two separate wavetables and group them in the same rack. Use three oscillators, all of them using Sawtooth waves tuned in different octaves. And last use the Envelope 2 to modulate the pitch. I have captured the screenshot of the set up below.
Note: In case you're wondering, I mapped the Attack and Decay of the Envelope 2 (on both wavetables) to the macros to tweak the raising and falling effect of the pitch in this sound, I noticed it seems to last longer in the long notes and fall faster in the short notes.
Starting with the long note in A. Use the attack ~144 and Decay 564 (like the screenshots above)
This is how it should sound.
For the short notes, use attack 115ms and decay 42.4
This is how this sounds:
Put everything together, by resampling each individual note and use automation to control fade ins/outs of each sound and make it smoother. I added a Roar, a Chorus and light reverb to create a bit more depth. You can experiment with your own Audio effects.
Making the hoover effect with Serum
I think Serum had a dirtier sound, which I liked.
For this preset, you want two Saw Waves in two different octaves, and add the SUB two octaves down. Keep the Env 1 fairly squared with a short attack and release.
The magic happens with the LFO. Modify the shape to replicate the screenshot below and make sure the LFO mode is set to ENV. Use this LFO to modulate the Coarse Pitch on both Oscillators 1 and 2
Finally add some effects to your taste, this is how I did it.
To gain more control on the pitch raise, you can play with the shape of the LFO modulator OR the amounts on the A/B CoarsePitch modulators which you can find in the Matrix
Now add the notes to the piano roll and play them
Thanks for reading, here are some of the recent posts you might enjoy as well!
David Contreras
David Contreras
David Contreras
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