Daft Punk Synth Tutorial

Published on Dec 30, 2018 Alex Ball

"This week I thought I'd demo three Daft Punk synth sounds / samples on original hardware.

As these are all VCO-based analogue synths that are the best part of 40 years old, you'll probably find that settings vary slightly from one unit to the next. In fact, the settings vary on a daily basis on my own synths, depending upon temperature or how long they've been switched on etc.

Here's the settings.

Korg MS-20 (Mark I):

KYBD CV OUT patched into VOLTAGE CONTROLLED HP FILTER CUTOFF FREQ

SIGNAL OUT patched into EXTERNAL SIGNAL PROCESSOR SIGNAL IN. Output from AMP OUT.

Signal level 8.8

OSC 1: Sawtooth at 8'
OSC 2: Sawtooth at 16' tuned up a 5th

HP filter: Cutoff 3, Peak 0, MG 0, EXT 10
LP filter: Cutoff 3.1, Peak 7.8, MG 0, EG2 7.8

EG2:
Hold 0
Attack 1
Decay 5.2
Sustain 0.2
Release 4

Roland TB-303:

G down
A# up
G slide
F up
D# accent + slide
C# down + accent
C# down + accent + slide
C# accent
D# up + slide
D# down
F up + slide
G up + accent + slide
G# down
G down + slide
C down + slide
G slide

Distort with a stomp box or unit of your choice and dial in the cutoff and envelope with resonance all the way up. Tweak decay and accent. I was using the square wave setting.

Sequential Circuits Pro~One:

This is matching the quite tame sync preset from the Prophet 5, you can get lots of variations of the sync sound, including more aggressive versions.

Oscillator A: Octave 1, square, 50% PW, Sync On.
Oscillator B: Octave 1, no waves, Normal, KYBD

Oscillator A level: 10
Oscillator B level: n/a as we've no waves
Noise: 0

Filter:
Cutoff 2
Resonance 0
Envelope amount 6
Keyboard Amount 4
Attack 4
Decay 7
Sustain 3
Release 3

Amp:
Attack 2
Decay 5
Sustain 10
Release 0

Mod matrix:
Filter envelope direct to Oscillator A freq. Amount 10.

LFO frequency 6.5, shape triangle
LFO wheel to Oscillator B freq. Amount 1.5. Dial up mod wheel."