"Love Like Blood" sound on Akai AX-80

video upload by Valmont

"Waking up from a 9 minutes nap the other day I thought, out of nowhere, that the AX-80 had this OB-X resonance character... Immediately wondering about the hollow synth patch from Killing Joke, "Love Like Blood". So I went to recreate it, and well it sounds pretty close - especially when you know how far an OB-X and the AX-80 are from each other. The OB-X has discrete VCF, somewhere based on the SEM module, when the AX-80 has the CEM-3372 chip, which came later in the Oberheim Matrix-12 / Xpander. So that's some funny coincidence these sound in a similar way!

0:25 Creating the AX-80 patch
1:37 Effects
2:43 Sound check

Detailed AX-80 patch:
- OSC 1: Range 4' / Saw / Sub On / Out 99
- OSC 2: Range 16' / Detune 40 / Saw+Square / Cross Position 1 / Out 99
- VCF: Cutoff 55 / Resonance 63 / EG 50 / Key Follow 39 / High Pass 35
- EG: VCA=VCF mode / Attack 34 / Decay 46 / Sustain 70 / Release 23
- LFO OSC 1: Depth 10, Speed 21, Wave 4 (Triangle)

Detailed FX:
- SoundToys Decapitator
Brings some crunch material on the high part of the spectrum.
A gentle drive at 5%, in mode A, High Pass at mid range, tone at about 2pm. The whole thing 100% wet.
- Arturia Flanger BL-20
The closest plugin I had for that super slow phasing effect. I feel like the original sound had an additional chorus, before the flanger. Anyway, not too much doppler effect (Mix at 25%), rate at mid range, depth at 2pm. Add some High Pass on the wet signal at about 40%.
- Brainworx ACME Opticom XLA-3:
An opto comp that adds a bunch of super cool sounding harmonics. The input stage is always driving, so more than an opto comp I use it to give some super analog feeling. Basically slow response, overdriving the input (Input at 4) and well that's all x)
- Brainworx SSL4000-E
My favorite console sound :D Add some THD (-57dB on my slot), -6dB at 450Hz (LS), -2dB at 600Hz (HMF) and +5dB at 5.5KHz (HS). I really love the airy sound of this channel, it brings so much harmonic content created by the previous stuff!
- GoodHertz Megaverb 3
Depending of the mix version for the song, the amount of reverb is different. So I chose a nice long discrete verb for listening pleasure x) Basically reverb tone C, 4s decay, frequency range from 225Hz to 6KHz, at 9% wet.
- IK TR5 EQual
Remove some bits of the spectrum to get it less heavy: attenuation on the first harmonics (700Hz) and top-end content to avoid too much distortion sound in the balance. One more High Pass at 200Hz... And that's all!

https://linktr.ee/Valmont"