A Daft Punk "How'd they make that sound?" Thread

[Hair]

well according to wikipedia (with cited sources), the human after all album was improvised in about 6 weeks, and was created primarily with two guitars and a drum machine

to me it sounds like they recorded the vocals themselves, maybe pitched down before vocoding?

I am very curious about the distinctive bit reduction effects all over the record - that really interesting hollow quality, maybe some kind of formant business involved

the only obvious synth sound to me is the lead in robot rock, sampled from breakwater's "release the beast"

[thosquanta]

i was hoping this topic wouldn't turn into "what gear do they have so i can copy" and rather it be "how did they make interesting sound X"

well, on the plus side, based on the picture, theres only 1 piece of gear...they just have a lot of it.

pretty cool, tho.

i bet my band would sound better inside a giant pyramid.

[lazerface]

damn that's a nice layout.
What are the black things in the middle at No. 3?

[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

Daft Punk sample about 65% of their music....and run it through analog filters/effects. They just mash it up and make it dirty.

The main synth riff used in Robot Rock is a sample from an old record....all they did was pitch it upwards slightly. The sound itself is a factory preset from the Prophet 5.

DS

[Horace]

i believe its these:
http://theworldisdaft.wordpress.com/201 ... and-beats/

Fascinating link! Those "vocal" sounds most defiantly sound like a guitar run through some form of flanger pedal with reduced sample rate for grit. I can hear them changing the overdrive of the guitar underneath the effect.

I remember doing a Daft Punk cover of rolling and scratching at one of my shows, used a Juno 6 and a crappy boss overdrive to get that screaming lead

[Zamise]

I think I seen one of the guys using an SH-101 with broken keys in an old vid. The formant vocal sounds could be a talk modulation effect that they switch between vowels. Sounds like some vocoding too, and maybe a talk box, and or possibly a control delay can make vocals sound very robotic too. I've also seen them using a couple minimoog RMEs in some of their newer vids.

[Miles Powerhouse]

Anyone here a member of TDC?

I am, and we know a lot about Daft Punk. I know that HAA was made with nothing more than two guitars, a talkbox, and a drum machine. They did only spend 6 weeks on the album; 4 weeks recording, 2 weeks mastering/mixing.

Homework was made with a variety of synths: a member of TDC proved that DP used a Juno-106 on Rollin 'n' Scratchin, Rock 'n' Roll, and possibly Burnin'. They sent it through a Distortion pedal of some kind.

Discovery was made with more samples then they admit. Thomas Bangalter's father is Daniel Vangarde. They could have gotten some sample clearance through him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Ndijo2ysM has most of the samples from Discovery. 8,9,and 10 are most likely wrong.

[Robonaut]

well according to wikipedia (with cited sources), the human after all album was improvised in about 6 weeks, and was created primarily with two guitars and a drum machine

And it sounds like it!

Jesus, that crappy album was such a massive disappointment after "Discovery".

[clubbedtodeath]

And it sounds like it!

Agreed, but they more than made up for it with Tron: Legacy. Beautifully understated.

[SKINNYPIG]

also:
Ensoniq DP4
emu sp1200
roland sp808
yamaha cs80 and cs60
and a Mac running Logic.

I always thought HAA could have been salvaged if they ditched all the filler and put it out as an EP. Personally I was far more disappointed with the Tron soundtrack; to my ears it just sounded like Hans Zimmer phoning it in. I guess I was expecting something a little more unique.

[nogginj]

If you listen to those raw tracks you can tell that in addition to guitars, a drum machine, and talkbox, they also had tons of outboard effects (maybe a modular system?), and at least one synth.

Probably a sampler for the, you know, samples...though i imagine that could have been done in a daw.

I think Human After All is a killer album ... great changeup from homework and discovery. And it pisses a lot of people off so you know its classic ;].

I am very curious about the distinctive bit reduction effects all over the record - that really interesting hollow quality, maybe some kind of formant business involved

I'm really curious about this too....that kind of rickety, rocks rolling around in a can type effect. I love that and it's all over the album.

There is a pretty good recreation of a typical synth sound from HAA at this link: http://www.hellosamples.com/2011/10/13/ ... ool-vol-1/

No bit reducer, but lots of oscillator cross modulation and that can kind of approximate bit crushing if you use a square wave.

[Yoozer]

damn that's a nice layout.
What are the black things in the middle at No. 3?

(now defunct) JazzMutant Lemur controller touchscreens.

[SKINNYPIG]

damn that's a nice layout.
What are the black things in the middle at No. 3?

(now defunct) JazzMutant Lemur controller touchscreens.

although they did use jazzmutants in later performances I think the devices shown in the above photo are maybe just regular monitors, if you look at this photo taken from a slightly different angle you can see what looks like a VGA cable connecting to the left hand side of the unit,


from what I understand all the ports on the Jazzmutant are on the back

[sqweebking]

I was always under the impression that they used talk boxes for their vocal parts, hence the helmets to hide the tubes. I'm probably not correct, just what I thought.

[Stab Frenzy]

damn that's a nice layout.
What are the black things in the middle at No. 3?

(now defunct) JazzMutant Lemur controller touchscreens.

although they did use jazzmutants in later performances I think the devices shown in the above photo are maybe just regular monitors, if you look at this photo taken from a slightly different angle you can see what looks like a VGA cable connecting to the left hand side of the unit,


from what I understand all the ports on the Jazzmutant are on the back

It also looks like there's a network cable going in below the VGA, so maybe these were pre-production lemurs or something.