Francis Preve: The Man in the Synth - Music Production Podcast #373

Francis Preve is a sound designer, producer, and synthesizer programmer. He programs factory presets for the leading synthesizer manufacturers including Sequential, Roland, Korg, Oberheim, Serum, and many more. He is the Section Lead of Digital Composition at Austin Community College. Francis releases sound packs through his company SympleSound. His latest release, Serum Models, turns the popular synthesizer into a hyper-realistic physical modeling synth.

In our 4th conversation on the Music Production Podcast, Francis discusses his new pack, Serum Models, and explains how physical modeling synthesis works. We go deep into his work as a sound designer and Francis gives thorough explanations of a variety of synthesis concepts. We also talk about his work as an educator and some student success stories, along with the traits those students exhibit in his classes. It's a wide-ranging and deep conversation with one of the world's best sound designers!

This episode is sponsored by Baby Audio, makers of incredible music software. Use the code MPP15 to save 15%! https://babyaud.io 

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube

Takeaways:

  • The development of new Serum models and physical modeling and sound design.

  • The process of creating and marketing sound packs.

  • The psychology of sound creation involves a deep connection to the subtleties of music and the ability to differentiate musical elements.

  • Learning to differentiate musical elements is a transformative experience that opens up new dimensions in music appreciation and understanding.

  • The impact of music theory on creativity and the ability to enjoy music without over-analyzing it.

  • The role of technology in music education and the importance of learning by playing and experimenting.

  • The differences between analog and digital synthesis and the unique characteristics of each.

  • The concept of aliasing in sound and its impact on audio quality.

  • The use of images to create wavetables in synthesizers and the exploration of sound design through experimentation. 

  • The significance of presets in synthesizers

  • Passion is a key factor in determining success in a career.

  • Limitations can enhance creativity and problem-solving in music production.

  • Technology, such as AI and software, has both benefits and ethical considerations in music creation.

  • Teaching and mentorship play a significant role in shaping the future of music production and the industry.

Links:

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:01.179)

Francis, welcome to the show again. Great to have you.

Francis Preve (00:04.942)

Great to be back. It's been a while.

Brian Funk (00:07.643)

Yeah, a little bit. I still think you're one of the most frequent guests here. So it's nice to have you back and catch up with you. You're doing awesome stuff as always. Congrats on the new Serum models. That's the newest release. And I got to tell you, like listening to your video, demonstrating it, I would have thought these are samples. These were realistic instruments there. And it's, it's just another testament to your

Francis Preve (00:19.117)

Appreciate that.

Brian Funk (00:37.052)

your prowess as a synthesis, a sound designer and really cool stuff. Can I ask you to share a bit about that?

Francis Preve (00:41.133)

Thank you.

Francis Preve (00:46.891)

Yeah. The concept for the pack came out of a conversation. I was at a conference. There were quite a few engineers there. Some of them were physical modeling engineers and I had already been doing a lot of pretty significant physical modeling recreations. Like I had a Tabla.

coming out of Ableton just using a noise burst and the Ableton Echo device. Because the filters on the Echo device, if you play with them while you've got the feedback really high in a very short delay, I was able to get this sort of tabless sound out of it. And I've always like, to give some props to where a lot of physical modeling comes from, back in the late 70s,

really early 80s, Kevin Carplus and Alex Strong were doing experiments with delays and they stumbled across, in the same way that John Chowning stumbled across FM while he was playing with a modular, they stumbled across the fact that a quick impulse, noise burst hi -hat, that sort of thing, is going to give you the sound of a plucked guitar. And...

the sound of a comb filter is almost identical to a delay. So I was at this conference and I was showing some of the stuff and an engineer at the conference and I were talking and I made the mistake of saying a lot of physical modeling is just smoking.

Brian Funk (02:30.811)

Hehehe.

Francis Preve (02:31.526)

And I got in a lot of trouble for saying that. So he got very angry at me and I had to sort of show him the tabla and show him some of the plucked string sounds. So a few, you know, fast forward a few years, in January 2022, I guess it was, I was visiting a friend.

in Mexico and that friend happened to be Steve Duda and we were talking about all the different ways you can make serum sound not like serum because everybody associates serum with these EDM sounds, these dubstep sounds, rhythm, a lot of different, so many genres have come out of serum and I showed him a couple of things I was playing with and he was like, that's really pretty freaking cool. So,

Two years ago, I started the project. And between the inevitable imposter syndrome that no one will ever be able to escape, between that, I just kept fiddling with it. I know that the internet is a cruel, mean place. So I had to make sure it was perfect and bulletproof and bulletproof to my artist friends and bulletproof, not just to me. Like I had to ask my...

Brian Funk (03:30.716)

Hmm.

Francis Preve (03:55.236)

myself and my friends, am I losing my mind here or is this working the way I think it is? A lot of the things with regard to the sound creation itself is it's not relying on any oscillators. It's relying just like most physical modeling synths on a noise generator and a comb filter with some heavy processing.

There's a lot of flexibility in the comb filters inside Serum. It's sort of absurd how much flexibility there is. And then it's got all the effects at the end, and three envelopes. So I really started tinkering with it for the first six months of 2022. And I realized I had, basically I'd created my own initialized presets that I could then modify further in either like the strings really came out of, out of...

me attempting to just get the sound of a violin or a viola. And then I was able to create many more types of string sounds from that. The plucks and guitars, through experimentation, I was able to create different kinds of plucked instruments. There's a wonderful, I'm very proud of it, Coto in there, which has a little bit of that pitch bend that we associate with the instrument. And then again, percussion.

these sounds just started coming out of it. So once I had about 50, 40 or 50 initialized starting points for myself, I just took it further until I got to 100 and made sure that each one was sufficiently different. I'm going to be a little long -winded here, but I guess we're here to promote in some sense. So the macros, the thing about physical modeling is it's very, very, very difficult. Even if you have a synth that's dedicated to physical modeling.

And since the filter is occupied doing the actual, creating the actual sound, I use the macros for things like increasing the decay time or modifying the sound by modifying the noise sources. And then of course, like one for effects at the end. So I made the macros actually all do something. A lot of times I'll see serum presets from Nameless that have...

Francis Preve (06:19.524)

the macro is just not set to do anything. And having worked for so many companies and they're always, make sure you got the macros in there. I did the macros like I would if I was working for a client, which I've done with all my, I've done four packs for XFIRS. So, you know, I'm always making sure that the macros are really on point. And that is the whole story.

Brian Funk (06:43.326)

So it's interesting that it's such a long process too, you know. And I love that it starts out with a sort of foot in your mouth moment, you know, kind of making a comment then it's like now you have to back it up. Right. But it turns into a cool project like this.

Francis Preve (06:49.796)

Two years.

Francis Preve (06:58.692)

Yeah, now I have to back it up. I was so happy with the way it started turning out, but the other thing when you're making a pack, as you well know, is it's one thing to make the pack, but then you have to spend another three to four months on your marketing. And I'm just one guy. So three to four, you know, so.

writing the press releases, working with a PR person to clean them up, having to do the video that you see on YouTube. That was, I originally started that in ScreenFlow, and then the PR guy jumped in and made some really, really valuable recommendations. But then you also have to create the demo music. So I had my buddy Shadowstar, who's, I'd like to talk about him a little bit later.

really, really gifted techno producer and he's definitely going places. So I asked him to do the techno stuff because he's better at it than I am. So, but that whole process of the demo music, a lot of, I don't think people really consider what goes into making a pack. It's not just the sounds. You have to do the artwork, you have to do the video, you have to make the music, you have to do any, you know, the description, you have to review that for a few weeks to make sure that...

that not just the description is accurate, but that it doesn't sound like hyperbola. A lot of times I'll look at product announcements and you'd think there was also like a cheese grater and a motorcycle in it. And I really would rather, I really wanna stay true to the identity of the.

Brian Funk (08:39.134)

Right.

Brian Funk (08:48.255)

Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's a hard part. Sometimes I don't even know how to present it. You know, I, okay, I know I made this thing that in a certain way with certain sounds, but what do you call it? What do you name it? What do you, what kind of art goes with this? And it's my least favorite part of the whole process too. It's just all that stuff. And like you, I'm just one person trying to figure it out. And.

Francis Preve (09:10.82)

Right. Right.

Brian Funk (09:18.462)

Just kind of pick something and hope it works. And sometimes I think things I've done probably would have caught on better if I had a different approach to that stuff. I love this pack, but people don't understand it. It's hard to convey why this is interesting. Because you sort of need to hear it and play with it.

Francis Preve (09:31.428)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (09:38.884)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (09:48.644)

completely feel you on that and you've done some amazing packs the VHS stuff was really really cool and in this particular case with this pack people don't think of serum as a physical modeling synth and if I had released it last year I don't know if it would have gotten any traction because there's this sort of wave

Brian Funk (10:00.51)

Hmm.

Francis Preve (10:08.132)

on physical modeling and everybody's releasing their own physical modeling synth to something more modern because there have been several out there. But the idea of just $29 serums of physical modeling synth have fun. That was the goal there.

Brian Funk (10:24.894)

Well, I think even the concept, physical modeling, like what even is that? What does that mean for so many people? Yeah, you kind of said it a little bit, but maybe I can get you to just explain that a little more. Because, you know, like a normal synthesizer, the sound generator is usually some kind of oscillator that's repeating. But...

Francis Preve (10:32.516)

That's why I got in trouble.

Brian Funk (10:53.407)

The physical modeling stuff is meant to like the most experience I have with something like that is like Corpus inside of Ableton. and you can pick like how you're going to strike the whatever medium it is. You pick the medium. Is it a string? Is it a membrane? And it's, I really don't understand what's doing any of that stuff. I just, I'm just listening and using these weird metaphors that they have for these.

Francis Preve (11:01.796)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (11:08.996)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (11:18.468)

In like, in like -

Brian Funk (11:23.838)

different parts of the sound.

Francis Preve (11:26.916)

In my current courses, I have an entire module for my Sound of the Line course that covers what physical modeling is, and I use collision for that. If you go into the mallet and it says noise generator, these impulses are generally mallets and noise generators. So what it does, let's just go back to Kevin Carr Plus and Alex Strong. So Carr Plus Strong synthesis is what it's called.

If you take a hi -hat or kick drum or a snare drum and you put it into a delay, now what a delay is, is something that obviously repeats something. And if you have a 500 millisecond delay, it's gonna sound like an echo in a canyon. And the amount of times it repeats as it gets quieter and quieter and quieter is determined by the feedback. Now, if you're using that same delay as a flanger,

you're gonna wanna use very, very short delay times. And that's where Karpla Strong kind of came out of it. Because when it's a flanger dialing up the feedback, you're gonna start to hear a pitch. That's the sort of whooshy ripping sound of a flanger is the fact that it's a very short delay. So if you start spending some time on the math in it, a short delay,

is like if you set it to one millisecond, that's a question I always ask my class, if you set a short delay with high feedback to one millisecond, what's the frequency you're going to hear? And it's a thousand hertz. And the reason being is that that delay is constantly cycling your hi -hat or whatever your impulse was. So you send the.

Brian Funk (13:18.922)

milliseconds in a second.

Francis Preve (13:21.371)

Yeah, there are a thousand milliseconds in a second. And if you change it to two milliseconds, it goes down to 500 because there are 500, like two millisecond intervals in a second. So I really don't, I'm terrible at math, but I didn't know, so making this, I had my calculator out the entire time I was doing this. So I may have a culpa. But the, so as you, when you go to two milliseconds, it's 500.

When you go to four milliseconds, it's 250. And it goes lower and lower and lower in pitch until it sounds like a rattle and then it eventually becomes an echo. But when you can go shorter than that, it's really compelling because if you can get it down to half a millisecond, now you're up to 2K. So.

What's happening there is if you take that flanger concept and apply it to a comb filter, which is essentially a flanger, so you apply that to a comb filter and in a comb filter you can increase the resonance. When you increase the resonance on a comb filter, that's the feedback on a flanger. So when you're playing with comb filters, and every company has comb filters, so if...

looking at the structure of the comb filter, whether it's, and in the case of serum, it's called flanger, it's called comb filter, it's got negative feedback, it's got positive feedback, there are some phasers in there, and they all do something really interesting if you set the resonance to maximum. So having worked with it for as long as I had, because it's like a little two -year project, you find these sort of little,

shortcuts and back alleys where you can heavily modify the behavior of the comb filter. So there was a lot of experimentation with that. That took the bulk of a year up. And really exploring what serums implementation of these flangers and comb filters, et cetera. And every time I found something, save the preset. Every time, this sounds like a horn, save the preset. this sounds like a drum, save the preset.

Francis Preve (15:39.737)

Once you find enough of these starting points, as I was saying, then you start working with things like the envelopes, because the envelope of, you can do this in collision. If you're working in collision, you take the envelope, you envelope the noise. I'm gonna take a minute to pontificate about the fact that it used to be a visual envelope, just like all the other envelopes in Ableton, and now it just says ADSR with some numbers. Makes it harder for me to teach. I'm not complaining about Ableton.

but that user interface changed between 10 and 11. And as a professor, it just makes it a little harder for me to teach because you're looking for the shape of an envelope in the user interface. So now that I've said that, in the case of Serum, you've got all these envelopes that you can clearly see what's going on. And if you want to do an instrument like a codo, as I was saying earlier, you're going to have to put a pitch envelope on it to get that effect. And if you want to control it by velocity so that the harder you hit a key,

the more that you get that pitch effect, which is the way most fretted stringed instruments work, is if you really, really hit a note hard, you're going to get a little pitch blip at the beginning of it. So that's an envelope tied to pitch controlled by velocity. And you get deeper and deeper into it. But it's really, there's so much experimentation when you have all these filters out that it's like,

It's like the thing that I dislike about certain modular approaches. It's like the mini finds something cool, save it, because you can use that as a launch point for something else. So that's a lot of times, especially when I get a new synth or I want to do a lot of experimentation, I just kind of let my mind go and I get into that sort of flow state and I just save everything that's good and then I have all the good things and I go back to them. And those are the ones I finesse and figure out what's doing.

So it was a lot more intentional.

Brian Funk (17:38.204)

So modular, you don't save anything. You're just, yeah.

Francis Preve (17:40.89)

It's like, yeah, and in a very good way. I think the thing about modulars is that they're really good psychologically. It's like, and you can create stuff that you would never have created any other way because a lot of times you're blindfolded. You know, you're just kind of like, what does this do? What does that do? But so the Zen state that a modular creates, which I think is fantastic. I know several friends with.

Brian Funk (17:45.116)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (18:09.432)

and I love playing with them. It's kind of like, you know those sand mandalas that are just like the Tibetan monks use? They create these sand mandalas and they're intricate and they're beautiful and they're complex and they take forever to make. And then at the end, you wipe the slate clean. Yeah, and that's kind of how modulars seem to work to me.

Brian Funk (18:32.828)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (18:38.588)

Hmm.

Francis Preve (18:38.807)

So you can get great results, but unless you record it or find a use for it immediately, you're always gonna go back to square one. So.

Brian Funk (18:47.421)

you

Yeah, so it's really, it's a lot of physics, I guess, as is a lot of synthesis, but especially here now we're really, the mathematics of it come into play and just.

Francis Preve (19:01.335)

And DSP engineers, when they're making a proper physical modeling synth, they're creating these things called waveguides. And these waveguides are exactly what they do is they guide this pulse, this carplus strong pulse or whatever it happens to be through these very detailed recreations of an acoustic body. When you're talking about say something like an acoustic guitar.

or a drum, like in the case of membrane and collision. And I found other ways to do it besides using waveguides that got identical results. And the cool thing is the techniques that I was using since they weren't waveguides are far easier on CPU. If you look at a lot of physical modeling synths, they hit the CPU really hard. And because I'm using serum and it's just basically a...

a noise burst and a comb filter, that's super easy on CPU. So you can get a lot of polyphony out of it too.

Brian Funk (20:06.718)

Yeah.

So is it a matter of using the comb filters resonance to recreate the kind of natural harmonics that creates a timbre of our instruments?

Francis Preve (20:19.734)

100%. 100%. And different types of noise are gonna give you different results and different types of, whether you're using a hi -hat or a snare drum or whatever, that's gonna get, like, there's so many moving parts, but once you get the hang of it, it would take, like, it took me two years to make the pack, so it's, like, there's a lot of that heavy lifting, it was two years of my own experimentation.

Brian Funk (20:27.038)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (20:47.061)

But if you stay with it, I mean, I just have 100 presets so far. If this sells, I'll probably make a models too and take it further and even more twisted. Or try it with a different synth, but serum is just so flexible that I end up, every time I think of like, I wonder if it can do this? It does that. So there you have it.

Brian Funk (21:09.118)

Yeah, it's wild. And if it took you two years to do it, I know you're a guy, I've seen your videos and demonstrations of you teaching where you you're developing fairly complex synth sounds in like 60 seconds. Just because you know what's what's going to happen. Yeah.

Francis Preve (21:24.311)

Hmm?

Francis Preve (21:29.27)

Time! Time! My students are often startled by the fact that I have the ability to work rather quickly with sound. But every time I create a sound, I'm like, these are the ingredients. It's like a recipe. So what sound did I just do for my students? I also did a 303, which is very straightforward. I mean, it's never going to sound exactly like Roland's circuitry, so there is a need for the model. But...

making a 303 sound, it's like every time I hear a 303 I'm like, okay, well that's either a saw or a square, one oscillator, cutoff, resonance, decay, there you have it. Boom, make a sort of random -ish sequence and add some glide. So some people are gonna be mad that I simplified it that much, but essentially that's what's happening. So.

Once you've been doing it for something known as all your life, it's like breathing at some point. It's like you as a writer, because you're a very capable writer. You don't have to diagram your sentences anymore, do you? Well, there you go. So there you have it.

Brian Funk (22:47.007)

I've never done that in my whole life, but that was not in the curriculum growing up actually. But I get what you're saying. It ingrains in you. Even just maybe if you're playing guitar and the scales, just the repetition of it, I'm not thinking.

Francis Preve (22:56.884)

When did they take it out?

Francis Preve (23:03.828)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (23:12.66)

How does a painter paint? I mean, it's like there, you know, you'll find some, the more experience you have and the more you learn the craft, the faster it's going to be to get the results that you're looking for. I have a friend who has a really wonderful, expensive, proper camera. And because he's so knowledgeable and has so much experience with,

Brian Funk (23:14.27)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (23:40.725)

photography and the sort of how to frame a shot and different types of lenses. He does fantastic work that someone, you know, I have another friend who's kind of just, it seems like they're just picking it up and their work set side by side is like night and day. So, yeah. But they'll get it, they'll get it. They just need to put more effort in.

Brian Funk (24:02.014)

Right, yeah.

Brian Funk (24:08.734)

Yeah, just keeps showing up. That's like even like microphone choice and placement if you're gonna record a drum kit. You know, I'm sure you could hand me the finest gear ever and I'll come up with something but then somebody else that's in the studio every single day doing this can take like two 57s and just make it sound like gold.

Francis Preve (24:22.548)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (24:33.43)

Well, it's the discipline and it's just, do you want to be able to manipulate your sounds? And I teach these classes. So when I'm working with my students, I always have several classes where they just give me YouTube links to songs they like and they'll time stamp it and they'll say, what's that sound? How do you make that sound? Sometimes I'll have to simply say, that's a recording of a grand piano played backwards and transposed down by two semitones.

and then I'll actually have to do that and demonstrate that. And since I don't have their sample, I can't recreate it. Other times, it'll be like a...

Francis Preve (25:14.837)

chiptune kind of thing. I was trying to figure out what analogy I wanted to use. And that's like always a square. That's like when you're listening to chiptune stuff, you're like, that's a square. So just use a square, open up your filter. So there are just some things that it's like, it would be difficult to make authentic cuisines from around the world if you didn't have garlic. But there are other cuisines that don't use garlic at all, like dessert.

So it's learning what the garlic is. I use a lot of cooking analogies.

Brian Funk (25:49.695)

It makes a lot of sense though. I'm curious if you could, it's probably hard for you to do this since it is so natural, but if you could sort of slow down your thinking when somebody presents you with a sound like that in a class, how are you breaking this down in your head? Like are you listening to the sound in stages?

initial attack to decay and I mean is there a kind of process that's going on? Maybe it's happening so fast now that you don't even notice it.

Francis Preve (26:29.845)

I do try to slow it down. Because I am going too fast for my own head. It's like literally just, and that's not like a humble brag. It's like I'm a college professor who's been doing this professionally for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years. So I should be good at it, I hope. So when I do it, I do explain it. I don't do that magic trick.

until midway through the semester so that when I say that's a sawtooth wave, they already know what a sawtooth wave is because that was several modules ago. Or I'm using a low -pass filter to make it more muted. I'm using a long release to give it a longer decay, reverie kind of effect. And I've already taught them all of the basics of that. They know what envelopes are. They know what filters are. They know what oscillators.

So the reason I put those in is not to be flashy, but to show, give them concrete examples as to why they, what these tools do and how they can use it in their own way. I'm not trying to tell them how to make music. In their own way to make the sounds that they're hearing in their heads. There was one student who gave me several examples. It was a longer class and for some reason there were.

students missing that day. So I was like, give me more of these YouTube links. And I was like, you just really like low cutoff frequencies. So that was a huge, to me, that was a huge eye opening moment into what that person's voice is as an artist. And that is they like softer sounds with low cutoff frequencies. And

and longer release times. There were a lot of road sounds, like real road sounds, and very muted sort of trip hop and down tempo kinds of massive attack and thievery corporation.

Francis Preve (28:47.508)

Yeah, so pointing that out, a lot of times when students give me that, if I can get a couple of sounds from them and hear what sort of music they listen to and what sort of sounds they gravitate towards, then I can be an even better professor for those students. I always try to customize my classes for the 10 different people in the room and sort of like dial it in so it's almost like a private lesson.

by finding out what they like, what tonalities they like. Again, with the cutoff frequency, it was a major insight. So I'm always trying to find out what art that student is trying to create and give them a little head start on.

Brian Funk (29:35.648)

And how would you recommend somebody work on this? Suppose we've got someone listening, wants to start figuring out how they can create sounds they hear. It's a lot like almost trying to play songs by ear off the radio or whatever, but in this case, yeah.

Francis Preve (29:54.452)

That's how I did it. People ask me about how I got into preset making. My first synth was a Moog without presets. So I would put on new order records with my little Moog and make Blue Monday. And with regards to designing sounds, just to touch back on that.

It was a while before I learned that they used the sample from Radium by Kraftwerk for the choir sound. But once I heard it, I was like, yeah, that's Kraftwerk sample. So there are certain things that happen. Like when you hear a guitar, most people are not confused about the fact that they are hearing a guitar. So you get this skill of being able to quickly go, that's a guitar. that's a bass. that's a vocalist, presumably. So you have this.

you get this sort of framework. I think I lost the question a little bit there, but...

Brian Funk (30:57.726)

Well, just how you would start learning how to do this stuff.

Francis Preve (31:01.268)

I would get a synth that didn't allow you to save presets. That was a thing. I had an SH -101 and the Moog Radio Shack one, the MG -1, which I still love. Cherry Audio does a really, really good software version of it. you have one? God darn it, that's...

Brian Funk (31:07.806)

Yeah, just so you got a s -

Brian Funk (31:20.606)

I got it. That's behind me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's funny too. I got it at a, it was the Brooklyn synth something or other, you know, at a music store. And I put the headphones on and played it for five minutes and an hour went by, you know, just got sucked into it.

Francis Preve (31:42.036)

That, yeah. That auto trigger thing on it where you can like set the LFO to keep re -triggering notes is like you become your own sequencer. So it's all, everything's quantized for you as you play it. But that was, yeah.

Brian Funk (31:52.19)

Yeah.

I have the problem with mine where there's that foam underneath it. That was what is a synth from, I don't know, the year of it's sometime mid 80s, right?

Francis Preve (32:05.684)

I can actually tell you that it's gonna be 82...ish? 81 -82. Between 81 and 83. Cause that's tight.

Brian Funk (32:12.958)

Yeah.

So whatever the foam they put in there turns to goo after a while. And a lot of my sliders have these weird crackles and sometimes they just cut out. But I kind of enjoy that about it. It's a little bit alive.

Francis Preve (32:20.148)

Any sense.

Francis Preve (32:31.828)

That's a very enoey kind of... he always seems to like the...

Brian Funk (32:36.35)

It's also like a more practical not having to spend some money on repairs, you know, attitude. But it is kind of cool that you're like, what's going to happen when I play with this thing? Because, you know, you know what it's supposed to do, but you're also collaborating with it a little bit.

Francis Preve (32:48.308)

NN

Francis Preve (32:59.28)

Note to manufacturers, you know who you are. Those rubberized pitch bend wheels that were all the rage about eight years ago, you know, the sort of feels great in Guitar Center.

Brian Funk (33:09.342)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:13.214)

I got this sub fatty. You can't even touch that thing.

Francis Preve (33:17.716)

I can't mention names because many of these companies are my clients.

Brian Funk (33:24.478)

I can, I love them still, but my subphotony is sticky.

Francis Preve (33:26.868)

Don't call them out, you're gonna make me look bad. And you'll find it on knobs as well. You'll find that some of the knobs are super rubbery. And there's one synth that is literally in my garage right now, and I wish I could use it, but I can't because of all the degraded plastics and rubber, because they sweat. And even if it's not in my garage, I have just sitting in the room over time, this plastic rubber sweats.

Brian Funk (33:33.758)

huh.

Brian Funk (33:54.814)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (33:56.564)

So don't call anybody out, but everybody when you see one of those be aware.

Brian Funk (34:02.622)

Yeah, it's a shame. I've been looking for maybe like some wood sides or something for this particular one, but who knows? It's hard to predict that stuff, I guess.

But you reminded me of when I first started playing guitar and how different music sounded to me. As soon as I started playing guitar and then I'd be like, that's the acoustic guitar. That's electric with distortion or that's the bass. It used to just be music, maybe drums I could differentiate, but music, drums and voice. That was the three things that were in every song.

as far as I could tell. And then the dimensions just open as you start learning an instrument and what they sound like.

Francis Preve (34:55.252)

And close, and close, because I really envy people who can just listen to music. I really, really envy that state of mind where you're not, for me it's subtitles, I always refer to it as subtitles, I can't turn it off, I listen to every track I listen to, it's...

Brian Funk (35:06.814)

without, yeah.

Francis Preve (35:21.332)

This synth with this, like the preset just appears in my head. Like, and I'm not saying that to brag. I'm just saying I have lost some magic. I suspect a fairly large amount of magic in learning how the soup is made. And I miss just being able to go in there with that level of innocence that you can just enjoy music without.

unintentionally and automatically constantly picking it apart.

Brian Funk (35:54.144)

Yeah, I get that too. Sometimes I hear songs and I'm like, that's the one five, six, four. There it is again. And, but then I'll listen to songs that I loved and realize, my God, that's the one five, six, four progression. It does, it, it distance you from just the straight feeling of the music.

Francis Preve (36:17.871)

There's, that's why, there's a certain logic to the fact that I never learned music theory properly. And I spoke to one of my colleagues many years ago and I was like, I feel like I should take some of our school's music theory classes. How do you feel about it? And this is a music theory teacher. And he said,

that your specialty is technology. My department is called Audio Technology and Industry. That's my department. There's a music department that's the department he was in. And he said, it's like the difference between speaking a language and writing a language. And if you're capable of speaking, which you obviously are capable of because you've had so many releases and you're able to teach at a high level the synthesis stuff,

If the music you make is the music you like and you intend to make that music, then you should relax because if you look at how many major artists are not trained in music theory, they picked it up through being around other musicians. A really good example of that would be Prince. There are countless musicians who...

picked it up because they picked up their instrument and just wrestled with it until it started doing what it wanted to do. I had a really interesting experience with Robert Plant on this topic, this very topic. I was at South by Southwest and a colleague of mine was like, look, it's Robert Plant. I know him. Would you like to meet him? I was like, hell yeah. So we went over and...

Brian Funk (38:03.838)

Yes.

Francis Preve (38:07.662)

and she introduced me as this is Francis, he's an editor at Keyboard Magazine. And he's like, you write for one of those magazines that teaches you how to play your instrument.

And it was like, it was such a, you know, I wasn't angry. It was Robert Plant. I got to talk to him, you know. So for me, it wasn't, I didn't feel like I was dismissed. But there's, you know, there you have it, that a lot of, so many musicians are self -taught. And that's what our music theory professor said. If the music you're making is the music you want to make, and it's credible, and it's good, and it sounds like what you want it to, you know, you should learn the basics of music theory. And that's what I did.

So I got the basics in so I can tell you what chord and what key I'm playing and what key I'm in. So I think that's really important. I also think that so many musicians learn by playing by ear. So many musicians. So anyway, my specialty is technology.

Brian Funk (39:01.47)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (39:06.11)

Paul McCartney said something along the lines of not wanting to learn that stuff to not lose the magic of it a little bit. He clearly understands it. Just listen to what he does. It's a weird feeling because it's kind of exciting to identify it when you hear something interesting and learn what's happening to make that interesting thing happen. But then it...

Francis Preve (39:14.126)

I kind of agree with it.

Brian Funk (39:35.198)

does run the risk of just becoming this technique instead of this. Even like synthesis as I started learning synthesizers, to me synthesizers were more like spaceships and you know, like star sparkling in the sky. And then they become like arpeggiators and they become, you know, like you said, like just that's a sawtooth wave with the resonance. There's a temptation to want to learn how it's done.

Francis Preve (39:47.054)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (40:04.67)

And I think I'm trying to more and more like when I make sounds, I think in these abstract terms first. And then what do I need to do to get there?

Francis Preve (40:18.382)

It's, that gives you a lot of trial and error. I didn't have, you know, when I was a teenager listening to New Order, I didn't, Keyboard Magazine of all things was how I learned. I would read articles in Keyboard Magazine and I ended up writing for them for 20 years. And that was like a real honor because I was meeting all of these cult heroes that no one knows unless they read bylines. And I read bylines as a teenager. So when I started,

Brian Funk (40:37.374)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (40:44.422)

It's cool.

Francis Preve (40:47.95)

When I started working for the magazine, I was like, my gosh, I can't believe I'm meeting you. And they're like, what are you talking about? So yeah, it went full circle. And then I started getting a little bit more of an education on it. But there was really no place you could go to learn synthesis in this era. And I'm really glad that I'm able to impart the knowledge that I've gained from that. So.

Brian Funk (41:13.95)

Yeah, it's great. I mean, so much cool stuff. Let me ask you, you mentioned the circuitry, like of the 303, for instance, but what kind of role is that playing in a lot of this stuff? Like, cause you've got now digital recreations and the computer and it's all that stuff minus the circuitry. What do you think's going on there sometimes that's giving these synths their sound?

Francis Preve (41:21.678)

Hmm? Hmm?

Francis Preve (41:44.782)

have two totally different opinions that conflict with each other. And that's every software piece of software, piece of hardware has a different... Hang on a second.

Brian Funk (41:51.23)

That's the best.

Brian Funk (42:02.685)

Someone's contributing to the conversation.

Francis Preve (42:05.294)

Yeah, take your major third someplace else. So, yeah, we're hearing, yeah, we're hearing, yeah, it sounds like a major third. A lot of car horns are major thirds, so you need to take that. Usually a sawtooth and whatever. Anyways, so getting back to the topic, there's...

Brian Funk (42:11.197)

Yeah, I was just going to say, what are we hearing there? Is that a certain oscillator?

Brian Funk (42:28.061)

It's so funny.

Francis Preve (42:35.662)

Each soft synth has a completely different sound from every other. So if you go get a ton of different soft synths, even if they're analog recreations, they're all going to sound different and they're all going to have a vibe. One of the reasons that Serum had such traction for so many years, it's been a decade. So the reason Serum has so much traction is because...

the aliasing is so low and everyone's like, it sounds too clean and clean is a good thing because you can always add dirt later. So, but that was one of the reasons it became such a staple in certain kinds of dance music. So, serum has very, very, very little.

Brian Funk (43:19.325)

Can I get you to give us a aliasing proper definition?

Francis Preve (43:27.214)

Aliasing is when the, like, I'm gonna, this is just, I'm gonna give a very basic definition of it, because honestly, I don't know that I can get into all the mathiness of it. But aliasing, you can hear in a DAW, if you have Ableton, just go look for the Bitcrusher, and you will find, you'll be able to add aliasing to your track, or a form of aliasing, one of the many flavors of aliasing.

If you're using phase plant, there's a filter in there called quantize, which doesn't sound like a bit crusher, but it is also quantizing the signal. So whenever the signal gets quantized, that's not the only way. It usually has to do with the combination of bit depth and more importantly, the sampling rate. If we talk about the Nyquist theorem, gosh, you pushed me down this hill. So if you talk about the Nyquist theorem, then the...

Brian Funk (44:20.126)

I got you.

Francis Preve (44:27.054)

The highest frequency in your sample has to be, it has to be, I wasn't thinking about this right now. The highest frequency in your sample has to be half of the sampling rate. So if you're recording at 40 kilohertz or 44 .1, which is what a CD is, the highest frequency is gonna be 22 .05.

If you go higher, then you're really not gonna hear, but then aliasing kind of transfers back down, which isn't good either. But the sampling rate has to be twice the highest frequency in the synth. That's aliasing. But in a synth, it means that there are aspects of the internal clock that have to be running even faster so that the frequencies that are generated within the synth,

are also adhering to this Nyquist theorem. So that's the short and wonky version of it that doesn't have a slide deck. And I'm sure people are gonna complain that I didn't get it right, but that you.

Brian Funk (45:38.813)

But that sparkly sound you get when you turn the bit crusher, that kind of twinkly thing. Yeah.

Francis Preve (45:43.118)

Mm -hmm. That's aliasing. That's, yeah, that's like, the sample, there's a knob called sample rate. And what you're doing is the DAW is operating at the correct sample rate, but then you're taking that specific track and you're making it operate at a sample rate that is lower than the highest frequency. Twice the high, it's because it's gotta be twice the highest frequency.

Brian Funk (46:03.677)

of

Brian Funk (46:07.165)

I'm not sure if this is the same, but I've always equated it to really low bit rate MP3s, how they have that kind of funny sparkly thing going on in the high end. Is that a form of aliasing, due to that?

Francis Preve (46:20.494)

I believe so. It's also a form of the way MP3s compress. And don't ask me that question. But the interesting thing is that what we're talking about with low bit rate MP3s, whenever I listen to these stem separators, I don't know if you've listened to them. The best one for me is like the Apple one is the one that the best one that I've heard so far. I haven't heard them all. I haven't done a shoot.

Brian Funk (46:40.733)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (46:45.181)

in logic.

Francis Preve (46:47.691)

what they used to call a shootout where you have 10 and you're comparing them. But the ones I have heard, once you've separated out the vocals from the drums, from the bass, from the music, et cetera, everything sounds like a really, really low, low, low bit rate MP3, which tells me a little bit about how they're doing it. It's all Fourier transform stuff, which is probably happening in a very high sample.

Brian Funk (47:03.357)

at all.

MP3 like, yeah.

Francis Preve (47:17.77)

So, there you have it.

Brian Funk (47:18.622)

It's all what transformed now?

Francis Preve (47:22.058)

Fourier transforms. If you're familiar with Apex Twin.

I'll give you an example. It's like a weird left turn that I just made. So what a Fourier transform is, is ultimately every sound is made up entirely of sine waves. White noise, as they call it, is all sine waves at equal volume. That's one of the ways it is described. It can be made many, many other ways. I'm not saying that that's the final word on noise.

but it's all frequencies at equal amplitude is a very common definition for noise. All frequencies, an infinite number of frequencies at equal amplitude. So every sound, the sound of my voice, the sound of your voice, the sound of a guitar is going to consist of harmonics, but also in harmonics. If you wanna make bell sounds, because bells are not mathematically perfect objects, you're going to get frequencies that are not mathematical.

relation don't have mathematical relationship to the fundamental the fun now I'm talking too fast the fundamental yeah well there's the harmonic series but then there are things called in harmonics which are not related to the harmonic series and when you combine like but by combining them you get the the actual fingerprint of all the sine waves that are used to make up that sound

Brian Funk (48:28.734)

You talk about like harmonic series type of stuff.

Francis Preve (48:50.827)

But then you also have the phases of the sine waves. And then you also have the envelopes for each individual sine wave. Anybody's ever used the envelopes in operator for the harmonic series, you can combine them in different ways. Serum has a beautiful harmonic editor. Beautiful. So what an FFT is, the more complex the FFT is, as I understand it, because I'm winging it when it comes to physical modeling, you gotta remember that. So.

as you make a sound, it's going to have frequencies that are both harmonic and inharmonic. And they are going to change in phase and amplitude over time. So when I say, just thinking about the sibilance in the letter S, and that's going to be, that's really white noise through a high -pass filter coming out of your mouth. So you've got,

all of these frequencies, if you, so a proper fast Fourier transform is really, when you want it to sound amazing, it's gotta have so much detail in terms of all the frequencies that are available. And then what MP3s do is something very similar to that, but then they rely on a technique called masking to get rid of all the frequencies that you're not actually hearing.

Because when two frequencies share overlapping, when two sounds share an overlapping frequency range, the loud one, the louder one is going to obscure the quieter one. Gosh, this is getting really sciency and I'm like super.

Brian Funk (50:32.606)

But that happens in mixing, where you have two sounds, say, in a certain frequency range, and then they're fighting with each other.

Francis Preve (50:35.434)

Yes. Yeah.

Francis Preve (50:40.666)

I can't wait to see these comments. I'm really looking forward to seeing the comments on this. Well, actually, Francis, so you gotta remember I'm winging it. I don't have my speaker's notes with me.

Brian Funk (50:53.951)

I think it's funny, maybe because your understanding of this stuff is so up here, but someone like me can talk about this stuff way down here and I don't get the same kind of blowback as he doesn't know he's talking about.

Francis Preve (51:02.442)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (51:10.922)

Yeah, it's like the thing is attached to the thing which is connected to the thing and then it does the thing, you know, the Framestad is connected to the Contrabulator. It's what a lot of this stuff ends up sounding like. But with regards to the MP3 artifacts. So when I was talking about, so people are gonna say, okay, get back to, I can follow my own breadcrumbs, get back to Apex Twin. Apex Twin has a track.

Brian Funk (51:16.766)

Eh.

Brian Funk (51:26.526)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (51:40.074)

It's often called equation that is off of the I think is one of the b -sides to the to the window licker single and I was actually writing for quite a few magazines I was writing for two magazines at that point in time so I didn't I had reviewed a product Called medicine that you can still buy META sy nth which has a huge Fourier transform inside it you can make a very very large

Now the interesting thing about that is you can visually represent a Fourier transform. It's like that sort of spectrograms that you see in isotope, the different colors when you see these things sort of blended and like brightness is loudness. So amplitude is covered by how bright the pixel is. So medicine had this ability to take.

A JPEG, I think it was actually, it had to be a different format, but you would have to feed it a file and it would be able, it would take that visual, that image, it could be a cottage in the woods, it could be an animal. And in the case of this track by AFX Twin called Equation, it was his face. It was the famous sort of...

Leering evil -looking a Richard James affix to an face And using medicine Because really the only tool that could do it using medicine. He put his face into the fan the the Fourier transform which was extraordinary At the time if you had met if you if you didn't have medicine, but if you had medicine, it was like three clicks So I got in trouble for pointing that out once

But he's still the innovator. I'm not saying that he's not a genius. I'm saying he's a genius. Please don't bury me in the comment section. I'm just trying to explain how it was done. So if you put it in medicine, you can take the image and transform it in just with like, say take this graphic and turn it into a Fourier. And that's what the sound you hear in the track called equation is actually.

Francis Preve (54:02.153)

the result of transforming his face into a Fourier. The interesting thing about Serum, while we're gonna do this little graphic tangent, Serum allows you to turn images into wavetables. And the things that work particularly well are mountain ranges. And I did, I don't know if it's still on my blog, it might be. But years ago, like less than 10, because Serum's only been out for 10. But...

I used that tool to, I made every popular emoji black and white because it tosses out the color. And I put it in the format for serum, I think it was PNG, but I did every emoji. And I played with inverting the gray scale and so on and so forth until I made valid wavetables out of every emoji. It's on my LinkedIn page, it's the background on my LinkedIn page.

But Serum will allow you to take an image and convert it into a wavetable. And that's a really fun trick, too. It's all experimentation. It's like, does it sound good? So.

Brian Funk (55:08.481)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. There was a Max for Live device that did that for Ableton's wavetable, too, I believe, where you could drop a photo. And, yeah. I wanted to make a pack of, I think, like my dog or something. I'd never got around to that.

Francis Preve (55:20.648)

Mmm. Yeah, there was. I remember it, yeah.

Francis Preve (55:33.64)

The dog would be a perfectly fine pack for wavetable or any number of others.

Brian Funk (55:35.361)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (55:40.577)

Yeah. But it's, you know, that's a way to bring in some of that fun, I guess, right? That exploration where if you're afraid you're losing that by getting too technical, now you're kind of letting some magic happen again.

Francis Preve (56:00.616)

I'm sitting here beating myself up for not getting bitcrushing right. So I got it mostly right.

Brian Funk (56:04.865)

Ha ha.

No, that's cool. I just wanted some clarification in case anyone was a little off on like, what? Because sometimes some of these terms, like you said, it sounds like.

Francis Preve (56:24.296)

Yeah, it's really detailed, very specific mathy stuff. And I didn't have my speaker's notes. So, anyway, apologies to the comments section.

Brian Funk (56:25.441)

Just another language. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (56:33.377)

No, it's all good. It's all good. But I wanted to get you back to the circuitry thing with some of the analog synths.

Francis Preve (56:41.192)

yes. So every piece of software is gonna sound different. And every piece of hardware is gonna sound different. So I really like hardware for analog because...

Analog sounds like analog and I really like software for things that are going to be digital. Like for instance, Korg has a wonderful recreation of the M1 and Roland has a wonderful recreation of the D50. So since those synths were truly digital to begin with, they sit really nicely on a computer. That's not that I'm saying that virtual analog isn't cutting it because the processor speeds are so fast, right?

that there are just wonderful, wonderful recreations of analog that aren't just like playing with the pitch or something like that. So.

I think there's a certain amount of it that gets into like cooking competition stuff. I'm always gonna use these cooking analogies. And is this apple pie better than that apple pie? And if so, why? And I think a lot of it has to do with your ears and again, your personal tastes. A really good example would be the role in system A, which is...

You know, it's been around for quite a while and it can load some of the synths from Roland Cloud and its analog emulations are actually quite good. The Roland boutiques are another example of digital synths that sound quite analog. So those are great. Korg has done some wonderful stuff in that territory as well. We've reached the point where processor speeds and digital to analog converters.

Francis Preve (58:41.994)

which are the tools that go in your audio interface so that it can actually create electricities for your speakers. So the... With regards to like the quality of it, you go back to the beginning of this. I don't know if you remember, now we're gonna do a little history lesson. Do you remember a synth called Neon?

Francis Preve (59:09.705)

You're having a different sound. Is there like a tornado coming your way?

Brian Funk (59:13.477)

Yeah, that's I got a window open. I forgot to shut. That's the fire stations kind of siren. That's the thing that my dog realizes it's dinner time at six o 'clock, but it's going off for some reason now. But it sounds like some kind of sine wave of sorts going up in the pitch.

Francis Preve (59:17.161)

No, it's totally fine.

Francis Preve (59:22.857)

So.

Francis Preve (59:27.433)

I'm sorry.

Francis Preve (59:34.053)

My brain is trying to calculate the waveform, which feels very sawtoothy, but also because of the distance, like the scapes project that I did, because of the distance, there's some filtering on it. And the weirdest thing is even though you're outside, you're still gonna get some kind of reverb just from the fact that there are buildings and objects out there. So you are gonna get this kind of reverb, and there's a pitch envelope.

Brian Funk (59:59.108)

Well, I do hear almost like a delay. It almost sounds like two, you know, because of some sort of echoing going on.

Francis Preve (01:00:07.529)

There's gotta be, yeah, there's gotta be, there's gotta be like a real.

Brian Funk (01:00:09.7)

Yeah, there's a pond across the streets. There's a lot of space and I think it's bouncing off all of that, but it does sound like this sort of like two things happening. You hear it.

Francis Preve (01:00:14.185)

That's...

Francis Preve (01:00:21.193)

that are two very scary things that are happening. So those always sound so, they just always sound like doom to me, but.

Brian Funk (01:00:24.356)

Yeah, it's just another part of my day.

Brian Funk (01:00:29.924)

Yeah, it's dinnertime for my dog.

Francis Preve (01:00:31.785)

So, so what I'm thinking, like, just to wrap this up, because I think we should, like, so back to the original, now that's going to be in there, back to the original point is, there are some fantastic recreations of analog synths out there. So I'm never, ever, ever going to say that software can't do it. Software can do it. It's a bit like being...

you know, like, kind of like you're being a little bit of a snob about it. Because you, especially when things like Rolling Cloud and the Korg Legacy stuff, which I've worked on all of it, I used to own a Polysix, I had the MS -20, I've used all these synths, and when I go back and forth and back and forth, it's really, what's it gonna sound like in a mix? That's the thing that everybody forgets when they do the side -by -side comparison and they've got the tweezers out.

and they're looking at Ableton Spectrum and they're like, I hear a little thing. Are you going to hear it in a mix? Are you going to hear it in a mix? And the answer to that...

Francis Preve (01:01:45.13)

is that subjective. But my personal opinion is no, you are not going to hear it in a mix. But I also understand that that is subjective. So I'm going to say that. So with regards to soft synths versus analog. But I do like my analog synths. I have a couple of, I've got a couple of sequential. I've got the OB6. I just worked on a bunch of really cool.

since this year,

Brian Funk (01:10:37.772)

I feel like I actually want to call this podcast maybe. You know, like you talking about coming up with titles for things and things, but I was thinking about it today. I was like, maybe this should be called like the man and your synth. Because you're pretty much have your hands on like the sounds of all, like almost everything that comes out.

Francis Preve (01:10:54.566)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:10:59.59)

Thanks for watching!

Francis Preve (01:11:05.889)

I was once referred to as the ghost in the shell of synthesis. Which is one of my favorite compliments.

Brian Funk (01:11:14.444)

Yeah.

That's cool. That's how it feels. And you know, you sent me over a list of some of the things you've done just this year. And it's like all the cool stuff that just came out.

Francis Preve (01:11:27.201)

It's why I love it. I get to go, I get to do the stuff and then go to school and teach the stuff that I just did. So it's always keeping my content as a professor really fresh. But when you're working freelance in this world, just life in general can be really hit or miss. Like you can have, you've got to be really good with money if you're gonna work freelance.

Brian Funk (01:11:35.499)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11:50.507)

Mm.

Francis Preve (01:11:55.297)

And you know, some years are better than others. And this year was just off to a roaring start in December. And I just couldn't believe how many things came in. I do a ton of work for Roland Cloud. I just did a new pack for the Zonology Pro. And that Zonology Pro is a really, really cool synth that I think some of the more EDM crowd kind of missed out on, but it's a very, very...

complex synth, because it's basically four synthesizers layered. So it kind of takes the concept of the JD -800. So I did a bunch of packs for, I did a Zonology Pro Pack for Roland. I did the Jupiter Pack, like Tail -End of last year, I did a bunch of stuff. So Roland Cloud is, and that's a really good example of virtual analog, that sounds incredibly realistic. So it's...

the six of one half dozen of the other. Korg, I got a call in December saying, hey, are you free in January? And I was like, yes, of course I am. So I was like, what's the project? And it was the MicroKorg 2. And that synth hasn't been updated in like 20 years. It's such a mainstay. And I looked at the new architecture.

Brian Funk (01:13:21.035)

Yeah, for real.

Francis Preve (01:13:23.259)

And the new architecture, you know, was so much deeper and had a lot more complexity to it. So I worked with Korg very closely on that and several iterations of the, the firmware. So that was a thing about the MicroKorg. I especially love hardware projects that I know are going to be around for a chunk of time because hardware is kind of forever.

And a lot of people never change the factory presets or only edit them a little bit so that they customize them for their music, which is totally fine. And working on the Korg MicroKorg 2 was still like it's right in the other room. It was just an honor. It's always an honor to do a project of that magnitude. I also worked on another project for Korg that I cannot talk about, which was a lot of fun too. So...

Brian Funk (01:14:17.61)

Ooh, exciting.

Francis Preve (01:14:19.099)

And then Oberheim. So the new Oberheim TE -05, I have the OB -6, I did the OB, the OBX8. So the, and I did the take five. So the TE -05, and I'm not the only person doing these sounds, just to be clear, I'm on a team. So, but doing the TE -05, or TE -05 as it's often called, because T -O, Tom Oberheim.

So the TO5 has, is actually almost in a weird sort of way better than my OB6 and a little bit less. Sorry for saying that, but I hope they sell a ton of these. And working on that, what I do when I'm designing is I always try to make useful and timeless sounds, but this won't surprise you when I say I always try to find the edges of what that synth can do.

do because most people are going to make, you know, their saw plucks. It doesn't take long to make a saw plug. So for the sounds that are, that are, are really detailed, what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to make the synth not sound like the synth and play to its strengths and find these, these, like I said, these strange sort of edges where I'm making it do things that wasn't designed to do. I love doing that. And,

There's a sound that I always test. So many synths have a sound, like one of my tests as I'm designing for it is the D50 had a sound called Fantasia, which I've always loved. So whenever I work on a synth, I make a patch called Fantasia, which is me trying to make that synth sound like a D50. And just the process of doing that teaches me where things are on that synth and what it sounds like.

Brian Funk (01:16:09.004)

Right.

Francis Preve (01:16:18.902)

this is what it's gonna sound like when it's doing that patch. And a lot of times when I'm making patches, I'll give patches the same name across synths. So that came up in a very interesting way with a client that won't be named today. There's a sound that I've made, I'm not gonna name the sound either, that the client was like, we see this sound in a bunch of other synths.

What is this name trademarked? And I'm like, no, I just did that sound for a bunch of other synths as well. So there's a certain kind of sound that is reminiscent of the old Oberheim Expander, which is one of my favorite synths of all time. And the Oberheim Expander had this sound, it was called S .GENVIV. And if we're gonna do,

deep cuts in 80s music, it's the sound that made the primary lead in a Jody Watley track, if you remember Jody Watley from the 80s. So I always loved that sound, and I used it actually in several tracks for my new wave band at the time. But having listened to that sound so many times, I know how it's made. So that's another sound that I sort of...

I add to different synths. Of course I'm going to make sounds that are like, like I said, I'm already doing all the edge work. So making really distinctive sounds, but then there are just these sounds that everybody needs. It's like every synth needs a saw pad. That's not in question. Every synth needs like a resonant, funky bass. That's not in question. So all of these sounds that are sort of classic and everyone needs,

Alrighty, in the synth. So I'm looking at the edges and then I'm sort of doing these deep cuts into the history of synthesis and really famous synthesizers. Synthesizers I have known and loved. So that's one of the things that I tend to do and it's how I test a synthesizer. So I've done Oberheim this year, a bunch of stuff for Roland Cloud. I've also done some tutorials. That's another thing that's always kind of...

Francis Preve (01:18:42.037)

Roland has had me do quite a few tutorials and that's obviously my preferred media format because I'm a writer. So I've done quite a few tutorials for Roland's articles. If you're going to add links to this podcast, there's one in there for you.

Brian Funk (01:18:58.279)

Yes, all of that stuff will go in.

Francis Preve (01:19:01.111)

So I do about between like two to four a year. And it's really enjoyable because it allows me to take my teaching skills and apply them in a different way for a company whose products I love. I'm not saying this because I have to say this. I'm saying it is an honor to have the collection of companies that I'm currently working with.

Brian Funk (01:19:17.386)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:19:30.91)

because they're like Roland corks, Quenchell, Oberheim. It's like, this is to me, you know, Xfer. It's just to me, it's just so meaningful and I'm so grateful. I never ever take it for granted because this is what I wanted to do when I was 14 with my Moog MG1 copying new order. You know, only I get to do it.

you know, as part of my living.

Yay.

Brian Funk (01:20:04.713)

wild. Do you ever think about how much music your sounds are making it to? It gets released every day. Do you ever listen to stuff and be like, I know where that sound came from.

Francis Preve (01:20:14.838)

I don't.

Every once in a while I'll hear a sound that sounds like something I would do. I'm definitely gonna say that. I'll hear a track and I'll be like, mmm, that sounds like me. But more often than not, I sort of turned that part of my analysis off because I wouldn't want it to go to my head. It would be very, very bizarre for me to say, all of these songs were made possible by Francis Pro. That's not.

Brian Funk (01:20:43.805)

Get you in the liner notes.

Francis Preve (01:20:45.206)

That's not the way I roll. That's not the way my brain works. So I don't really do that, but every once in a while I'll hear a sound and I'll be like, hmm, that sounds like me. So it's strange.

Brian Funk (01:20:56.394)

Well, it's important. A lot of times, even for me, songs start from the sound sometimes. You get inspired. It makes you play something. And it wouldn't happen on a different sound. It's because that's got that whatever it is, the personality, something that communicates an emotion.

Francis Preve (01:21:04.63)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:21:12.758)

So yeah.

Francis Preve (01:21:17.078)

That's always a goal. That's always a goal with my sounds. I try to make sounds that are really, really timeless so that that synth will still make sense 10 years from now rather than you sometimes you'll get a synth and it's just a little too...

And when you listen to that, I mean, it'd be great if you want that vintage sound 20 years from now, but more often than not, people want things that are going to make sense all the time, because it's a big investment to buy a piece of hardware. It's a big investment to buy a piece of software sometimes. So I wanna make sure that my company's clients are getting their money's worth. That's obviously the case. Another thing, with regards to do my sounds appear in other people's songs,

Brian Funk (01:21:53.128)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:22:02.806)

I was once referred to as the Tom Ford of presets because my stuff is so timeless and I guess that person thought it was elegant. I'm not that into fashion, but I know who Tom Ford is. So I thought that was a really interesting compliment. So I've always sort of held that close to my heart.

Brian Funk (01:22:28.489)

Are there certain, like, there's so many synths that come out and a lot of it's, I guess like, is a lot of your job finding the personality of the synth? Because if we were given some of these synths with no presets, that, you know, what is the character of this thing? What is it going to be used for?

Francis Preve (01:22:50.486)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:22:57.)

I guess like, like that's how you're getting them, right? There's, there's nothing on it yet. So you're, you're, you're playing a big role in figuring out what it can do.

Francis Preve (01:23:02.614)

There's nothing in them. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:23:09.172)

Well, that's what these patches like, you know, the S -GenViv and Frantasia, and I have a couple of others that I use when I'm just testing the synth out. But these are sounds, like again, these are sounds everybody needs. So, and every synth is going to do that sound differently. It's really important to emphasize that.

Each of these sounds are not, it's gonna sound different on an Oberheim than it does on a Roland than it does on a Korg, but they're all like sort of necessary sounds. So just because I designed sounds that were inspired by other sounds that I designed doesn't mean that I'm just phoning it in and making the same sound. I really wanna be clear about that. But what I do when I do that is I'm finding out what the personality of the synth is. And sometimes I'll find a synth that just can't do that sound.

I'll be like, okay, what can it do? What other experiments can I do to find out what the personality of the synth is? Generally, I get that one right. So I have enough repeat clients that I would think so. But the point is, yeah, every synth has a personality and part of that personality is the presets. There's a really interesting story about the Prophet 5, the original Prophet 5 from 1978. And that is the Prophet 5 was...

the first synth, we could say the CS80, don't say CS80, the Proficy was the first synth with digital memory for presets, polyphonic synth, let's get that one right. So it's the first polyphonic synth with digital memory for presets, to my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure I'm right. And there were 32 patches in it, or was it 40? I can't swear by that number. But I will say,

that it's a famous story that the Prophet 5s, if they needed maintenance or repairs when they were sent back to sequential, had the factory presets in them unedited.

Francis Preve (01:25:14.356)

And I thought that was fascinating because that made me wonder one of two things. Did people erase their own original presets so that, you know, as sort of like trade secrets or were people only using presets and maybe modifying them by changing the cutoff or the release time? No way to know, but it was, it was a, it was known at the time that a significant number of profit fives came back. And we're talking, this is like 1981.

So there really weren't synthesis experts the way there are today. There weren't synthesis experts. So it would make a lot of sense if like a rock keyboardist is going to pick up a synth, they're gonna, you know, I need a saw pad. There you have it. So you need the saw pad and that's the Prophet 5 saw pad. So, or the hard sync sound that was like now just more old guy deep cuts about new wave, but the cars.

Brian Funk (01:26:01.06)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:26:13.62)

One of the big hits was a track called Let's Go, and that was made with a Prophet 5 preset that uses hard sync. So that iconic sound from that track was a Prophet 5 preset. So that's the weird thing is when I hear presets from bands, synth pop bands that I really admired, and I find them now because you could never afford a Fairlight before. You know, they were $30 ,000 back in the day. But you can get an iPad version.

So when I got the iPad version of the Fairlight, I kept stumbling across these sounds that I thought my heroes were making from scratch. And I'm like, no, that's a preset. Yup. And same thing with that. There are sounds in the PPG that are so a lot of these synths were so expensive back in the day that they were made out of a kind of unobtainium.

Brian Funk (01:26:56.483)

Yeah, there we are. Boop. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:27:11.478)

sort of thing. So, sure you're not going to get busted for that preset you used on the $50 ,000 synth. Of course not. Who's going to ever discover that? Well, fast forward 40 years, and it's the iPad version. You're hearing all of these iconic sounds, and like soft synth, and soft, like whether it's a VST or...

Brian Funk (01:27:35.426)

Hmm. Well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me that, I mean, people do that with other instruments and, you know, I, like a piano you could look at as a preset if you want, you could look at an acoustic guitar. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:27:50.038)

Sometimes, yeah, sometimes people buy a synth for that sound. They know that like, you'll see on reverb that some synths will go really, really, they'll skyrocket in price because some artist mentioned that that's the synth they use and now everybody wants that synth because they want that sound. So that's another weird trend that sort of dominates the used gear industry. I think there are so many sleepers out there. I think there are...

Brian Funk (01:28:06.465)

Right.

Francis Preve (01:28:19.766)

so many great vintage synths that people haven't really noticed that are really, really cool sounding. Yeah, I'll say some of them. I used to own most of them, so I know. And you can always get the Arturia version, which is actually quite good. The Ensoniq, it was pronounced a million different ways. That synth...

Brian Funk (01:28:28.738)

Yeah, are you willing to break the news?

Francis Preve (01:28:48.947)

was the SQ80. And it's really, really cool because it's oscillators that have aliasing, three of them, but they could be synced and do all these other tricks, but followed by a Curtis filter. And the Curtis filter, what was in the Prophet. So you've got these three oscillators that are kind of wonky going into a really creamy, actually analog filter.

and you can still find them for like 600 and they are so...

But there's also the Arturia version, which is also excellent. So those are the kinds, like what other sleepers are there? A lot of Korg stuff, like the DW8000, DW6000. I'm waiting for somebody to make the Poly 800 popular again, simply because that's another one of those synths that has really unique tone generation, because I believe it's all kind of based on square waves and pulse waves.

So I haven't, I was in a band with a guy who had one, but I don't have one in my home right now, so I don't want to be too concrete about that. But there are these synths. I was super excited when Korg released their virtual version of the Prophecy and the Z1, because they had things like physical modeling. And this is all the early 90s, and it was just like, it was too much synth.

for that you couldn't quite get into it with the fact that there weren't that many knobs on keyboards anymore. But the software version, you can get at all of these parameters that you never used to be able to get to without using the LCD. So there are a lot of sleepers in that sense, because the software version is actually better. It's a digital synth. There's a software version. Both the Z1 and the Prophecy are real sleepers up from the cord line.

Brian Funk (01:30:24.609)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:30:32.673)

Right.

Francis Preve (01:30:53.876)

and you can get the VSTs. I'm not trying to sound like an ad for Korg, but I am saying that there are these undiscovered vintage synths. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:31:00.674)

So much good stuff, yeah. But that's a good point, like, because some of it's really hard, especially like those membrane button things that they were doing for a while that were felt futuristic in the 80s, but are really annoying looking back. That...

Francis Preve (01:31:17.107)

The Moog Foundation, Bob Moog Foundation, to their full name, the Bob Moog Foundation actually did a raffle for the source, the Moog source, and that's sort of like membrane buttons. But by many people's estimation, the Moog source, which a lot of people didn't want because it looked like it was kind of digital when it was, people don't understand the Moog source, but it's still all analog just with a cool membrane.

interface that just happens to be the Moog that sounds the closest to the Mini Moog that isn't a Mini Moog. So if you want a Mi - you know, something that's very close to an actual Mini Moog, the Vintage Moog Source, it was like when I saw that raffle, I, you know, I entered it myself, although I'm technically not allowed to win because I'm on the board of advisors, but I would have given it to my school. Yeah, there are these sleeper synths and the membrane switches,

Yeah, on the Moog source, it was just an amazing synth. I used to love going to the music.

Brian Funk (01:32:23.01)

Yeah, that's cool. It's nice that we've got access to that stuff in, you know, more, you know, easier to use ways, even things like a DX7, like FM synthesis that you can not have to deal with that. I have one and I think now the battery is dead and I almost don't even care. It's like, it's so hard to get into it.

Francis Preve (01:32:42.163)

That can't...

Francis Preve (01:32:50.451)

That came up in class, the DX7 presets came up in class, an operator this week because a student was talking, I was talking about the DX7 and I was talking about how one of the sounds that the DX7 is most famous for is the Taco Bell sound.

Brian Funk (01:33:12.353)

Yeah. The bell, yeah.

Francis Preve (01:33:13.043)

the Taco Bell bell is preset in the DX7 tubular bells. And I was, my students were like, can you make that sound? And I went over to operator and I was like, there you go. I couldn't believe that my muscle memory allowed me to get operator to cough up the exact DX7 tubular bell sound. It's like a two to one ratio, but you set the fine tuning to like 700 or something like that. And then next thing you know, it -

Brian Funk (01:33:41.729)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:33:42.739)

sounds like the DX7.

Brian Funk (01:33:45.985)

I'm surprised there's not a, maybe there is, I'm not aware of it, but like a DX7 pack four operator. So you can just kind of call up some of those really classic, you know, like those electric pianos and...

Francis Preve (01:33:47.475)

Recipes.

Francis Preve (01:34:02.675)

I wonder how many... I did, I did, like, SampleSound has my, like, FM collection, which are some samples from the DX7 and the TX810Z, which I owned, and then I threw in an operator pack in there. I'm not exactly sure. It's been, like, seven years since I've done it.

But so whatever's in that pack, there's like, there are audio demos on the website. But yeah, DX7 pack for Operator, I'm sure after all this time, you know, I was using Operator in 2004 when I was, you know, so I'm sure there's got to be an Operator pack that's all.

Brian Funk (01:34:29.282)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:34:44.994)

Yeah, but if not, you make one in an afternoon.

Francis Preve (01:34:47.379)

If not, if not, if not, take a little bit more than an afternoon, but yeah. Well, because I'm just so, I have to do marketing, so.

Brian Funk (01:34:53.378)

Yeah.

Right. Exactly. The fun stuff, the stuff that, we've all had to learn getting into all the funny things you get into music. Music gets you into that. You've, you talk a lot about the teaching, but you've got some, you mentioned in your email, some success stories from your students. That's gotta be, I always joke about teaching because.

Francis Preve (01:35:22.227)

gosh, yes.

Brian Funk (01:35:26.37)

It's one of those jobs you do and at the end of the day, you're just kind of like, I hope I did my job. I hope they learned something. Like my classes leave and no one looks any smarter today. Whereas if I cut the grass, the grass is cut. I did that. I can tell I did that. It's it.

Francis Preve (01:35:32.403)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:35:40.819)

The grass is cut. It's cumulative, but you know as a teacher that teaching is cumulative. So...

Brian Funk (01:35:47.682)

It's not a day to day, you know, at the end of the day, you can quantify it with so many other things.

Francis Preve (01:35:55.827)

Correct. Correct. I've had... I've... and I want to be very clear about...

Because when I gave my talk at Ableton Loop, I said this very thing. It's like, I feel like teaching is like gardening. I'm not the DNA, I'm not the seed, I'm the water and the sunshine, and that is it. They are the ones with the perseverance. They are the ones who are cultivating their skills long after they've left my classes. It's like, I'm in charge of lighting the fuse.

And that's what, that's my, I will take credit for that. But they, I do not want to take anything away from any of my students. They are doing the work.

But I've got some, there's an incredible number of students who have come just from the program. So it's like, there are multiple classes. I'm not the only teacher. This isn't like School of Francis. So there are a lot of teachers contributing to these students' success and knowledge and experience. So I just want to be very clear about that as we go into this topic. I have...

that one of a student I had.

Francis Preve (01:37:27.091)

Pre -pandemic, so we're talking like 2017, 2018, is now one, she is now one of the biggest techno DJs in the world. She was just on the cover of DJ Magazine, DJ Mag. Full cover story, full interview. She actually gave me a shout out in the interview, which made me feel.

Francis Preve (01:37:56.115)

And her name is Sierra Landry and she has, she's there. She did the things she wanted to do. And, you know, we were just texting on Instagram and I'm actually gonna send her the serum pack. She wants to hear it. So, just an amazingly gifted woman. So cool and just happy to see her success. Also in the DJ world, there's an...

an artist who is on his way up and he's going to go there named Shadowstar. And he just opened for Deadmau5 at one of our major venues, which is a really prized gig. And he's had tracks on Mousetrap, Deadmau5's label, and he's had a bunch of releases. His name is Shadowstar, S -H -A -D -O -W -S -T -A -R. And he is definitely on the way up.

And he's driven. He's really committed to the process, which is why I think he's going to get there because he doesn't give up. His perseverance skills are amazing. And he's arguably one of the best engineers in Austin. Another really great engineer in Austin, who's more of a friend of mine. I sort of may have mentored him like 15 years ago.

His stage name or his artist name is Shredward, but his actual name is Edward, and it's because he played guitar, and it's like, you know, it'd be like me being called Keys. But his name is Shredward, it's a cool name, he's been around. He's a Swiss Army Knife. He's on tour with the B -52s a lot, both as their keyboardist.

Brian Funk (01:39:25.6)

Cool.

Brian Funk (01:39:44.033)

Nice.

Francis Preve (01:39:44.275)

and as their keyboard tech. It depends on what's needed on the tour. He's worked in all of these different areas of touring, but he's also a really in -demand engineer in Austin, and he's won like BMI awards, and he's working for a company called Liquid Cinema Inside Tracks doing like sync libraries for them.

He can do it all. He plays guitar, he plays keys, he's using Ableton, he's using Pro Tools. He's also works for XFert, doing support. It's just amazing the sheer range that he has. I think that, yeah, he's like 10 people all in one. And then I have, I wasn't a student. actually one more student.

Brian Funk (01:40:32.257)

It sounds like a couple people at once. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:40:44.015)

His name is, it's pronounced Chocolaty, but his name is CHKLTE. And he was many years ago, many, many years ago. And he's getting residencies in Ibiza and really he does this sort of minimal stuff. So these students, you know, it's like, I'm just lighting the fuse. I'm not doing anything more than saying, this is what the knobs do. And they're making their art with that. So we created a discord group with...

Shadowstar, ShredWord, and a good friend of mine named Josh Davidson. And he's one of the, he's the lead audio tech, he's really major in the audio. I apologize for not getting exactly right off the top of my head. He's for Gearbox, the video game company. And he really knows his stuff.

And he's managing the team that's making all the sounds and sound effects for the Gearbox games. So we have this little thing, it's called the professionals. And it's like, it's Shredward and Shadowstar and Josh and myself. And we're just, really, we're just like sharing each tracks that we're working on. We're like, hey, what do you think of my mix? Does anything need to be changed?

I just started this track. What do you think? Or asking technical questions like we're, because Josh obviously is building his own PCs. So he was talking about the arduous process of making the best PC in the world for him. So that's kind of, so that's sort of like the, you know, the network. A lot of, a lot of times these students just go on to bigger and better things and they just wave goodbye. And I'm like, I've got, I've got to make more. I got to make more. So here I am teaching. but it's always wonderful to see.

Brian Funk (01:42:37.855)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:42:41.551)

There are no words for it.

Brian Funk (01:42:42.181)

Hmm. Yeah, I could imagine. I mean, when you see that with a student, it's just, you don't usually get to find out what happens when they leave for the most part. So to see that is cool. I like that you, yeah. I like that you keep this, I can tell you are probably the type of teacher that learns as much as if not more than your students learn.

Francis Preve (01:42:54.319)

No.

Francis Preve (01:42:58.799)

They always write home.

Brian Funk (01:43:11.868)

every time. And it seems like you maintain that with them to keep learning. What do they have to teach? What can you pick up from them?

Francis Preve (01:43:13.006)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:43:17.454)

Mm -hmm.

There's so much to learn. And I'll get random text messages, because students are allowed to be my friend after they graduate. So sometimes we'll trade numbers. So students who have already graduated, we can be social. And I'll get random text messages from other students, like Edward Chapa, who's on tour with the War on Drugs, which is a...

Brian Funk (01:43:24.156)

Hmm.

Francis Preve (01:43:46.606)

pretty major tour and Adrian Benavides who runs a he does backline Ableton for like Smashing Pumpkins and and Dautry and Charlie XCX and he's running you know Ableton behind the scenes he's also a great producer who happens to work with his idols who are all like guys from King Crimson it's just like it's and and I like if they want to stay in contact with me I am here I'm totally here if

Brian Funk (01:43:55.74)

Nice.

Francis Preve (01:44:15.054)

if you want to reach out. So a lot of my friends in Austin actually are former students. They're all like in their 40s now. So I'll have students who are like in their, you know, their mid 30s, late 30s, mid 40s, just because they've been teaching for so long. And we can talk about adult topics. So that's, you know, that's some just turned into friends.

as well as being successful.

Brian Funk (01:44:41.212)

Do you notice anything in them? Can you see in your classroom before they start moving on into the world? Do you pick up on certain traits about certain people that you can recognize, like they have potential, they're going somewhere with this?

Francis Preve (01:45:00.942)

They all have my eyes. No, I can, there's a, everybody's got a vibe. Everybody's got a vibe. That was a weird joke, but still. They all have a vibe and they're like, I've got a pair of students who are really, it's all, for me, it's about the passion. Because the passion comes from the, like,

Brian Funk (01:45:08.764)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:45:30.509)

I forgot exactly who said...

Francis Preve (01:45:35.885)

But if you take a very intelligent student in a given art form, and you take a really passionate student in that same art form, the passionate student is the one who's gonna have the career. Because it's, I'm still here. I mean, you know, I hate saying this, but you know, I'm in my 50s.

So I like, the only reason I'm still here and the reason I've had such a colorful career is because I didn't give up and I was passionate. You know, I had my new wave band in the eighties that was moderately successful, but you know, I went on to become a producer. And then I became a graphic designer for seven years. And then I was, then I slipped.

It's all slipping on banana peels. I'm always telling students, go find a banana peel to slip on because that's where the magic is. Like writing for magazines was a banana peel I slipped on because I was at a conference and I was talking to the editor, David Bettino, of a magazine called Music and Computers. And he gave me my first gig. And I said, I'm not a writer. And he's like, well, you know the topic and I'm an editor. Give it a shot. And he was highly complimentary when I turned in the piece and he said, do you want another?

You know, 20 years later, I was still writing for the magazines back in the print era. If you had told me that the most rewarding thing, like when I was 18 and just determined to be in Depeche Mode, if you had told me that the most rewarding thing in my life at this age would be a 28 -year -plus and going career as a college professor,

and a preset designer. I would not have believed you, but somewhere in there I was a moderately successful DJ. And it was, you just don't, you have to like let, you have to just be open to everything and you've gotta just slip on a lot of banana peels. And I think that that has a lot to do with the diversity of Shred's skill set, is that he's really good at finding banana peels as well. And then when you get the gig, you succeed. You make sure that...

Francis Preve (01:47:58.892)

that you make sure that there's no way to fail by doing the work and because you're passionate. So it goes back to passion.

Brian Funk (01:48:04.574)

Hmm. Yeah, I think especially in music, it's just, you have to be. There's too many people, it's too many, it's too challenging to, yeah. Right.

Francis Preve (01:48:18.476)

Everybody wants your lunch. And a lot of it's, it was fun being a writer. I really enjoyed writing, but that's not the main medium right now. Now the main medium is like TikTok and Instagram Reels. And honestly, it's like, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, at some point in time, you've got to give it to the next generation. So just going to college professor and preset designer. That's, that's how I think I ride into the sunset. Unless I...

managed to make my dream synth that's been in my head for five years now. So...

Brian Funk (01:48:53.497)

I think you mentioned that the last time we spoke. I don't remember if that was on air or not.

Francis Preve (01:48:55.723)

Yeah, it's always, it's like, it's the windmill I've been tilting at for five years. And by saying it, you know, if anybody wants to learn more about my synth, you can hit the contact button on one of my pages and we'll talk. But I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because it's pretty magical. But that's, you know, but even if I was just a preset designer and...

college professor helping people get to their goals. I'm totally happy.

Brian Funk (01:49:27.802)

Yeah. And that's something you need that passion for too. You have to bring that. You're not lighting a fuse without a flame or a spark, right? So you need to really have that. I find teaching brings that out of me a lot too. Whether it's, we might be talking about a topic in say my Berkeley class and suddenly like, yeah, we could do that. Check this out. And.

Francis Preve (01:49:32.842)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:49:39.018)

Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:49:45.642)

I gotta vape.

Francis Preve (01:49:56.042)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:49:56.761)

Next thing you know, I'm sitting there working on a song an hour later and just excited. It's a great way to find that passion if you ever lose it, because when you turn people on to something, it doesn't have to be in a classroom. It could just be your friend that's curious about your Synth or whatever. Sharing that experience reminds you, yeah, this is fun.

Francis Preve (01:50:01.034)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Francis Preve (01:50:15.018)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:50:26.265)

Check this out.

Francis Preve (01:50:26.698)

Of course. Yeah, I feel you on that one. I also teach a course in advanced digital audio composition. We have one that's sort of getting the basics of Ableton down, and then we have one that's more like how to apply it to making electronic music and warping vocals and recontextualizing and kind of remixing in a way.

And it's weird because I designed that course for the three of the courses that I teach out of the four courses I teach. Three of them, like the school asked me to design courses for the Texas State School System. That's another legacy on it. But this one class, I do this one really simple game with groove because understanding groove is like...

It's a feel thing. How do you teach feel? How do you teach groove? So I have a really simple experiment. You just make a standard kick, snare, hat pattern, any BPM you want, but don't make the beat too fancy. Make the beat very stripped down. So it's kick, hat, snare, hat, kick, hat, snare, hat kind of thing, or just eighth note hats, and then keep them low in the mix just so that they're kind of in there as a reference point.

So simplest beat possible, whatever drum kit you want. And then you have one, two note events.

That if I did that's the that's the that's the Mac bullet like I think this does something like fireworks or something. Yeah, anyway, so Macintosh Yeah, you have to make a certain hand gesture and it'll happen. So the I have to rewind for a second groove so I so you make a bass sound and you pick a note

Brian Funk (01:52:04.344)

What was, we just got balloons in the video.

Brian Funk (01:52:10.488)

yeah? I didn't know that. Never saw that before.

Brian Funk (01:52:25.688)

You're making two note events with the groove.

Francis Preve (01:52:32.171)

E or F is a good, like a low E or F that's in the cool bassy range. And just make two 16th notes that are both playing the same note. Got it? So you're looking at, you fold it, so there's one track, and you just put two note events in there with your ultra simple drum pattern. And I give them 10 minutes to just move those two of them. They can't add any events, they can't change any notes.

It's gotta be one note, two events. And I have them move it around. And they fall into a wormhole because it's so interesting to understand groove from that perspective that you can have the absolute bare minimum kick, you know, kick snare hat, playing the simplest groove possible, playing one note in the bass.

You just move them around and some of them feel great and some of them don't. And just by moving those two note events around, they find their groove. I'm not telling them what their groove is. I'm just saying the things you like the most are going to be part of your voices.

Brian Funk (01:53:50.679)

So they're just deciding like where these bass notes are going. And sometimes they feel good with the kick, sometimes on and off beat. Sometimes that's cool. And I love those kind of, those are academic exercises though, that you can get really far with.

Francis Preve (01:53:53.865)

Yeah, they just got, they've got two, they can't add any, they can't change any notes. They've just got, they've got one note. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:54:13.814)

Whereas sometimes when you're trying to compose, like you said, you want to make this beat real fancy and I'm gonna just keep throwing things at it. I need more notes. But when you give yourself some kind of limitation like that, then it's like, okay, we got to really find it. We got to solve this problem. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:54:29.577)

Limitations are fantastic. I mean, everybody knows that, yeah. It's like it's such a trope or a cliche that limitations are absolutely everything. Especially now when you've got a piece of software like Ableton that just has a million synths and a million effects and a million max for live devices. It's like you've got to like where it's over. If I were encountering it now for the first time, it would be overwhelming.

Brian Funk (01:54:52.085)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:54:55.594)

You know, I just got, I'm gonna be, we're gonna switch over to 12. And I'm like, this is gonna be like, it's like, it's always overwhelming because they add so many new features, you know? And yeah, so I'm, there's some really great stuff in 12 though that's gonna help my classes a lot. Like the ability to set, the ability to set keys and the generative stuff for people who aren't like, are still getting the hang of making note, making music.

Brian Funk (01:55:05.205)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:55:15.957)

Yeah, sure.

Francis Preve (01:55:25.833)

So being able to kind of collaborate with the computer without it just being AI and writing your music for you. I think that's really a really healthy approach.

Brian Funk (01:55:32.565)

Yeah.

It's fun. I love it. It's like collaborating is a good word for it. You're kind of, you have to still figure it out. You have to still enjoy it. You have to still kind of cultivate it a bit. You know, it's not just writing things for you, but it says like, Hey, what about this? What about this? Try that.

Francis Preve (01:56:00.553)

There's a channel on YouTube called Weaver Beats. These AI music generation tools, I like it because he's snarky and funny. Yeah, he does like the news, yeah. And there's a lot of personality to it, but I really like, I have subscribed and liked. So...

Brian Funk (01:56:09.588)

All right.

Brian Funk (01:56:15.252)

Yeah, he does it like the news almost, right? Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Francis Preve (01:56:27.177)

In one of the latest ones, if not the latest one at the time of this recording, it's these AI music writing software companies. This is one person sent in a letter or an email saying,

Every time I work, you know, I'm trying to work on this track, but it keeps eating my credits because you have to buy a certain number of credits every month in order to keep making your track. So what you're doing is you're constantly making these, you're making the AI make the changes that you could know how to make, but you want the AI to do it for you. But it's still taking the same amount of time as if you actually learned and made the track yourself.

So that's not what I'm saying. I mean, everybody can be at their skill level that they want. But what's happening is it's triggering the gambling addiction.

Brian Funk (01:57:19.092)

Yeah, right.

Francis Preve (01:57:19.943)

because you buy a ton of credits and then you start giving them your credits and just to make changes to the thing, okay, I like it, but make it a little bit more this way. And you're getting the dopamine hits just like you would for making any kind of music. So that's how Facebook works, that's how social media works, that's how all of this internet stuff works is by giving you little hits of dopamine. And in this particular case, you have to pay for it.

So this AI songwriting tool is turning into a gambling addict.

Brian Funk (01:57:55.54)

Hmm. Yeah. Maybe the next one will be the one that'll be the jackpot. That's funny. I'll show you this thing I got recently. Kind of the opposite direction. It's a, it's the zoom R four. It's a four track. It's, it's a digital four track, little bigger than your phone. It's only thicker, you know, got built in mics, got.

Francis Preve (01:58:00.391)

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Francis Preve (01:58:10.247)

I love it. What is it? It's a zoom...fortress?

Francis Preve (01:58:21.031)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (01:58:25.459)

mic inputs, and it even has effects, like amp modeling. So you can just plug your guitar in. It's the fastest thing I've ever used as far as getting ideas down. I don't know if you can tell, I got a drum set behind me and the guitar amps. It's just pointed at the drums. Move it over here, plug your guitar in.

Francis Preve (01:58:50.151)

Cause it's got the microphones, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:58:51.635)

It's the simplicity of it though. Like you're saying things get so complicated and it's making me, and I love like the, I love all the new features in Live 12. I'm enjoying the hell out of it, but there's this other side of me that's just like, just record, just go as fast as I can do it. And,

Francis Preve (01:59:11.558)

What's the sampling rate? I'm giving you a hard time. It's probably really high, like 96k in Zoom, or 192.

Brian Funk (01:59:19.795)

It's, I don't know if it is that high, but it does have the 32 bit float, which, and they, the way they described is like, you can't overload it and you kind of can't, it just sort of adjusts. You got all that head room. So like, you're not going to really clip, you know, it's great. It's fun. It.

Francis Preve (01:59:32.87)

It gives you a ton of dynamic range. That's my one sentence. Yeah.

Francis Preve (01:59:42.822)

I'm really happy that you're... You're a little too young to have had the four track experience, right? You did? You had the cassette four track experience? Porta Studio thing? Okay. Okay. Yeah! Well, you're reliving it! It's great!

Brian Funk (01:59:50.447)

no, I did, yeah. I had the PORS Studio, yeah, Taskam. Yeah, and those are fun too.

Brian Funk (02:00:04.047)

Yeah, it's a lot like that with just that having the microphone in there. So I don't even have to plug in the mic and it's as fast as you can work. And sometimes that's just, there's too much overthinking for me without a doubt. Like just question everything. Maybe I should move that kick or maybe I should, no, I just played it that way. That's what I got. Next.

Francis Preve (02:00:24.326)

Yes.

Francis Preve (02:00:32.038)

Yep. Yep. Yep. There's...

There are all these delaying tactics is really what it comes down to is finding excuses not to finish your track. I mean, it's like, I know my computer has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tracks that never made it past 32 bars and I'll go back and I'll render them out. Like when I finish it, when I put a track aside, I used to have this habit of just rendering out like a 32 bar loop so that I had a thumbnail to look at.

rather than in like I had these little, yeah, these little dot wave thumbnails rather than having to open up the, and then you have like, cause you've got plugins that are no longer on your machine, et cetera. And I go back and listen to these and going, I, why didn't I finish this track? This track was so, had so much potential. So one of the things I advise my students to do, and that's one of the things that sort of has changed for me.

Brian Funk (02:01:09.487)

opening it, the session. Yeah.

Francis Preve (02:01:37.414)

is I do not render it until I'm about to cross the finish line. Because I realized that what I did to suck the life out of all of my tracks was render the two minute version that I did in the first week and a half and put it in my car or put it on my iPod and listen to it over and over and over in this vaguely egotistical way.

And by doing that, I made myself sick of my own material. So my new rule, which is kind of adjacent to what you're talking about with the four track, is I don't, I like, if I'm not working on the track, I'm not listening to the track. So eventually, you know, when we get to the mixing and mastering stage, it's like, okay, well.

have to listen.

Brian Funk (02:02:39.791)

Yeah, you've told me this before and I think about you a lot. I don't remember if it was a podcast or just conversation, but I think about you sometimes when I do this because, because, you have a point. Sometimes you just get enough of a kick out of the track or dopamine, maybe we'll say to not really need to cross the finish line. And.

Francis Preve (02:02:42.054)

Did I? Did I do that in an earlier podcast? My light is, the light is dying.

Francis Preve (02:02:53.126)

Francis Preve (02:03:03.046)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (02:03:08.655)

The other issue is sometimes you just fall in love with the incomplete demo. You get that demo -itis and you can never quite match it. Even if it is better, you still kind of miss.

Francis Preve (02:03:14.979)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. That's actually, yeah, that's absolutely, because we have fantastic recording studios with like SSLs and Neves and all that at school. And one time I was like, I was determined to make this into a full blown track with like a big recording studio. And it just like completely sucked the life out of the music I was trying to make. So that was, yeah.

Brian Funk (02:03:42.415)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (02:03:48.899)

That's one of the things is don't... Sometimes, you know, I love so much lo -fi that I should go a little bit easier on myself, because I listen to so much of this sort of like, these basement recordings that aren't particularly, that are like your four track recordings you were talking about. I listen to so much of that music that I really shouldn't, I should just start, you know, thinking about my own music that way. I haven't made music in years unless a client asks me to.

I have a side project that I'm not talking about because something might lure me into finishing tracks. But I don't want to say anything. I don't want to say anything and then suck the life out of it or over promise and under deliver or anything like that. But there is a project that I'm working on that's that's kind of like making me feel good about making music again. Most of the time it's just presets and teaching.

Brian Funk (02:04:25.295)

Nice.

Brian Funk (02:04:39.951)

That's cool.

You're definitely a master of keeping your NDAs. You never give away too much information. Yeah. But sometimes too with that, you know, in this regard, if it's like a musical thing, sometimes again, if you just talk about it, you sort of get the satisfaction and the, yeah, you don't have to finish it. Yeah.

Francis Preve (02:04:51.139)

Yeah, snitches get stitches.

Francis Preve (02:05:04.994)

Mm -hmm. Then you suck the life out of it again. Don't talk about things as if they're done until they're done. Yep. That was, that with this, you know, with the serum pack, with serum pack that it was, I couldn't tell it, you know, it's like, I'm like making serum do something completely different and totally unique and very innovative. And I'm the only person who can hear it because,

I don't, there's always, like whenever I put, there was one really crazy case where a sound pack vendor, not maker, but vendor, accused, they said, you stole all these presets and used them in this undisclosed, I won't tell you the name of the company. You stole all these presets. And I was like,

These presets are from a pack that is time stamped on that company's website as being at least a year before your pack. So your person took my pack and made like maybe one or two changes and then told you it was original. And that happens. That happens a lot. And yeah, presets are a dirty business.

Brian Funk (02:06:27.951)

dirty.

Francis Preve (02:06:32.897)

There's something really weird about it. But people will take your work. It's like that meme where it's like, I made this. And then the next dig figure is like, I made this. So that is, it's a real thing. So I know, it makes me sad, but you know, it's like, I'm happy with my life. I think that's probably like the only thing you can really use.

Brian Funk (02:06:32.943)

Mmm.

Brian Funk (02:06:46.479)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (02:06:54.607)

Yeah.

Yeah, even if that happens though, I guess in the long race, you know, you're just, you'll outrun them, you know, you're just doing it and you're showing up all the time coming back.

That is a shame though. Not right.

Francis Preve (02:07:15.519)

Yeah, it's weird. It does happen. So with this physical modeling thing, if you ever see another serum physical modeling pack, it is absolutely going to be either inspired by or just mine with a few minor changes. So, because the serum's been out for 10 years and it's taken me two years of that 10 years just to make this. So, I'm not trying to...

Brian Funk (02:07:19.215)

there.

Brian Funk (02:07:32.239)

Yeah.

Francis Preve (02:07:44.991)

drag too much, but it's like no one else has done it in the past eight years. So I'm excited about it. I'm excited for people to buy it, support it, experiment with it. It's like, I really like doing, like we were talking about earlier, I really like doing things for a large customer base and hopefully inspiring people.

Brian Funk (02:08:09.423)

Yeah. Well, you're doing plenty of that, man. I mean, you're, like I said, the man in the synth. It's really cool. It's fun to know that, you know, I'm hearing like your fingerprint and a lot of these things when I play around with it. And yeah, yeah, it's cool though. I mean, you've accumulated the knowledge and the skill and...

Francis Preve (02:08:16.639)

Thanks, Brian.

Francis Preve (02:08:27.775)

That's weird.

Brian Funk (02:08:36.047)

You know, rightfully so. Who better to have behind these patches and behind the wheels here than you? That's why, like you said, repeat customers, people calling you, because they know how to get it done.

Francis Preve (02:08:48.606)

Yeah, that's the other thing. Be easy to work with, be really organized and hit the deadline. That's really kind of what you have to do. Like if you do that and you're good, you're fine. So it's like, there's that. Anyway, the light is fading and Austin is starting. Yeah, it's been this. Yeah, there's that. Yeah, I could like turn on this anyway. It's a little too intense. So.

Brian Funk (02:08:57.135)

Mm -hmm.

Brian Funk (02:09:02.671)

I see you got these cool LEDs going on. Looks nice.

Brian Funk (02:09:09.647)

Well, we'll wrap it up. I'm going to put links to everything. So this will all be in the show notes. Check out the pack, your blog too, and you know, simple sound. There's so much to investigate. So there'll be pretty robust show notes. And thank you for also supplying me with a lot of that stuff. Is there any place you want to tell people that might not go to these links? You want to send them their way?

Francis Preve (02:09:16.573)

Thank you.

Francis Preve (02:09:36.669)

What do you, any place you wanna like.

Brian Funk (02:09:38.255)

Any listener for the listeners that might not see him.

Francis Preve (02:09:41.853)

go to the Serum Pack store. That's like, just go to the xforecords .com Serum Pack store. And that like, it's like right there, it should be prominently featured. Like it's like, they rotate the featured packs, but like they're whatever the newest ones are that they, you know, they rotate them around. And like, it's like xforecords .com, which is the purveyor of Serum.

Brian Funk (02:09:43.151)

Yeah, we're...

Francis Preve (02:10:09.661)

And then at the top of the menu bar, it says, preset packs. And you just click on that. And it's only 29 bucks. I didn't want to, like, I, you know, I see a lot of people do packs that are like 79 or 89 or this or that. And I'm like, I really, I'd much rather make more people happy and have them tell their friends to go buy it. I want to make it, I want to keep the price low enough that people feel guilty if they pirate it. So that's like, so you.

Brian Funk (02:10:37.967)

Nice, yeah, that's fair. And I mean, it expands the whole possibility of that instrument. So it's a cool thing, man. Very awesome. Thanks for sharing all that. And thanks for all your hard work and inspiration. I always love seeing what you do. Catching up with you. Cool.

Francis Preve (02:10:54.909)

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to talk about it. Yeah, this is cool. I'll see you in another three years.

Brian Funk (02:11:02.671)

Hopefully not that long. Take care.

podcastBrian FunkFrancis preve, music production podcast