Hey slutz. Me and a guitarist friend are doing an industrial rock project and we're trying to get that NIN type super fuzzy guitar sound. I know Trent used a lot of Turbosynth processing on fuzzed guitar, and I was wondering if there are any good (ITB) alternatives besides Reaktor (which I own, but find too deep and distracting to actually make music)? My Fuzz Factory can get me close to that sound, but I wanna be able to nail it enough to cover "We're in this together" at some point. If I must learn Reaktor, could someone point me to some good tutorials? NI's manual sucks. Also, OTB solutions are viable too. Assume money is no object, but cheap IS good.

My other question is: If I could find a copy of turbosynth, is there a way to get it to run in OSX, or would I need to dig up a copy of OS9? I really don't wanna have to load an old OS if I don't have to, but I will.

Thanks in advance.

Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails) guitar rig | Guitar FX Depot

I've seen that. I'm looking for a turbosynth alternative, not Robin Fink's live rig. I wanna apply this to other stuff besides guitar. Thanks anyway though.

i'm under the impression audio mulch is similar to turbosynth, though i havent used either personally.

remember to di guitars for nin sound.

Turbosynth does not work in OSX.

If you want the type of distortion used in "Mr Selfdestruct" or the verse gtr in "Wish" the turbosynth is the way to go.

Turbosynth works best in electronic productions. You won't have much use of it in a "live band"-type of sound. An alternative (PC/OSX) would be Alchemy - Additive Synth, VA, Granular, Sampler - VSTi Instrument, Audio Units plugin It won't get you that "Lo-fi" sound though.

Yeah I know turbosynth is more of a studio thing. That gritty lofi sound is exactly what I'm after.

Thanks for the replies, guys. This is the reason I post here first.

interesting alternative if it works at all -

Screenshots and audio demo of Digidesign Turbosynth running in the Sheepshaver mac emulator for pc under XPSP3.



also you could consider Pluggo as some kind of alternative...or Max/Msp

I just stumbled upon Sheepshaver and it seems to work. Now where the hell do I find a copy of a dead, unsupported program? Does Digi still sell it? I'm pretty sure they don't.

Try contacting Digi then. i suppose they can find some solution for legacy programs

KVR: Forum Archive - Turbosynth VST equivalent? | KVRFA1

in the interviews i've read over the years, turbosynth was used more on synthetic elements like the lead sound at the end of terrible lie, & synth sounds distorted to sound like guitar on broken, not so much on actual guitar.

I have copies of OS9 TurboSynth, Opcode and others available 4 you ...

PM me...

donsonic

I heard that lofi vocally ppgish type sound was the 'Woodblock' sample in Emu samplers processed through turbosynth. I think it was used a couple other times on that album too.

The only thing I can't figure out is why the hell does Turbosynth sound so gritty, warm and full of character when most of todays plugins don't sound anywhere near as warm or organic.

It sounds that way due to digi 442 hardware being 16 bits and crunchy. Probably closer to 13-14 bits real-world. The output from Turbo goes directly through the hardware interface D to A. Many, or even most softs today go to your computer audio out without additional DSP. Going through the dedicated DSP does make a difference!

I've read otherwise. Turbosynth was key to that thick, inhuman guitar sound.

Here's one mention...

The NIN Hotline interviews Keith Hillebrandt, engineer and remixer for Nine Inch Nails

Which means he still doesn't get that lo-fi sound. Unless he's got the hardware, which I doubt.

I might be willing to sell mine though. Give me an offer.

I have a feeling this simple quest for a piece of dead software is gonna turn into a money pit. Dammit...

I just hate all these crystal clear hifi guitar sounds. I thought f***ing them up would be easy - and cheap.

I'm not talking about PHM era NIN, either. I'm more into TDS and The Fragile. It's all awesome though.

I need more coffee.

i cant believe nobodys made a modern duplicate of this thing yet. people have been lusting after it since it was mentioned in early PHM interviews. the NIN fan demographic alone would pay for development.

Now I was a bit younger then, but did no other bands use Turbosynth when it was out. I never hear any mention of anyone else using it. It's like only nin used it and no one else wanted to, I don't get it.

It still runs on my old OS 9.2.2 Mac.

I think it is great for creating wavetables for a sampler - and yes, the waveshaper does have "that sound."


cheers,
Ian

I'm not sure AudioMulch qualifies as a TurboSynth replacement, but it was used on NIN's "The Fragile" album.

AudioMulch's Shaper contraption is a waveshaper where you can vary the type of distortion by controlling each distortion harmonic separately. You can definitely get some very messed up distortion with it.

Now that you guys mention it, I DON'T actually recall reading about anyone else but NIN using Turbosynth.

I've been told I would need an old PT NuBus rig to run it, which I don't have. I could get one, but don't want to have a separate rig just for Turbosynth. I'm digging into Reaktor right now and getting some cool results, but not really what I'm after. Also, working with Reaktor feels more like WORK than making music. It's powerful, but really unintuitive...and the manual sucks.

I'm surprised Digi hasn't rereleased this in some form.

Oh well, gonna check out AudioMulch now...

Thanks for the help guys.

I understand you're looking for the processing of what turbo synth does but frankly for that Broken of Downward Spiral gtr sound the best place to start is with the zoom 9030.

It was an early amp simulator/processor, like a predecessor to the pod. TR was very vocal about using it and recording the gtrs direct. They didn't quite have the amp simulation math worked out back then so what you got instead was this digital big fuzzy gtr sound. Those albums are great examples of the 9030

Zoom 9030, huh? I'll have to look into that. I haven't had my FX box fix in a while...

Look, what happens if you go buying this gear and running old operating systems and you still can't get 'that' sound on those NIN recordings? Or it just isn't sounding the same (you know, mixing stage, mastering stage) in the end. I read your list of tools and my guess is that you can emulate that sound if you use your ears and consistently A/B the sound you are looking for. Reaktor is a great tool, but it is cumbersome to learn. Audio Mulch is a bit easier, but no matter what you use, or buy, you are still going to have to use your ears to make this work.

computer recording was still fairly limited, cumbersome & expensive at the time. from my memory it was the kind of thing many drooled over & few could afford to get into. NIN was in the right place at the right time to get their hands on the new "high end" toys at the time they came out. most "experimental" acts of the day were about making weird sounds with more rudimentary & accessible tools.

At some point, wasn't a Digitech 2120 their main guitar processor?

Everyone used it back in the early- mid 90s.

I was pretty curious and tried Turbosynth in Basilisk and Sheepshaver but I could never get all the pops and clicks ironed out. Rendering worked ok though. I tried all of the processors and there really is some unique stuff in there. If there is anything in there I would want as a VST it would be the frequency modulation of one input by another, I have a crude version of that knocked up in Reaktor but the one in TS is much better, probably because it's not exactly realtime.

Autechre used it, they probably still do.

I used it on a lot of albums back in the industrial days. It would be great if an updated version was knocked together.

It was mine... and I loved it, but it wasn't what you'd call "lo-fi."

I won't pretend to know what a good emulator for Turbosynth is, but I do loves me some gritty guitar. I personally think you probably won't do much better than the Fuzz Factory (I just got one myself) but I'll share some of my favorite guitar destroyers. NIN did a lot of stuff with Adrian Belew and he uses Foxx Fuzzes and recently the Peppermint Fuzz.

I can't recommend the Kemper Profiling Amp enough. As well as being able to shape-shift into any guitar amp or similar device, it comes with a really good complement of effects and the fuzzes are beautiful and the waveshapers and bit reducers are fantastic. The filters come from the man responsible for The Virus, so you already know their pedigree. All effects can go before or after the amp model, so if you want gnarly, a fuzz and/or filter post cab is going to blow your mind.

It doesn't do everything though... so I complement it with an HD500 and it's pretty damn good itself. Excellent Korg x-911 guitar synth emulation. For extra bonus I use guitar amps as fuzz boxes before a Kemper Profile.

and ZVEX makes a lot of crazy stuff that probably should live in my studio... but there's only so much room...

But that's not ITB. For ITB you should definitively own anything from Ohmforce but especially Ohmicide:Melohman. Fab Filter's Saturn is outstanding too and though I'm currently pissed at them, I have to still recommend Audio Damage's Kominat Dva.