KIZ – „Frieden“: Arpeggio w/ Massive X

1 Drunken Masters

For the second single release from the upcoming KIZ album „Görlitzer Park“, the Berlin Rap trio has teamed up with Producer duo Drunken Masters, as they often do. Drunken Masters have also produced very successfully with Kummer, Nura and Casper in recent years. The two are also on the road as an independent live act. 1

2 Lofi arp

After about a minute of gentle Synthwave intro, the synth arpeggio in „Frieden“creaks away. The melody meanders through the Verse in tight sixteenth notes at 72/144 bpm (depending on how you count it), always very close to nails on a blackboard. The arp is too much of a rush to sing along, but the sound is unique enough to make the track instantly recognizable. 1

3 Arp or MIDI?

At first I thought it would make my work easier with an arpeggiator on sixteenth notes. I quickly heard the chords, but the pattern of the melody was too bulky to be chopped up with a simple arp. That‘s why we had to rebuild it note by note, while developing an idea of how to get closer to the sound. 1

4 Hardware emulation

Massive X can be a little cumbersome to use, but in my opinion the VST sounds better and more organic than almost any other. Here, MX is supposed to emulate a hardware synth sound. Leave the wavetables in both oscillators as they are, just turn Osc 1 to a Square Wave and Osc 2 to a Saw Wave, and Osc 2 an octave (-12) lower. 1

5 Wavetable Mode

Turn the volume of Osc 2 to 54% so that it sits slightly better under the sound as a bass. Then, change Osc 1 in Wavetable Mode from Standard to Bend and below to Strong Neutral. Now turn the Bend parameter to 100 percent. As a result, Osc 1 creates a sound between PWM Square and Saw - and thus closer to the original. 1

7 Enveloper and mono

A few things still need to be adjusted for Envelope 1. Attack to 7.5 ms, Hold to 80 ms, Decay to 61 ms, Sustain to 0 and Release to 3 ms. This makes the sound quite similar. As is typical for Minimoog, the whole thing should also run in mono. To do this, go to the Voice section in the middle left of the plug-in and then to Mono at the bottom of the Polyphony section. 1

8 Feedback and Unison

You can get more width with a little Unison, a multiplication of the synth voices. You can also activate the mode in the Voice area. Turn Stereo Width to 10 percent and the large slider next to it to 6-7 percent. There is a little more presence and warm distortion with 7 percent Feedback at the top of the Amp section. 1

6 Filter and LFO

The sound seems quite „moogly“, so we continue with the corresponding Monark filter in the middle of Massive X. Set Freq (the Cutoff) to 14.5 kHz and turn up the Gain at the bottom left of the Filter. In addition, LFO 6 (Random LFO at 0.82 Hz) generates a very slight (0.06) vibrato on the Global Pitch at the top left - even more analog vibe. 1

9 RC-20 analog flavor

With XLN RC-20, we breathe analog instability into the Arp. Set Crunch in the Distort module and turn the control there to 65 percent. To do this, turn the Magnetic module all the way up, including the Rate control, and the Wow/ Flutter control to the center. The large Dry/Wet slider at the top right is set to 65 percent. ⸬