Isao Tomita-patches - Of interest for Arturia?

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#1

Hi there, this is my first post in this forum.
I basically have a simple question; would Arturia be interested in my recreation of Tomita-style sounds, and is there a way to get in touch with someone at Arturia to ask about this directly?

Just a few words about the background. For about two years now, I’ve been working on an adaptation of a symphony by B. Smetana in the typical style of Isao Tomita. During this time, and even for some years before that, I’ve been studying Tomita’s albums and and how he cooked up his arrangements. I’ve tried to understand his workflow and how he adapted classical pieces using the Moog Modular, Mellotron, and other instruments of that era.

Meanwhile, I’ve built up a neat collection of Tomita-ish patches that I use in my own adaptation.

I’m very aware that the Tomita era is several decades behind us now, and that perhaps only a tiny handful of synth nerds are still interested in this particular style of music and its sounds. Nevertheless, I wonder whether these patches might be of interest to Arturia - perhaps as an addition to a patch library or so, making them available to more people who might enjoy experimenting with this kind of sound, rather than just to the few nutty Tomita purists like me. :wink:

Any thoughts on this, or advice on whom I should contact at Arturia?
Ava

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#2

Hi @avafelsenstein. Welcome to the community.

Your Smetana video sound nice.

You can contact Arturia here:

I have no idea what Arturia will say.
But you have posted in Modular V2 forum, and i will assume they will not have new presets for Legacy products.

You can always publish your sounds your self. Just keep in mind the presets have to be your creations entirely.

If i personally was to buy presets that recreate an artist, then they shall be very close to the original. if they just is in the same ballpark, then they shall deliver something very good and make use of the instruments Macros and such.
I’m not an Arturia employee.

You are free to post your sounds for free in this community.

Keep making sounds.

#3

Hi there, good to hear from you,

I see you’re posting in the Modular V2 section - so if you wanted any patches considered by Arturia for potential use, they would have to be made on the latest versions of our software.

Curious to hear your work nonetheless!

#4

Hi @LBH - thanks for the feedback!

Yes, I also assume that there is probably not much interest in presets for the V2 version anymore, and that they should ideally be available in the .modux format by now.

The problem is, I actually have the V2 of the Moog Modular and all my presets are in that format. I read that there used to be a converter for V2 to V3, but that one is probably ancient by now as well, so it doesn’t seem to be available anymore, or at least not easy to find.

And honestly, I mainly make music and I’m not a professional when it comes to formats and conversion stuff. But if there is still a converter that actually works, I would definitely be willing to invest the time to convert my patch collection and make it available.

On the other hand, I assume that internally at Arturia they probably have their own, more modern tools to do this in a matter of seconds. Especially in times of AI and extremely fast computer systems, and with all the collective brainpower in Arturia’s software department, this shouldn’t really be a big deal, right?

For me, the more important question is whether anyone there still knows Tomita, his sound world, and would appreciate his typical sounds. After all, today’s sound landscape has moved very, very far away from the sound of the 70s. But I’m sure there are still people who enjoy a bit of nostalgia, and I would like to make exactly these sounds available to those people.

One reason why I don’t simply want to throw the sounds into a community and leave them there is that I fear they would hardly be noticed, even in a very active forum.

Arturia has an organically grown distribution structure, and I’m sure the marketing people know very well that if there is something worth spreading, they also know exactly which way is best to reach as many ears as possible.

And I’m not interested in having a preset pack heavily marketed in order to make money from it. The financial aspect doesn’t interest me at all. I simply want to help preserve the sounds of the Tomita era, and Arturia is, after all, the company that provides the instruments from that era and has successfully carried that electronic heritage forward with their modern successors to this day.

To put it this way, I would feel that my sound collection was in good hands in that environment.

Maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way, but that’s at least what I’m hoping for. If they aren’t interested, I can live with that too, but I think it’s worth giving it a try.

As for the similarity to the original sounds, since you mentioned that, I’m actually quite relaxed about it because I’m very picky about that myself, and I’ve invested an enormous amount of time and nerves into recreating the sounds.

As I mentioned above, I’m working on an adaptation in the Tomita style, and obviously I can’t exactly be throwing around Jarre sounds there. So yes, you can safely assume that this stuff sounds like Tomita.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that the raw preset alone is only one ingredient in the soup. Tomita layered a lot of sounds and used spring reverb and tape delay.

None of the presets is simply “plug & play” and, boom, you’ve got a new “Snowflakes Are Dancing”. But the sounds at least provide the necessary foundation.

#5

Hi @lily.arturia could you please have a quick look at my reply to LBH? I went into more detail there about the format issue and why I am offering the presets.

Maybe you could pass this suggestion on to your team? It would be good to know whether the converter I mentioned still exists, so that I could do the conversion myself, or whether my ancient preset data would be better left in the hands of the professionals. And of course, I’d also be interested to know how you see the question of distribution and promotion.

By the way, even though every synth after the Moog Modular has a different engine and the capabilities of the individual synths can vary considerably, there should theoretically still be ways to make even a very old preset available for completely different synths and different preset management systems.

Some kind of backward compatibility across generations of versions and across different types of instruments? I mean, a VCA is still a VCA today, even if it has more parameters than it did back then. A sawtooth will always be a sawtooth. The one used today may sound cleaner than the one in an emulation of a 1970s synth, but the result would at least be similar.

So in theory, even a Moog Modular preset could perhaps be transferred to something like Pure LoFi, with the obvious limitations imposed by the respective synth, of course. Does Arturia have some kind of “magic” tool for this? Sorry, naive outsider question… :upside_down_face:

And by the way, if anyone on the team would like to hear what the presets actually sound like in real-world use, there are plenty of examples on my channel https://www.youtube.com/@AvaFelsenstein/videos (more: Vysehrad The Moldau Sarka - some unlisted vids)

#6

Pictures at an Exhibition is one of my favourite albums…one of the first I ever listened to.

FWIW I think you have got very close to the sounds I am familiar with on that album.

I understand your desire for these to be “saved” and for others to enjoy them, but I dont think Arturia will be willing to do the heavy lifting regarding conversion to V3. If there is a tool - great. If not, you will have to decide if you have the time/energy to convert them. Be aware tough - there is no guarantee that V4 wont come :slight_smile:

Good luck.

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#7

Hi @avafelsenstein ,

I don’t know how the market is for Tomita presets or Tomita inspired preset. Perhaps Arturia know more about that.
Many like known Vintage sounds.
It’s a long time since i have listened to Tomita.

If you have all the Modular V2 presets in a single Bank, then i can convert them to Modular V3 presets for you, if you wish.

However - That will for example not add anything thought out to the Macro controls.

As @Funtmaster say, then a it can’t be ruled out a new V4 version is coming up, that can’t use the V3 presets.
Some upgrades can use older presets, but not if the instruments is being changed much. Preset converters can’t be expected.

Perhaps Analog Lab sounds is included in this:

Arturia sell presets from their website and from within some applications.

#8

Thanks for stepping in LBH. That’s great that you have a converter tool on hand. We won’t be doing any converting on our side.

In other news, as Funtmaster also found: I have made a post about another platform called Patchstorage, where we will be opening up spaces for Arturia users to share their presets, demos, playlists; so this might interest you:

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