{"id":5998,"date":"2019-03-11T11:45:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T15:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/?p=5998"},"modified":"2019-08-13T15:41:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T19:41:41","slug":"recreating-toto-africa-arturia-pigments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/recreating-toto-africa-arturia-pigments\/","title":{"rendered":"Recreating Toto&#8217;s &#8220;Africa&#8221; with Arturia&#8217;s Pigments"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Look, up in the sky! It\u2019s a trumpet! It\u2019s a saw wave! No, it\u2019s the FM synth pad from Toto\u2019s &#8220;Africa!&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p>I tasked myself to recreate this iconic sound with nothing but <a href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/plugins\/38677978-pigments-vst-au-by-arturia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arturia&#8217;s Pigments,<\/a> and while this wasn\u2019t easy, it was surely the most fun I\u2019ve had designing synth patches in quite a while. Let\u2019s take a look at how we constructed the pad, step-by-step:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"How to Recreate Toto&#039;s &quot;Africa&quot; Pad Synth | Arturia Pigments\" width=\"370\" height=\"208\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F-13tHBnQNQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Two instances of Pigments&#8217; wavetable engine are used here, with simple sine waves serving as FM carriers modulated by saw waves. Phase distortion and unison detuning add some 80s-inspired flavor to this patch, while a short attack and long sustain in the ADSR envelope achieve the brassy articulation. We\u2019ll turn to the filter cutoff to add some pluck and wow, while the same envelope will also modulate the amount of FM working on the principal oscillators. For a nice touch, I\u2019ve added a little movement using the &#8220;Function&#8221; modulator. Some chorus, overdrive, and compression put a nice little bow on this patch.<\/p>\n<p>PS: Weezer and Weird Al &#8211; if you\u2019re reading this and need synth programming for your next <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Toto cover,<\/a> call me.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/plugins\/38677978-pigments-vst-au-by-arturia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Interested in giving Pigments a try?\u00a0Rent-to-Own the powerful synth on Splice for $9.99\/mo.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s take a look at how to recreate the iconic FM synth pad heard in Toto&#8217;s \u201cAfrica\u201d with Arturia\u2019s Pigments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":6001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1696,1702,1704,1659],"tags":[1677,1678,333,1684,1473,666],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Recreating Toto&#039;s &quot;Africa&quot; with Arturia&#039;s Pigments - Blog | Splice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I tasked myself to recreate the iconic synth pad in Toto&#039;s &quot;Africa&quot; with nothing but Arturia&#039;s Pigments, and while this wasn\u2019t easy, it was surely the most fun I\u2019ve had designing synth patches in quite a while. Let\u2019s take a look at how we constructed the pad, step-by-step.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/splice.com\/blog\/recreating-toto-africa-arturia-pigments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recreating Toto&#039;s &quot;Africa&quot; with Arturia&#039;s Pigments - Blog | Splice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I tasked myself to recreate the iconic synth pad in Toto&#039;s &quot;Africa&quot; with nothing but Arturia&#039;s Pigments, and while this wasn\u2019t easy, it was surely the most fun I\u2019ve had designing synth patches in quite a while. 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