Beautiful Dynamic Mallet/Chord Design [Odesza]

[wildcat]

I'm trying to get figure out what Odesza is doing with their chords in this song - It sounds like it's a simple mallet hit.. with some secret sauce?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QaKs09tSBU

My theory is their using a combination of effectrix and beat repeat. It sounds gorgeous.
What do you guys think?

[Arktopolis]

You probably mean the glitchy chords in the intro? I agree, sounds just beautiful. If I'd have to guess, I'd say that the chords and other noises from 0:15 on are samples of a smallish stringed instrument, like a ukulele. The way the phrase ends reminds me of a hammer-on-pull-off combo.

[wildcat]

Yup - exactly that sound.

That's interesting, i might look into playing with Ableton's tension synth some more. (I did a search on hammer on/off)

You hear where there might be some beat-repeat and reverse effects in there too?

[hotchyy]

Could maybe get a similar effect using some strings and loading them into Mangle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X5iatUv4DU

[Arktopolis]

Yeah with the hammer-on-pull-off thing I was referring to the last little ornament that appears for example at 0:39. Hard to say what kind of processing is used for the intro, sounds like it could just be manually chopped. There could be some reverse sample in those rhythmic parts, but again that's just guessing. Anyway, from the part starting at 1:06 it's pretty obvious that some sort of glitch plugin is used. I've never used Ableton, though, so can't think of any obvious ways how it might have been done.

[wildcat]

Definitely want to play around more with glitch plugins. Infinite possibilities. Thanks.

[Slizz]

tons of processing. Sounds like a plucky gut string (as opposed to steel) type instrument, or possibly a xylophone. Bounced to audio then processed to all hell.

EDIT: whatever your chords are, have each note start slightly off beat from the other notes so you get that arpeggio/human sounding pluck.