I used to avoid presets. But as I have gotten older I have really come to realize there is and should be a vast difference between song writing and sound design.
I’m with you there. Saw a vid ages ago with Herbie Hancock talking about there being a whole industry around sound design and making these presets, so why should he waste time designing sounds when he can pick a preset close to what he wants, tweak it a little to make it his and then spend majority of his time on actually making music 🙂
U got me with the 90s vibes here. I was born in 94 but my older siblings were no strangers to 90s night life. House, trance, techno, dnb, garage etc etc etc I was raised on these tunes with a mix of rockabilly, swing, jazz and rock n roll I just have such a appreciation for it all. But hearing some of these synths here brought back some memories and it really made me feel like I was a small kid again. I would love to see more of this sort of thing it was very interesting.
Awesome video. Glad you went into the 90s too, a lot of people just focus on the 80s when talking about iconic synth tracks. I had never heard of lately bass! It’s so common.
As a teenager, I got my hands on a second hand Oberheim ObXa. Without knowing what it was capable of I immediately recognized the Jump soundtrack patch. I thought it was very similar but I didn't know it was the actual instrument they composed it on!
i loved all these synths and sounds but I would have to say that the DX7, in all it's glorious 80's cheesiness, was probably the most prolific and "most heard" in the 80's not just in pop music, but even in commercials, TV, etc.
What a great way of looking back! Brings back a lot of memories! i never owned one of these either except the D50, which is still part of my setup. i did crave for a Wavestation back then but no money available. Today the Wavestate is a proud and often-used addition to my setup. One remark though: The beat-it base sound was created and used on the -NDE- New England Digital Synclavier, and is in fact a preset on Arturia's version of that instrument.
Great video!! Nothing wrong in presets at all. Sometimes it just needs the right sound with the right person and there's still so many unused presets on these old machines. I've just finished a 90s revival in my studio and bought some of the synths used back in the 90s. Roland JP8080, Supernova 2, Yamaha AN1X, Nova Desktop, AKAI S2000, Novation DrumStation, TD3 (303 Clone), MS-1 (SH101 clone).
All great Synth of this Time but the Fairlight impressed me by the authentic Sound. Korg M1 and DX7 are very good emulation. So the Sound of the 80th 🤘
I agree. So big and hmm one of the best melodies, chords of that times. But yeah, Synaestheasia, Out of The Blue, Carte Blanche, Chicane - Saltwater, or Oh yeah, even now I love the melody - Three Drives - Greece 2000, werent definitely worse xD
After all in effect all acoustic instruments are presets in a sense so why should a synth be any different? Except of course the presets alone give it vastly more flexibility than the former. Much as I love the idea of inventing your own unique sounds it can be refreshing & even fun to turn on something simple like a Yamaha FB01 & go through its presets. Indeed the difficulty of programming FM synths is precisely why we hear so many DX7 presets like for example that wobbly bass on Berlin's Top Gun theme.
A synth that has good presets and a good UI can encourage the user to learn (some of) it's capabilities faster than just trial-and-error (in the case of no presets at all) or reading the manual front-to-back. But.... .....the entire point _synthesis_ was invented = to author timbre. So if you never program your synth, you're just being "a keyboard player". And there is nothing wrong with that, either. Not everyone is a geek for programming, and it's ok to just like the sound of a synthesizer and mess around on it once in a while. Nobody is keeping score :) But the words mean what they mean for good reasons, too. Cheers
I already added this in the description weeks ago but I'll pin it here as people are still commenting on this: The 'Beat It' intro sound is a Synclavier and not a CMI as I mentioned in the video. Actually I'm more and more convinced it was sampled from the Synclavier demo by Michael Jackson's producer... So it might have been both ;) A CMI sampling a Synclavier ! (But this is speculation) To add to the confusion Arturia added this as a preset to their CMI vsti which led to this mistake in the first place. To add some more to the confusion, check this out: th-cam.com/video/J4yKD5fvRbQ/w-d-xo.html . A Fairlight CMI 'Michael Jackson Tour' disk being played. Anyone knows some more about this ?
Great video as always! But one thing - Michael Jackson‘s Beat It intro came from the Synclavier II. It actually was the original demo sequence of it.Maybe that sound was also avail able on a CMI, but it definitely was a Synclavier II originally.
lost hundrets of hours with driving thru presets :) I like them. One of the this special sounds from the Korg M1 back then and even now sometimes ist that Piano.
Nice video, I really enjoyed it. A small detail.. Trevor Horn has said in an interview, that it was actually Alan White who performed the orchestra stabs on "owner of a lonely heart"
wow superstring. that wasn't as well known as all those other tracks. Lately bass was also found on the DX100 and possibly the DX27, named Solid Bass. Possibly PB01 but I have not used my DX100 for ages.
Great video! Also, D50 is famous for being used in the theme for Star Trek the Next Generation. Glass Voices preset. For that matter, D50 is used all over the early seasons.
That's a Fairlight sound? Did Tears for Fears also program the backbeat there, or was it a LinnDrum? I know one is on the *Songs from the Big Chair* album.
@@ericbgordon1575 yep, quite a popular one, some other famous songs that used it are Domino Dancing by Pet Shop Boys and Heart and Soul by T'Pau. As far as the drums, to my knowledge it was an E-mu Drumulator as shown in this video: th-cam.com/video/QngDPSLL95s/w-d-xo.html
@@ericbgordon1575 Not neccessarily. Depends what you are after, really. I prefer the sound ot the Linndrum exactly because it is less harsh and less rock'n'roll sounding. But the likes of Depeche Mode and a lot of hip-hop acts and industrial/EBM acts surely made use of the harder punch of the Drumulator.
love your instructional videos, but this one is really cool as well! I was mostly surprised with how similar the M1 Organ 2 songs sound without accompanying music
This retrospective is made complete by the inclusion of Enya when you mention the D50. I will say one thing here which I have said it in the Facebook group dubbed Synthesizer Freaks. My first analog polyphonic synthesizer was a JX8P that I borrowed (and later indirectly inherited) from a good friend. Not only did I learn the ins and outs of analog synthesis with that model, but I also learned how to respect the way that presets can be just as valuable as manual mode and devising your own sounds.
Pizzagogo is famous from two places in general. From that Enya track, and from its appearance as "Pizza" in the Amiga Soundtracker, being one of the most overused sounds in various demo music songs made using that program. Believe me, that one and "Shamus" (based upon D-50's "Shamus Theme") were just about everywhere in the late 80s/early 90s Amiga demo scene.
I have a jv1010 and alpha juno 1 (little bros). Love the pizz sounds in the jv1010. And usually end up tweaking sounds on the alpha juno to make them sound like the what the patch cuz damn, what a fun sound!
Luis Alberto Spinetta during 1984, to 1993, His rig was mostly a oberheim OBX,and a yamaha dx7. which is heard in prive and madre en años luz, and then in 1988. Juan carlos mono fontana incorporated the D50 on the rig. Which then in 1990, a new keyboardist, Claudio cardone, came in busting with a roland W30 Sampler,a korg t3 and a wavestation.
I would love to but afaik there's no vst version. This means I would have to get my hands on the real thing. Not impossible but I do not have unlimited room or budget for all these synths. Still will look into it :) thanks for the suggestion.
I do have an Ensoniq TS-10 (still use it as MIDI keyboard although I do intend to get myself a Keylab), but none of the sounds are really that famous, are they? Ensoniqs had more real sounding acoustic guitar than any workstation ever though. Actually, the only better acoustic guitar I have heard is Ample's guitar VSTs.
5:15 "Chime" actually used a DX100 with the VERY similar-sounding preset 'Solid Bass'. To my knowledge, Orbital never had a TX81Z, but they used a DX100 pretty heavily into the mid-90's. You can hear various DX100 presets all over the Green Album, and 'Solid Bass' also shows up pretty prominently in "Halcyon"/"Halcyon + On + On".
Thanks for a great review of classic synths!. I hope you get a chance to explore what the wave station really does. it can take a whole bunch of samples played one after another, and then have a wave sweep through it!. I hope that you'll cover what the Korg wave station really did, because it was a highly unusual synthesizer for the day. ...and how can you cover the dx7, without playing the famous FM synthesizer electric piano?! Anyways, thanks a lot for an awesome video!
Thanks :) The Wavestation is a synth I want to explore in a video of its own. Certainly very interesting. The DX7 piano is in part 2 of these series ;) -> th-cam.com/video/2Z6peX7fZ5c/w-d-xo.html
@@Estuera it was fantastic seeing you play The Wave station right out of the box, knowing nothing about it previously!. the sounds are so stunning, and highly unusual for the day, and even for now. The joystick is one of the underrated magnificent parts of the synthesizer!. it allows you to travel between four different zones and emphasize one or the other in real time. Thanks again for covering this awesome synth;your genuine excitement and hearing these sounds for the first time really reminds me of the day that I bought my wave station back in the 90s!.
I like the Roland JV1080, which roland released it as cloud version. its in so many atmospheric dnb tracks from GOod Looking Records. Ofc the common suspects from trane history :D i guess its alright to use presets, sometimes untweaked, but tweaked synths r just something, which sort of lets u keep the flow going, when wanting to get the ideas from the mind into the DAW. bcs building stuff from scratch is very time consuming, but in a separate session could be very fun \o/ i always wanted to be in the 90s, when all these wonderful Dance tracks came around, with its minimal sound, but yet still crazy ideas. haha one can see how muzikexpress series inspired u! Thats what u meant a while ago.
Presets seem to be a bit of a sin. With DX7 it's understandable, but listen to Sega MegaDrive music, like _Streets of Rage_ for what it can really do. I know it's not exactly the same, and nowadays you can buy several different platforms for the original chip that you can tweak. FM goes on to infinity. I personally like the electric piano presets of my Roland MKS-70, a rack version of Super JX. I have the controller but those pianos don't need anything. I've also used the string presets of Trinity forever, but I do tweak them a little. Solid background stuff, stacks like waffles.
On the CMI, you missed Sarrarr, a very breathy sound that was the wallpaper of the early 1980s - Art of Noise, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, etc. etc.
Love this vid. I always thought Smalltown Boy was done on a Juno 60 but I could be wrong. I didn’t know the Prodigy used the Juno for Charly but do know Liam Howlett was all over the W30
There's a good chance the Juno 60 was used for some of the other sounds in that song, especially the chords are a good candidate. I'm not sure in what other tracks Liam used the alpha juno 2 or if he even owned one himself but the 'what the...' patch is 100% what you can hear in 'Charly'. A funny story about that patch that I recently learned. It was programmed by Eric Persing (the man behind Spectrasonics who used to work at Roland at the time) . He says he created that patch as a bit of fun joke sound and it was only years later that he found out that it became one of the cornerstones of the (dutch) hardcore gabber sound in the early to mid 90's. Roland seems to be really good at accidentally spawning music genres :D
I don’t even play, but the information is so interesting and entertaining and historical and pop cultural, I had to subscribe. Great musicianship, too.👍🏼🌟👏💫
Actually, the Beat It opening gong sound used by Michael Jackson came from the Synclavier. You can hear the exact riff transposed slightly in another key on the original Synclavier demo disk.
The Fairlight CMI also has some great sounds, like the flute sound which can be found on Art of Noise - Moments in Love and Tears for Fears - Shout, The M1 has probably the most overused house piano in the history of house music.
Wasn't the M1 popularized in the rise of symphonic metal as well? Bands like After Forever, WT, or Nightwish using the Korg because of the amazing string orchestra sound.
Nice video, could you please mention the Rhodes Chroma, PPG, SEM, roland JX8p, Korg Poly 61, Prophet 5, Jupiter 8. Memorymoog, Minimoog, Arp Odissey, Microkorg, Korg Prophecy and the EPS 16+ famous presets (sample presets)
@@Estuera Thank you, I have seen it and it was really interesting. Just letting you know that there is this guy in Italy who owns a fortune in synths. th-cam.com/video/n5bNxgo8CWk/w-d-xo.html Among them he owns a An1x which I have tested a few years ago and if I remember well this keyboard has an excellent set of percussions. I look forward so see part 3 :) keep up the good work
@@Estuera it would! Also it's good for so many other sounds too. Okay it's a little thin these days. but layer it up over the top of something and you get that flavour. It's great for sync sounds and weird fx too. Also the tech trance classic "hoi polloi" among millions of others!
I used to avoid presets. But as I have gotten older I have really come to realize there is and should be a vast difference between song writing and sound design.
I’m with you there. Saw a vid ages ago with Herbie Hancock talking about there being a whole industry around sound design and making these presets, so why should he waste time designing sounds when he can pick a preset close to what he wants, tweak it a little to make it his and then spend majority of his time on actually making music 🙂
@@splootyvision but when you tweak it, you still aren't using a preset. It's ABSURD to start from scratch most of the time
Top sound designers in the world; “This is best”
Rando amateur; “This is better”😂😢
The JP8000 has such a thick, big sound. Incredible. It defined late 90’s trance.
'90s.
Indeed. I love the sound.
U got me with the 90s vibes here. I was born in 94 but my older siblings were no strangers to 90s night life. House, trance, techno, dnb, garage etc etc etc I was raised on these tunes with a mix of rockabilly, swing, jazz and rock n roll I just have such a appreciation for it all. But hearing some of these synths here brought back some memories and it really made me feel like I was a small kid again. I would love to see more of this sort of thing it was very interesting.
Awesome video. Glad you went into the 90s too, a lot of people just focus on the 80s when talking about iconic synth tracks. I had never heard of lately bass! It’s so common.
Korg M1 - M1HousePiano. I'm still using this preset nowadays...... 😎
There is no preset with this name in the M1.
PCM Piano
@@user-ik7dw4tj4t the name of the patch is Piano 16’
Same😎
@@cavenew4761 its in the soft synth version
As a teenager, I got my hands on a second hand Oberheim ObXa. Without knowing what it was capable of I immediately recognized the Jump soundtrack patch. I thought it was very similar but I didn't know it was the actual instrument they composed it on!
Nice. That is a truly classic analog synth. It was also used by Simple Minds on "Don't You Forget About Me." That sound is absolutely gorgeous.
OB-Xa also used in Rush "Subdivisions" , probably the same patch as in "Jump"
i loved all these synths and sounds but I would have to say that the DX7, in all it's glorious 80's cheesiness, was probably the most prolific and "most heard" in the 80's not just in pop music, but even in commercials, TV, etc.
That Tubular bell preset, sprinkled over so much 80s production music.
I simply love this sound. So epic!
As soon as I hear Organ 2 from the M1 all the flavored vodka and puke smell from the 90's discos bathrooms shows up in my head!
Very graphic but also very recognizable :D
damn....now everytime I wil listen to M1's organ I will think at this description!!
It was a good times...
I più gettonati erano vodka alla pesca e alla fragola. Madonna quante ne ho viste...
Sticky floors, smoke and loud synth music - OMG I long for those days LOL
OOF that Ferry Corsten and Cygnus X REALLY hit me right in the nostalgia
The reason so many people used the presets of the DX7 was because you needed a goddam degree in engineering to program it.
Exactly. God help you if you were brave enough to try and weren’t sure how to do it.
Engineers said it came back with all the presets intact and I'm not surprised.
God loves you
Just a myth. It's actually quite straightforward to program. Suits people who have learned how to keep perpetuating that lie for their own advantage.
Honestly, if you're used to today's electronics, the menu-diving isn't that horrible in comparison.
What a great way of looking back! Brings back a lot of memories! i never owned one of these either except the D50, which is still part of my setup. i did crave for a Wavestation back then but no money available. Today the Wavestate is a proud and often-used addition to my setup.
One remark though: The beat-it base sound was created and used on the -NDE- New England Digital Synclavier, and is in fact a preset on Arturia's version of that instrument.
Thanks.
And yes, the beat it remark has been addressed in the sticky comment.
This whole video is just an elaborate setup to rickroll us at 3:29 😅
Muhaha :D
LMAO!!!!!
Bravo! You win the comments section!
You missed the most overused DX7 patches of all time: electric pianos
Those are for a possible part 2 ;)
DX7 alone is enough for multiple videos probably.
@@Estuera especialy when you try all the patches I found here dxsysex.com/SYSEX_DX7/I/dx7-sysex-I.php
Rafael - the ep/tine DX7 patch is one of my favourites of all time :)
I reckoned that would be the first but no. And you can't have a video like this without Doogie Howser intro music ;)
@@Estuera i have heard that the synth gong sound on Beat it was a preset on the Synclavier synthesizer
I own some of the synths you have shown and I have to say you did a pretty good job at recreating the sounds!
One of the best TH-cam channels on Earth. Thank you!
Thanks 🤩
YAMAHA DX7 MKI BASS 1 was used on loads of 80's records most notably on Aha's Take on Me. Great video tnx 👍🎹
Great video!! Nothing wrong in presets at all. Sometimes it just needs the right sound with the right person and there's still so many unused presets on these old machines.
I've just finished a 90s revival in my studio and bought some of the synths used back in the 90s.
Roland JP8080, Supernova 2, Yamaha AN1X, Nova Desktop, AKAI S2000, Novation DrumStation, TD3 (303 Clone), MS-1 (SH101 clone).
All great Synth of this Time but the Fairlight impressed me by the authentic Sound.
Korg M1 and DX7 are very good emulation.
So the Sound of the 80th 🤘
Cygnus X - superstring still gives me goosebumps today!! What a sound!
I agree. So big and hmm one of the best melodies, chords of that times. But yeah, Synaestheasia, Out of The Blue, Carte Blanche, Chicane - Saltwater, or Oh yeah, even now I love the melody - Three Drives - Greece 2000, werent definitely worse xD
I love videos about famous synths and presets, Jonas, thanks for the documentary. :)
After all in effect all acoustic instruments are presets in a sense so why should a synth be any different? Except of course the presets alone give it vastly more flexibility than the former. Much as I love the idea of inventing your own unique sounds it can be refreshing & even fun to turn on something simple like a Yamaha FB01 & go through its presets. Indeed the difficulty of programming FM synths is precisely why we hear so many DX7 presets like for example that wobbly bass on Berlin's Top Gun theme.
unless you play an out of tune gutar.Tuned guitars are for n00bz
A synth that has good presets and a good UI can encourage the user to learn (some of) it's capabilities faster than just trial-and-error (in the case of no presets at all) or reading the manual front-to-back.
But....
.....the entire point _synthesis_ was invented = to author timbre.
So if you never program your synth, you're just being "a keyboard player".
And there is nothing wrong with that, either.
Not everyone is a geek for programming, and it's ok to just like the sound of a synthesizer and mess around on it once in a while. Nobody is keeping score :)
But the words mean what they mean for good reasons, too.
Cheers
i just love these 80s and 90s synths.
I myself am a lot just goofing around playing with presets and so oin
So hard to pick one, but Superstring by Cygnus X is one of my all time fav. Trance tracks.
Cool video. Let's watch part 2
rIght back at sensation first..
A great summary of equally great synth presets
I already added this in the description weeks ago but I'll pin it here as people are still commenting on this: The 'Beat It' intro sound is a Synclavier and not a CMI as I mentioned in the video.
Actually I'm more and more convinced it was sampled from the Synclavier demo by Michael Jackson's producer... So it might have been both ;) A CMI sampling a Synclavier ! (But this is speculation)
To add to the confusion Arturia added this as a preset to their CMI vsti which led to this mistake in the first place.
To add some more to the confusion, check this out: th-cam.com/video/J4yKD5fvRbQ/w-d-xo.html . A Fairlight CMI 'Michael Jackson Tour' disk being played. Anyone knows some more about this ?
So true ! It is even said to be in the demo tape of the Synclavier
I was just about to add this comment after re checking it, yes 100% Synclavier 👍👍
You'd figure they'd add the preset to their Synclavier VST, as it's also part of their collection.
@@pthomas36 Indeed.
it s even more than a preset as said above , it s a demo. of the synclavier!!!
Thanks for the video. Found some of the names of the patches I was looking for
The patch of Take my breath Away (Berlin) is Fretless 1, actually (Yamaha Bank 3)
That was amazing... MORE OF THESE PLEASE!!!!
Great video as always!
But one thing - Michael Jackson‘s Beat It intro came from the Synclavier II. It actually was the original demo sequence of it.Maybe that sound was also avail able on a CMI, but it definitely was a Synclavier II originally.
Thats correct. See the sticky comment 😉
@@Estuera There we go! 👍😎
That Roland JV Pizzicato is one of the most awesome sounds in existence. I don't care if it has been beaten to death.
So interesting to see how these were done! Thank you.
Great overview of some classic synths and sounds👍Thumbs up👍
10:41 superstring was one of my fav tunes
The Dance2Trance flute synth and the hardcore hoover synth - rule. :D
I think the DX7 is my fav
lost hundrets of hours with driving thru presets :) I like them. One of the this special sounds from the Korg M1 back then and even now sometimes ist that Piano.
The Roland alpha Juno 2 patch was used also by The Bloody Beetroot in the track Warp 😉
Nice video, I really enjoyed it. A small detail.. Trevor Horn has said in an interview, that it was actually Alan White who performed the orchestra stabs on "owner of a lonely heart"
Yes, it has been mentioned before. Got my time line confused a bit there. Geoff Downes was one of the early Fairlight CMI users though.
wow superstring. that wasn't as well known as all those other tracks. Lately bass was also found on the DX100 and possibly the DX27, named Solid Bass. Possibly PB01 but I have not used my DX100 for ages.
Wow. Thank you for the educational examples.
Great video! Also, D50 is famous for being used in the theme for Star Trek the Next Generation. Glass Voices preset. For that matter, D50 is used all over the early seasons.
I'm a big tng fan so I might actually use this for part 2. Great tip 👍
In the hands of the most frequent score composer in the franchise, Dennis McCarthy?
Still use the M1 in almost all my projects! I love the Piano Mix 2 + M1 House split fo amazing bright house pianos
Speaking of the Fairlight, the breathy choir sound on Tears For Fears' song Shout is the ARR 1 preset from the CMI!
That's a Fairlight sound? Did Tears for Fears also program the backbeat there, or was it a LinnDrum? I know one is on the *Songs from the Big Chair* album.
@@ericbgordon1575 yep, quite a popular one, some other famous songs that used it are Domino Dancing by Pet Shop Boys and Heart and Soul by T'Pau. As far as the drums, to my knowledge it was an E-mu Drumulator as shown in this video:
th-cam.com/video/QngDPSLL95s/w-d-xo.html
Definitely a Drumulator. A LinnDrum wasn't able to sound quite as harsh.
That definitely an endorsement of E-Mu and an indictment of Linn, @@HongroeBand.
@@ericbgordon1575 Not neccessarily. Depends what you are after, really. I prefer the sound ot the Linndrum exactly because it is less harsh and less rock'n'roll sounding. But the likes of Depeche Mode and a lot of hip-hop acts and industrial/EBM acts surely made use of the harder punch of the Drumulator.
Great video takes me back to my youth and making classic dance in the 90s :-)
Bedankt voor her delen van je geweldige kennis!
That hoover sounds nice and i remember all the others you played.
Loved watching.
Thanks. Interesing.
Good stuff amazing what theses machines can do
love your instructional videos, but this one is really cool as well! I was mostly surprised with how similar the M1 Organ 2 songs sound without accompanying music
just to name a few ...
universe - korg m1
digital native dance - roland d50
tubular bells - yamaha dx7
This is great man thank you!
This retrospective is made complete by the inclusion of Enya when you mention the D50.
I will say one thing here which I have said it in the Facebook group dubbed Synthesizer Freaks. My first analog polyphonic synthesizer was a JX8P that I borrowed (and later indirectly inherited) from a good friend. Not only did I learn the ins and outs of analog synthesis with that model, but I also learned how to respect the way that presets can be just as valuable as manual mode and devising your own sounds.
That D50 pizzicato is quite massive indeed.
Pizzagogo is famous from two places in general. From that Enya track, and from its appearance as "Pizza" in the Amiga Soundtracker, being one of the most overused sounds in various demo music songs made using that program. Believe me, that one and "Shamus" (based upon D-50's "Shamus Theme") were just about everywhere in the late 80s/early 90s Amiga demo scene.
Where's Whitney Houston and DX7 Sounds?
I have a jv1010 and alpha juno 1 (little bros). Love the pizz sounds in the jv1010. And usually end up tweaking sounds on the alpha juno to make them sound like the what the patch cuz damn, what a fun sound!
Thank you for this video. please, do one from the 90 to 2k
Luis Alberto Spinetta during 1984, to 1993, His rig was mostly a oberheim OBX,and a yamaha dx7. which is heard in prive and madre en años luz, and then in 1988. Juan carlos mono fontana incorporated the D50 on the rig. Which then in 1990, a new keyboardist, Claudio cardone, came in busting with a roland W30 Sampler,a korg t3 and a wavestation.
thank you for the great video! Could you please include Ensoniq 10/12 in your next one?
I would love to but afaik there's no vst version. This means I would have to get my hands on the real thing. Not impossible but I do not have unlimited room or budget for all these synths. Still will look into it :) thanks for the suggestion.
I do have an Ensoniq TS-10 (still use it as MIDI keyboard although I do intend to get myself a Keylab), but none of the sounds are really that famous, are they?
Ensoniqs had more real sounding acoustic guitar than any workstation ever though. Actually, the only better acoustic guitar I have heard is Ample's guitar VSTs.
@@HongroeBand Point taken, but they should have been lol. The sounds were/are worthy of it and you are just the musician to do it!!
@@ThePipster2 There is a lot of Ensoniq TS-10 on the songs I recorded in 2005. Now I only use softsynths.
5:15 "Chime" actually used a DX100 with the VERY similar-sounding preset 'Solid Bass'. To my knowledge, Orbital never had a TX81Z, but they used a DX100 pretty heavily into the mid-90's. You can hear various DX100 presets all over the Green Album, and 'Solid Bass' also shows up pretty prominently in "Halcyon"/"Halcyon + On + On".
Yeah, those two patches are quite difficult to tell apart in a mix. In the end the TX81Z and DX100 are very similar indeed. Good catch though
Love all these machines. So much good memories. Sad to hear the music today imo. 90s was so much more powerful
I know you're not gonna like to read this, Bert, however I think what happened in the nineties set the stage for what has happened since.
Nice video, thank you.
Only vst I have bought is the M1 it’s got so many good sounds
Agreed. It's fantastic.
I got it on sale years ago for 49 bucks...still feels like I "stole" it.
D50 'Soundtrack' and Fairlight 'ARR1' are awesome too.
Excellent video! Given me so many ideas for new tracks to play with. Subscribed👍
Interesting video!
great video! and an awesome t-shirt :D
Just found your vids. Subscribed. Your videos are so fun and informative. Fantastic!!!
Thank you 😊 And welcome to the channel !
Thanks for a great review of classic synths!.
I hope you get a chance to explore what the wave station really does. it can take a whole bunch of samples played one after another, and then have a wave sweep through it!. I hope that you'll cover what the Korg wave station really did, because it was a highly unusual synthesizer for the day.
...and how can you cover the dx7, without playing the famous FM synthesizer electric piano?! Anyways, thanks a lot for an awesome video!
Thanks :)
The Wavestation is a synth I want to explore in a video of its own. Certainly very interesting.
The DX7 piano is in part 2 of these series ;) -> th-cam.com/video/2Z6peX7fZ5c/w-d-xo.html
@@Estuera it was fantastic seeing you play The Wave station right out of the box, knowing nothing about it previously!. the sounds are so stunning, and highly unusual for the day, and even for now.
The joystick is one of the underrated magnificent parts of the synthesizer!. it allows you to travel between four different zones and emphasize one or the other in real time. Thanks again for covering this awesome synth;your genuine excitement and hearing these sounds for the first time really reminds me of the day that I bought my wave station back in the 90s!.
Presets from the Casio CZ1 (my first keyboard) were used by the Pointer Sisters' Jump.
Make more of these videos. I loved that 💪🏽
Could u make the BBE 7days lead sound. I’m trying to remake it & I can’t nail the sound
I have a Yamaha TX81Z here in my Studio. Mostly used for Talkbox because i wasn't able to DX7. Pretty Much the same engine.
This is so useful thanks!
Chords to Orbital's Halcyon+On+On are a Wavestation preset as well.
Which are your favorite classic synth presets ? Or do you consider using presets a mortal sin ?
I like the Roland JV1080, which roland released it as cloud version. its in so many atmospheric dnb tracks from GOod Looking Records. Ofc the common suspects from trane history :D
i guess its alright to use presets, sometimes untweaked, but tweaked synths r just something, which sort of lets u keep the flow going, when wanting to get the ideas from the mind into the DAW. bcs building stuff from scratch is very time consuming, but in a separate session could be very fun \o/
i always wanted to be in the 90s, when all these wonderful Dance tracks came around, with its minimal sound, but yet still crazy ideas.
haha one can see how muzikexpress series inspired u! Thats what u meant a while ago.
Presets seem to be a bit of a sin. With DX7 it's understandable, but listen to Sega MegaDrive music, like _Streets of Rage_ for what it can really do. I know it's not exactly the same, and nowadays you can buy several different platforms for the original chip that you can tweak. FM goes on to infinity.
I personally like the electric piano presets of my Roland MKS-70, a rack version of Super JX. I have the controller but those pianos don't need anything.
I've also used the string presets of Trinity forever, but I do tweak them a little. Solid background stuff, stacks like waffles.
I like the Wavestation presets Tony Banks used on the "We can't dance"-Album by Genesis
D-50 Fantasia. I still use it on the D-05 with the bells partials muted. Creamiest pad sound ever.
On the CMI, you missed Sarrarr, a very breathy sound that was the wallpaper of the early 1980s - Art of Noise, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, etc. etc.
Favourite sounds for me were definitely the iconic club organ and the super saw (despite it's massive over use in mainstream trance).
nothing like a good Dominator hoover!!!
Musicians tend not to worry if it’s a preset or not but producers wouldn’t dream of not tweaking or building from scratch.presets speed up the process
Love this vid. I always thought Smalltown Boy was done on a Juno 60 but I could be wrong. I didn’t know the Prodigy used the Juno for Charly but do know Liam Howlett was all over the W30
There's a good chance the Juno 60 was used for some of the other sounds in that song, especially the chords are a good candidate.
I'm not sure in what other tracks Liam used the alpha juno 2 or if he even owned one himself but the 'what the...' patch is 100% what you can hear in 'Charly'.
A funny story about that patch that I recently learned. It was programmed by Eric Persing (the man behind Spectrasonics who used to work at Roland at the time) . He says he created that patch as a bit of fun joke sound and it was only years later that he found out that it became one of the cornerstones of the (dutch) hardcore gabber sound in the early to mid 90's. Roland seems to be really good at accidentally spawning music genres :D
The harp was dx 7 the opening string pad was a memory moog. Not sure what instrument did the octave bass. Perhaps a juno ?
I don’t even play, but the information is so interesting and entertaining and historical and pop cultural, I had to subscribe. Great musicianship, too.👍🏼🌟👏💫
This vid is SO helpfull to me. Thanks!! 😍😍
The Pizzicato Preset from Faithless actually originates from the Roland JD-990. It's called "Pizz Hutt"
This is a great review great gear!Keep it up💯
Love the Nathan W. Pyle tee!
Great video. Very informative. Love it
Any chance that Sweet Lullaby by Deep Forrest used the Perky Pan Flute on the Korg Workstation? I love that patch!
Actually, the Beat It opening gong sound used by Michael Jackson came from the Synclavier. You can hear the exact riff transposed slightly in another key on the original Synclavier demo disk.
Only D50 you can make 6 part series...
Or only DX7 or only M1. The trinity of the 80's 😁
The Fairlight CMI also has some great sounds, like the flute sound which can be found on Art of Noise - Moments in Love and Tears for Fears - Shout, The M1 has probably the most overused house piano in the history of house music.
Wasn't the M1 popularized in the rise of symphonic metal as well? Bands like After Forever, WT, or Nightwish using the Korg because of the amazing string orchestra sound.
@@Stoney3K that's the n364
4:56 Actually, that patch was originally called "Solid Bass" and can be found on the DX 100/27 and DX 21 from the mid 80's.
You teased me with the CS1-X in the intro video!
A lot more CS1x in the later videos on this channel ;)
@@Estuera ty will check em out!
Maaaan! Love this! I know you can help me: sash - Ecuador??? Any presets in that one you know?
I'm not sure.
It probably is a (modified) preset from one of the Roland/Korg/Yamaha digital synths but I do not recognize it immediately.
The patch used in Whodini's Magic Wand. It's played by Thomas Dolby. I suspect it's a Waldorf PPG, but not sure
Nice video, could you please mention the Rhodes Chroma, PPG, SEM, roland JX8p, Korg Poly 61, Prophet 5, Jupiter 8. Memorymoog, Minimoog, Arp Odissey, Microkorg, Korg Prophecy and the EPS 16+ famous presets (sample presets)
Those might be good options for Part 3 (Part 2 has been released quite recently: th-cam.com/video/2Z6peX7fZ5c/w-d-xo.html)
@@Estuera Thank you, I have seen it and it was really interesting. Just letting you know that there is this guy in Italy who owns a fortune in synths. th-cam.com/video/n5bNxgo8CWk/w-d-xo.html Among them he owns a An1x which I have tested a few years ago and if I remember well this keyboard has an excellent set of percussions. I look forward so see part 3 :) keep up the good work
Thanks for this. We’re you running midi through to a real dx7 or is there a soft synth?
In this vid its a soft synth. The Arturia DX7 V
@@Estuera Thanks. Have a great day.
Damn, this is soooo good!
Trance = JP 8000
I love all of this. Audio retro.
I love these sounds. Can you a similar video for sounds in movies?
Who else is here for the JP8000?
Maybe I should loan an actual JP8000 (or 8080) to do some videos about it and the relation it has to trance. Might be fun
@@Estuera it would! Also it's good for so many other sounds too. Okay it's a little thin these days. but layer it up over the top of something and you get that flavour. It's great for sync sounds and weird fx too. Also the tech trance classic "hoi polloi" among millions of others!
@@Estuera Please do!
Great Video 👍 Thank You 🙂
I use them all the time! Good stuff.