Can anyone give some pointers as to what synths Roger (and David Richards) used on Fun In Space and Strange Frontier? It would be logical to assume he used the same synths as were used on Hot Space and The Works, but on his solo albums I hear quite a few sounds that I couldn't immediately place. Any help would be welcome!
Any further knowledge you could share on this subject would be greatly apprreciated. I am trying to do some covers from those albums for my own educational purposes (love the production and want to more or less figure out how they built the sound).
I wish there'd been an in-depth feature at the time, with detailed footage and photographs of each guitar, each bass, each keyboard, each mic, each lead, each plectrum... but in reality what we've got is what we've got.
Roger had reportedly bought the OB-X for his first solo album, so it makes sense to think he may have played it there.
The rest is taken from what the band had around those days. Some of those synths may have been Roger's, and/or used by him when recording:
- A VP-330 which can be seen from 1982-ish onwards.
- An OB-Xa which can be seen in 1982 and then again in 1984.
- A Jupiter 8 which was their main one for 'Hot Space'. It can be seen in photographs, videos and mentioned in several interviews.
- A Fairlight CMI-II which appears at Musicland Studios in the making of 'One Vision'. It also appears in some photographs from the Record Plant in 1983, which suggests Roger (and David) may have played it on the 'Strange Frontier' album.
So no, it's not like I went there while the album was being made and took note (I wish!), but it's not like I randomly chose some synth makes and models and listed and assumed I was right because I was me and that was it.
Thanks again for elaborating, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall there. The Fairlight might actually account for some of the more acoustic type-sounds (marimba etc.) that Oberheim and JP-8 won't produce.
I will share any info I manage to get, but I expect it to be scarce since Roger is far from a technohead and David Richards unfortunately is no longer with us.
That's a good observation. Strange Frontier sounds better than any Queen album released after Flash Gordon. It makes The Works and A Kind of Magic sound muddy in comparison.
That's a good observation. Strange Frontier sounds better than any Queen album released after Flash Gordon. It makes The Works and A Kind of Magic sound muddy in comparison.
Agree completely, the album retains a nice balance of clarity and warmth. I quite like The Works as an album but production wise they just try too hard to sound gritty where they would have been better off just serving the songs. Probably a reaction to the harsh critisim of Hot Space.
Strange Frontier on the other hand is much maligned as being "the poor man's Bruce Springsteen", which is an absolute unjustice in my opinion. The combination of rock music and social commentary delivered with a husky voice is not reserved exclusively for musicians from New Jersey.
These all have samples of the Fairlight ORCH preset: Killing Time / Love Kills (extended) / RT Olympic Theme / Keep Passing The Open Windows (extended)
I should listen to the extended versions more often. Just realised that the extended Keep Passing The Open Windows has quite a bit of that specific marimba-ish sound at the end, confirming the idea that The Works and Strange Frontier use more or less the same synths. I know I'm on a geek-quest here, but I just want figure out what the not-so-recognisable synth sounds were.
The marimba sound can also be found on 'It's An Illusion' and 'Strange Frontier' (M). The Fairlight CMI preset: is ORCH 2 link
Watch this video, or go straight to 4:30
Yep, that's it, immediately recognisable from the slight run-up in the Orch2 sound. I also checked out the marimba samples in the Fairlight CMI VST, but they are more muffled and clearly recorded at a lower bit-rate than the marimba on SF. Maybe it was heavily edited and EQ'd to make it sound like this, or I am suffering from professional deformation and it's simply a real marimba as common sense might suggest. Completely forgot about It's An Illusion, sound is even clearer there. So far I have identified (i.e. managed to come up with exactly the same sound in an emulation) Oberheim OBX-a (brass) and Roland Jupiter 8 (bass sequences). The rest is hopefully forthcoming. Thanks again for your contribution!
Just for laughs here is just about the only early RT-cover I could do without making a complete ass of myself for sounding nothing like Roger's voice. Take your potshots!
dysan wrote:
While you're deep diving on synths have you come across that sample all over The Miracle album that sounds like a voice saying 'eat it!'?
I have no idea what sample you're talking about, but I'll give it a listen.They mostly used digital keyboards on the Miracle mostly, so chances are it's a Korg M1 or an Emulator II.