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Joined: January 17 2013
Location: NY
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Points: 470
Topic: The Analog Kid by Rush - choir effects in chorus Posted: November 20 2014 at 15:37
What am I hearing in the chorus of The Analog Kid when the choir comes in? It certainly isn't a Mellotron, and it doesn't sound much like an Optigan either. I did some searching and I can't figure it out. Anyone know what Geddy is playing? I can't figure out if any of the Oberheim synths he used could create such an effect.
Joined: April 11 2014
Location: Kyiv In Spirit
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Points: 20245
Posted: November 21 2014 at 10:04
^Basically the answer was to alert you to the fact that there were no rules in a recording studio, so the choir could be from many different sources. And 'sampling' most certainly did exist in 1982, just not in the way we recognize it today.
Edited by SteveG - November 21 2014 at 10:05
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Joined: July 01 2004
Location: CA
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Posted: November 30 2014 at 13:07
The first keyboard sampler that was marketed for under $10,000 was E-mu's Emulator I in '81 or '82. Before that, sampling tech like the Fairlight was prohibitively expensive for guys and girls in bands who wanted to own a sampler. Akai's S series of samplers starting in '86 were much more affordable for the common musician.
To me, sampling was/is more of a fad. I prefer analog(ue) and quality digital (not DX Rhodes, etc., haha) synthesizer sounds to samples. That awful orchestra hit sample was everywhere in the second half of the '80s, as was the overused Shakuhachi sample. The only time I've ever liked the orch-hit was when Mark Shreeve utilized it, primarily on his classic '85 album Legion.
These are the synths Geddy used on Signals: Minimoog and Moog Taurus pedals, Oberheim OB-8 / OB-X / OB-Xa, Roland Jupiter 8 (one of the best synths ever); plus Oberheim's DSX sequencer (for "The Weapon," no doubt) and from Roland's legendary TR series, the 808.
I'm going to hazard a guess that the choir (which sounds like a layer to me) is a modified choir-strings from the OB-Xa, which had the ability to "to split the keyboard into two halves with different voices and the ability to layer voices to create thicker sound." If Geddy had the 8-voice model, he no doubt could coax a very lush sound from the OB-Xa by itself. Then throw a generous reverb on it and you have a sound that fills out all the space between the channels.
I could be wrong and it could be the Jupiter 8, which is a phenomenal synth that is still used today and can be heard on a lot of Tangerine Dream albums in the early '80s. Giorgio Moroder used it all over Scarface, too.
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