Synth in "Relax" by Frankie goes to Hollywood?

[Steve Jones]

Some of those sounds must be a PPG.

[waveterm]

Probably, Andy Richards had a PPG 2.3 with a PRK FD and possibly a Waveterm. Can´t say for sure that it featured on Relax.

WT

[Xynurse]

It's funny reading all you guys arguing over whether a JP8 was used. I def remember reading an article in keyboard magazine, decades ago, talking to the guys who made the record. The synth guy was using, wait for it....a poly 800
for quite a bit of the entire album. I'm sure they used more expensive and capable units as well, but this one guy said Korg units were def featured. Since I had 2 poly800s at the time, I remember going "say whaaaa? Really? Cool!!"
But who really knows.

[desmond]

It was Fairlight, and yes, Andy Richards used a JP8 for pads and other stuff.

""The CS80 was my first introduction to polyphonic synths", he recalls. "After that, like everybody else I suppose, I worked my way up through the Prophet 5 and Rhodes Chroma to the Jupiter 8. In fact. I'd say that the Jupiter 8 was the best keyboard I've ever had. It's certainly been the most reliable."

IF YOU WANT proof of the power and versatility of the Jupiter 8, then dig out your old copy of 'Relax' and listen to the sounds that many assumed to have come from a Fairlight.

"It was an incredible feeling when 'Relax' finally fell into place", comments Richards.

"The interesting thing about it is how relatively low-tech it was. Very little was sequenced. There was a LinnDrum and a bit of Fairlight, but everything else was played."

http://www.muzines.co.uk/display_article.php?id=1104

[blueknob]

Isn't this another case of, "it ain't what ya got, it's what ya do with it". One of the best bass synth sounds for me is Imagination (Body Talk, In The Heat Of The Night) done by Swain/Jolley. After years of thinking, trying all the posh synths Tony Swain tells us, a Roland SH1000! we all gasp!

This Relax track and that whole album is a real work of art, fantastic thing, a real milestone in... everything. Magic.

[desmond]

Indeed. Also true is Propaganda's "A Secret Wish", one of my all-time favourite albums, which is also Steve Lipson, Andy Richards and some Trevor Horn.

They are just masterpieces of "of their time" production, in a way that probably will never happen again.

[madtheory]

It's funny reading all you guys arguing over whether a JP8 was used. I def remember reading an article in keyboard magazine, decades ago, talking to the guys who made the record. The synth guy was using, wait for it....a poly 800

Bwahahahahaha!


You're selling yours are you?

[sandwich]

Just saw this interview with Trevor Horn on Roland’s website!

"Which Roland gear was knocking around when you recorded ‘The Age of Plastic?’

I think we had a Roland vocoder. But the time when we seriously had anything Roland was on Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Relax’. We had a Jupiter 8. All the big sounds on that single were from the Jupiter, played by Andy Richards. Oh, and the fake orgasm was made on Roland stuff too!"


http://www.roland.co.uk/blog/trevor-horn/

[Push-Pull]

Iwait for it....a poly 800

Yes I think there is a lot of Poly-800 chords in this album. The factory patch 11 with a bit of filtering and processing.

Like here at 2'15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqDHEGQ3L6Y&nohtml5

And the sound is very close to the intro pad sound of Relax...

[desmond]

And the sound is very close to the intro pad sound of Relax...

Maybe. It's also very close to the sound of a JP8 pad, a synth that we know was heavily used on these tracks.

Just because you can get a similar sound out of synth A, doesn't mean it *was* synth A that was used.

I've yet to see an interview with Lipson or Richards that even mentions such a low-end, low-budget synth being used (for anything), and given that those guys had access to the absolutely highest of the high end gear, it seems *extremely* unlikley (ie, laughable) that this rumour of it being a Poly800 are true, even if one person "def remembers" this.

Show me the interview where it was def remembered from, and maybe I'll give it some more consideration..!

[sandwich]

Lol!! I'll just post it again!! This from Trevor Horn on Rolands website, what more do you need?

Just saw this interview with Trevor Horn on Roland’s website!

"Which Roland gear was knocking around when you recorded ‘The Age of Plastic?’

I think we had a Roland vocoder. But the time when we seriously had anything Roland was on Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Relax’. We had a Jupiter 8. All the big sounds on that single were from the Jupiter, played by Andy Richards. Oh, and the fake orgasm was made on Roland stuff too!"


http://www.roland.co.uk/blog/trevor-horn/

[sandwich]

Just found an interesting interview with Andy Richards himself. He talks about his JP8 and Relax,

“Trevor literally hoovered all of my best sounds out of my JP8 and they all ended up on ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’. The big orgasmic explosion sound on ‘Relax’, for example, was from my Jupiter 8. I had a pretty wacky white noise patch which sounded like an explosion if you dragged your hand across a bunch of keys, but if you just touched it you got a wispy sound. I changed the filter as I was playing it to get the different effects.”


Later on he explains that the fantastic bass sound in ‘Two Tribes’ was made by layering a PPG sample and a Synclavier sample together! Wow!

http://www.polymathperspective.com/?p=2559

[Push-Pull]

Just because you can get a similar sound out of synth A, doesn't mean it *was* synth A that was used.

I know that.
But I've had a JP8 for 19 years and a Poly-800 (for some months !) and the JP is not as "lush" as we can expect.
Try to play an Em chord on a Poly-800 (patch 11 with internal chorus) the next time you'll see one, it's quite surprising...

[desmond]

But I've had a JP8 for 19 years and a Poly-800 (for some months !) and the JP is not as "lush" as we can expect.

I *love* the sound of the JP8, it's like nothing else and has it's own character.
That's not to say *some* of it's sounds you can't replicate with other things, of course.

Try to play an Em chord on a Poly-800 (patch 11 with internal chorus) the next time you'll see one, it's quite surprising...

Well, you have both - audio examples please - I'd be interested to hear what you mean. With and without FX...