The great thread of electronic/synthesizer soundtracks

[tomorrowstops]

Speaking of those synth cues, do we know which of Howarth's lovely choice in devices functions as the heartbeat theme sequences? Its before the emulator stuff, so it must be either the Prophet 5 or 10, or the Avatars? or all of them sequenced together?

i just bought that version on itunes and am listening now. So far, its pretty freakin good. Not exactly the same chills I get from Morricone driving an real orchestra, but exactly what I want hear when I put on a Carpenter/Howarth score...

[D-Collector]

Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) is a true classic, I particularly like the "heartbeat" main theme.

So simple yet so ominous and mood-setting!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - this movie has got to be one of my favorites of all time. If you've haven't seen this film, go out and rent/buy it/stream it right now!

Morricone's cues are incredible on this one. Absolutely paralyzing in my opinion. And of course, Carpenter and Howarth's synth work is totally on point! Not to mention perfect pace, solid story, and Kurt Russell's impeccable take on his character.

Watch it now!!

+1000. You are right on every point, this movie is a winner. Have loved it since first view, story, music, mood, actors... It's gold, like many Carpenter flicks.

The prequel is out now. I'm not too keen though. There was recently a behind the scenes feature of the norwegian particiment on norwegian TV, and from what I saw I think I prefer the "norwegians" of the first. When they get to the utterly stupid party singing part you will know what I mean. That song wasn't good back then and most people should have repressed the memories. For me as a norwegian, that inclusion alone destroys a movie for me.

Not to say I wont give it a chance (who cares if I do or don't) but I feel "The Thing" needs a prequel/remake just as little as "Blade Runner" does.

[Micke]

If you mean the repeated "dun-dun....dun-dun...dun-dun" synth bass of the main theme (the part I referred to as the heartbeat theme) it was actually composed and recorded by Morricone, in the style of Carpenter's own music. I have no idea of what Morricone's synth player may have used for that bass. The drone-y Carpenter/Howarth cues were mostly done with the Prophet 5/10 afaik.

Howarth sold most of his analog synths a couple of years ago but before he did, he was smart enough to sample many of his custom (analog) synth sounds into the Synclavier digital system (of which he still has two btw). So for the re-recording of the Howarth/Carpenter cues he used samples of his original Prophet 10. The result is pretty darn good I think.

Larry Hopkins, Howarth's collaborator on this new CD, has a background in film scoring so he performed all the orchestral tracks.

[Micke]

John Beal's creepy score for this 1984 documentary on horror/thriller is pretty heavy on its use of analog synths. Some of the music
is based on original themes, eg John Carpenter's Halloween theme as heard in the clip above. The synthesizer part of the score was
realized by Richard Johnston, Deane Hagen and Jim Cypherd and recorded at Sound Arts studios in L.A., the same studio where the
original Halloween score was recorded back in 1978. The bass sounds/drones featured in some of the tracks sound very "moogy"
to my ears. Whatever they used it's a pretty good score I think.

[iProg]

Enjoying some of the track of Apocalypse Now. "Orange Light" is my favorite electronic movie queue ever.

[Micke]

I also like "Orange light" a lot, this cue --mainly performed by Bernie Krause & Shirley Walker--
accompanies my favorite scene of the movie; the helicopter air strike:



For me however the absolute highlight of the Apocalypse Now soundtrack is the dark/brooding music that plays
during the final scene, the killing of Kurtz:


For the string parts, Nyle Steiner and Shirley Walker both played many single string tracks which were submixed
so they could play more individual string tracks (many of which were played through a custom Moog string filter).
They wanted to get a real string section quality.

My other favorites from this score are "The Delta" (Krause), "Nung river" (Steiner & Walker) and "Do lung bridge"
(Pat Gleeson). According to Nyle Steiner (who played on almost all tracks), there was definitely a string-machine
at Krause's sessions and he's pretty sure he used it in combination with the Modular Moog to make the string sounds
on "The Delta".

Francis Coppola was obviously influenced by Holst and Tomita at the time and initially he wanted Tomita to do
the score. This influence can be heard in tracks such as "Nung River" and "Orange Light". The former track is
reminiscent of Holst's "Mars, the bringer of War" while part of the latter sounds a bit like "Venus, The
Bringer of Peace", also from The Planets. Reportedly Tomita's version of "Mars" was used as temp
track at some point during filming and his version of "Venus" accompanies the helicopter attack in the lenghty
work print version of the movie.

Here are a couple of interesting clips from the AN complete dossier DVD, incl. actual footage from the recording
sessions back in 1979:

[Esus]

Wow. Great to see Shirley Walker again. She and her husband Don were the nicest people. Unfortunately, they've both passed on. IIRC, they died within a year or two of each other.

Is that Don Preston @ 1:22?

[Micke]

Yep, that's him alright.

[Micke]

I'm a big fan of Fabio Frizzi. Here are a few tracks from his excellect score to Lucio Fulci's Manhattan Baby (1982):





Try to see if you can figure out what synths and keyboards were used in this soundtrack

[themilford]

I here Mellotron voices no?

[iProg]

I'm a big fan of Fabio Frizzi. Here are a few tracks from his excellect score to Lucio Fulci's Manhattan Baby (1982):





Try to see if you can figure out what synths and keyboards were used in this soundtrack

Listening now...

I think that choir is PPG. The piano also sounds quite PPGish. Could be Emulator stuff to.

[MrFrodo]

Has anybody (Micke, et al) got clips from the first or last scenes of Total Recall? Jerry Goldsmith's score for that film is one of the best examples of an early 90's blend of orchestration and synthesizers.

And, do any of you know what sort of gear Jerry had in 1990?

[Micke]

I here Mellotron voices no?

Yep, you heard right! Fabio loved the 'tron and he made good use of it on several of his scores eg Zombi 2, City Of The
Living Dead, L'Aldila...

There's an analog polyphonic synth in there as well, which one do you think it is?

[Micke]

Has anybody (Micke, et al) got clips from the first or last scenes of Total Recall? Jerry Goldsmith's score for that film is one of the best examples of an early 90's blend of orchestration and synthesizers.

And, do any of you know what sort of gear Jerry had in 1990?

Here's a list of the gear Goldsmith had circa 1990:
Prophet VS
DX711 FD
Roland D50
Yamaha KX 88
Emulator 11+
Roland Super JX
Yamaha TX16W Sampler
Oberheim DPX1 Sampleplayer
Roland LS550 Sampler
Roland Digital Piano
Yamaha TX816
TX81Z
Yamaha RX5 Drum Machine
and an old Yamaha DX7

[Micke]

So is there anyone here who's able to identify the analog polyphonic synth used on Fabio Frizzi's
Manhattan Baby soundtrack (1982)?