The great thread of electronic/synthesizer soundtracks

[forcedopinion]

I covered Fabio Frizzi's theme to "Blastfighter"



Instruments used - Novation Bass Station II, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Roland MKS-50, Yamaha Tx81z, E-MU Procussion

[Micke]

Very well done forcedopinion!

Frizzi's score is pretty good and I hope it'll be released on CD in the near future.
He had (and still has) a Jup-8 and I wouldn't be surprised if he used it on there. He's
also kept his original Mellotron and TR-808 during all these years.

[pelican]

Pretty much the same... He mentioned those, and said he said he had a yamaha fm rackmount with 8 voices and an oberheim xpander too

[Micke]

Pretty much the same... He mentioned those, and said he said he had a yamaha fm rackmount with 8 voices and an oberheim xpander too

Cool! I wonder what Korg synth it was he used in PART 2 though.

[pelican]

He said he couldn't remember, but it had a sample and hold circuit maybe that narrows it down a little

[Micke]

How about the Korg Sigma? it has a sample-and-hold circuit:



On the other hand Harry does mention in the CD liner notes that the synth had multiple voices which suggests that it
was a polyphonic synth. But maybe with 'multiple voices' he was referring to the various presets or the bi-timbrality!?

The plot thickens!

[pelican]

Maybe ps3100 too?

[Micke]

Yes indeed, the PS-3100, 3200 and 3300 all had sample-and-hold so it could have been either of those.
Speaking of which, the ethereal sounding pads heard in some of the tracks from Part 2 sound more like
an analog poly-synth than an orchestron to my ears. I know he used an orchestron for the choir sound
in Part 1 but the pad sound I'm referring to from Part 2 is different; it's softer with a smooth-sounding
slow attack/fade out - it might still be the orchestron though, especially if it was used with a volume/
swell pedal. What do you think?

[Cumulus]

Here's an old educational film from 1971 with some great synth sounds:

[tim gueguen]

I'd never heard of this weird and haphazardly animated show before stumbling across it on YouTube, but it does have a cool theme.

[Micke]

American composer/multi-instrumentalist Fred Karlin (1936-2004) made some decent electronic scores
for television movies back in the mid-to-late '80s. Fred did all the synth-work himself in his own home studio.

Here are a few examples...

Hostage Flight (1985):



Final Jeopardy (1985):



Dadah is death (1988):

[SeventhStar]

More late night crazy synth listening for me..

Micke - What synths were used by Giorgio on this one? Midnight Express 78.

[SeventhStar]

Closing out the evening, or um morning, with the Zombie theme by Frizzi. I like to boost the bass on my equalizer way up when I listen to this one (I use headphones, I'm not like my ex-asshole neighbor that would play his stereo outside on the back patio at 3AM. Thank God he's long gone..).

Olga Karlatos was awesome to behold in this movie. She gave one of the best acting performances in the film too. She had the most intense, piercing and beautiful eyes. I can see why Fulci chose her for the splinter in the eye scene.

[Micke]

More late night crazy synth listening for me..

Micke - What synths were used by Giorgio on this one? Midnight Express 78.

The album version of the Midnight Express soundtrack was performed by Greg Mathieson using a Minimoog (most of the bass sounds), Solina string ensemble,
Rhodes electric piano, Clavinet (I think) and Roland SH-1000 (used for a lot of the melody sounds). Everything was played by hand - no sequencing was used.

As for the actual movie score (still unreleased); the music was produced at Musicland studios, Münich and at Dan Wyman's Sound Arts studio, L.A.
where all the synth overdubs were made. Faltermeyer and Wyman handled the synth-work/programming.

While I do like the album versions of "Chase" and "Theme from Midnight Express" I prefer the movie versions which sound more raw and punchy than
the "disco" versions found on the soundtrack album. Synths used on the movie version included Moog modular w/sequencers, ARP 2600, Minimoog,
Polymoog, SH-1000 etc.

Here are some of the movie versions:

(an excerpt from Chase kicks in at 1:53)

[SeventhStar]

Thanks for the detailed info Micke!