Queen Radio Ga-Ga - Drum machine

[philip]

What drum machine Roger did use in song??

[Syn303]

Oh! that's an easy one, it was the Linn LM-1, also used on "I Want To Break Free"

[iProg]

The synth used for bass in "Radio Ga-Ga" and the solo in "I Want to Break Free" is the Jupiter-8.

[philip]

thanks

[philip]

btw, was pad in Radio Ga-Ga from Jup8 too?

[Micke]

I found this synth-breakdown on an old website on Queen's equipment:

Radio Ga Ga:

Bassline & pads: Jup 8
E-piano/harpsichord: OB-Xa
Strings: Kurzweil K250
Vocoder: Roland VP-330
additional bass at the end: OB-8 (this sounds like a bass-guitar, not a synth)
weird samples: Fairlight CMI
drums: Linndrum combined with synth-drums in K-250, some Simmons and some cymbal rolls (part of Ludwig kit)
Steinway piano
Yamaha electric grand (probably not used on the album)

I think this breakdown is fairly reliable because I know that they used all that stuff around the time of that album.
I'm doubtful about the K-250 though, seeing as "The Works" was recorded in the fall of '83 prior to the release of that
keyboard. On the other hand it's possible they had access to a prototype /pre-production unit so who knows...
(the prototype K-250 was shown at NAMM '83).

EDIT: the "bassline" on Radio Ga Ga sounds like a typical "trigger-bass", to do it you just feed an 1/8th note (or whatever) pulse from the trigger out of the Linndrum to the arpeggio in of the Jup8 and "play" the part on the Jup by holding down the right notes in the right order as the pulse trigger it.
This is exactly what Arthur Barrow did on the song Rush Rush from the Scarface soundtrack. Incidentally, the pads on that song are also from a Jup-8.

[iProg]

Great info! The Scarface soundtrack is really cool!


And congratulations on you 1000th post!

[michael stein]

1000 post of pure knowledge

[ted1986]

The piano in the background when he sings "So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys..." sounds a bit DX7-ish, it has a slightly metallic sound. The album was recorded between August 1983 and January 1984 according to Wikipedia and the DX7 was released in late '83. So is it possible the DX7 was used on Radio Ga Ga?


Piano starts at 1.35

[Steve Jones]

The drum sounds in the Kurzweil K250 Rock Block were marvellous.

[FrankieMusic]

Oh! that's an easy one, it was the Linn LM-1, also used on "I Want To Break Free"

Not that easy.

Both songs used the LinnDrum.

[Micke]

Queen mostly used the EMS 2000 vocoder in the studio according to producer Reinhold Mack. Also, his Kurzweil K250 was used
on some stuff like One Vision (strings) and Princes of the Universe choral with Fred on top. However, they didn't use the K250
on the "The Works" album, it wasn't released to the market until after that album was recorded.