Pet Shop Boys 'West End Girls' bassline synth?

[tweakeasy]

Anyone know what Chris Lowe used for the bassline? It really makes the song. Actually all the synth work on it is solid in my opinion.

[polar69]

In this video it looks like a Roland SH1

[Vast Halo]

Most of West End Girls (e.g. strings, choir, trumpet) came out of an Emulator II. The bass sound is apparently a sample of a Minimoog. It certainly sounds Moog-like.

[Micke]

Afaik, it's a Minimoog.

[garranimal]

Off Topic

Does anyone else think that vid was horrendous? Playing to a tape track and lip syncing. The bass part kept playing a few extra notes at the end even though the hand came off the keys.

Kinda discredits the SH-1 as being the definite bass machine for the recording.

[polar69]

It was only a guess based on a grainy pop video

[Dividedbyzero]

As a big PSB fan I've seen similar threads featuring this question over the years.

Many times it has been suggested that the sound is from more than one source. A mini mixed with another synth is the best guess. I don't think it was a sample though. Hague played the whole thing staight to tape with no programming (much to the annoyance of Chris as he wanted the whole thing to be programmed).

[Vast Halo]

Hague played the whole thing staight to tape with no programming

I've never heard that before, although it's perfectly plausible. What's your source? Not that I doubt you, I'm just interested.
In the booklet that accompanies the Please remaster, Lowe comments that Hague's Emulator "trumpet" solo is "really good... a lot better than most trumpet players!"

[Dividedbyzero]

It was on a BBC Radio 2 documentary from a few years ago (I forget when it was broadcast) but I have it on my hard drive. Both Neil and Hague himself talk about it.

Apparently, Hague spent two days committing the bass to tape as he felt it would be quicker than programming it.

[Gregor Samsa]

There's a vid where he's doing it on an emulator II with obviously quite a bit of sequencing going on as well.

[Dividedbyzero]

They're just miming to playback there. There are lots of contemporary TV shows where Chris is miming the bassline. He always used a PPG Wave, an Emulator II+ or both.

Can't work out what he is miming with on this performance of the original Bobby O version though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyBJVXos9mg

[nathanscribe]

Can't work out what he is miming with on this performance of the original Bobby O version though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyBJVXos9mg

Roland SH-3/3a.

[Dividedbyzero]

Can't work out what he is miming with on this performance of the original Bobby O version though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyBJVXos9mg

Roland SH-3/3a.

Thanks, that's been annoying me for a long time!

[tweakeasy]

Thanks for your responses all. Sounds like if I get a Mini Moog, SH-1 and Emulator II and put them all in a big pot and stir, I can't go wrong. haha

Cheers

[HideawayStudio]

As a big PSB fan I've seen similar threads featuring this question over the years.

Many times it has been suggested that the sound is from more than one source. A mini mixed with another synth is the best guess. I don't think it was a sample though. Hague played the whole thing staight to tape with no programming (much to the annoyance of Chris as he wanted the whole thing to be programmed).

Another fan here I'm sure I read a CL interview somewhere where he said that he often layered his deep analog bass lines (Minimoog?) with a digital synth (DX1?) played an octave up so it sounded ok on all sizes of speaker.

The EII thing is only partly true - PSB used the Fairlight a heck of a lot in their early days for percussion. Probably the signature sound from the EII were their trademark Marcato strings. They also heavily used the Juno-106, D-50 and the TG-33 (yes it's cheap but it's ace for strings).

I think few realise just how complex a lot of the PSB tracks must have been to produce. Some of their productions were epic in size and must have taken weeks to perfect and mix. In some cases the huge orchestral parts were painstakenly multitracked EII samples. I remember reading years ago that doing remixes for PSB was a nightmare because they were using 48 track tape! How many remix artists had this kind of gear to hand! It's clear their music was being produced to an extremely high standard pretty much from day one.