Full Metal Jacket

Ezzo · Post by **Ezzo** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:39 pm

So I was digging through my Kubrick box and decided to introduce my younger brothers to a little movie called Full Metal Jacket. The scene where Leonard kills Hartman and himself has some pretty interesting sounds that I never really noticed before. They kind of sound like D-50 pads...maybe M1. Does anybody know what synths were used in making this movie (if any?)

divineaudio · Post by **divineaudio** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:24 pm

definitely not the m1, the movie was released before those were on the market. the d50 is cutting it close too.

my guess would be something like an esq1 or a sampler like the mirage/ akai s900.

Ezzo · Post by **Ezzo** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:41 pm

Yeah, I couldn't really place the specific sound but kind of had that D-50 pad sound to it...what ever they used it sounded great

soniczev · Post by **soniczev** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:08 pm

I love doing research so thank you for bringing up this question.

The score was done by Abigail Mead which was a pseudonym for Vivian Kubrick, Stan's daughter. She scored the film when she was 25 or 26 years old. The name stems from Abbott's Mead, the mansion where the Kubricks lived between 1965 to 1979.
The instrument she used to create the haunting sounds of Full Metal Jacket was a sampler/syth called Fairlight Cmi Series III. She also used guitar.

and here's a link where I found the instrument information:
http://www.discogs.com/release/466221

and here's a link to the synth. prepare to drool. monkeys.
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.shtml

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:13 pm

The lowest link doesn't go anywhere, you need to "copy to clipboard" when you rightclick the link on the lefthand side in the menu, because the URL doesn't change in the URL field.

FMJ has the most eerie haunting soundtrack I've ever heard. I often wondered how those mad chaotic sounds were made.

soniczev · Post by **soniczev** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:28 pm

It has been fixed.
Here's the link again.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.shtml

Ezzo · Post by **Ezzo** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:17 am

Cool, I think I saw Herby Hancock play one of those on Sesame Street once. Don't think I'll ever get my hands on one though

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:16 am

Being that the CMI cost $30,000, I think most musicians never saw one. If they did see it and use it, it was probably in a studio that had one for rent.
I have seen the mountains of manuals that came with the CMI 3, it's not a pretty sight.

Jean-Michel Jarre used the Fairlight extensively, specially on the mid-eighties albums like Zoolook, where he did dozens of samples of his own voice and his loved ones and used them to play melodies and harmonies.
He also used it for drum sections alot or eerie twisted samples, like the "whale" cry on Ethnicolor (a weird inverted scream).

slowalan · Post by **slowalan** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:46 pm

The Inventors of the Fairlight were two young Australians. It might have had thick manuals, but believe me, if an Australian can understand it, it is not difficult.

h**l, we are so dumb we follow Americans.

neandrewthal · Post by **neandrewthal** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:42 pm

soniczev wrote:It has been fixed.
Here's the link again.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.shtml

You forgot something

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:14 pm

I couldn't find the old thread, but some russian guy had a website with tons of pictures of his fairlight.
And the stacks of manuals. There is seriously thousands of pages worth of manuals, it seemed like every part of the synth had it's own phonebook-sized manual.

But really, when you watch that herbie hancock clip, you just plug in a mic, speak into it, and play it back on the keyboard in various pitches.
Of course, sampling is just a small part of what that machine can do.

Let's say you could get hold of a fairlight all the sudden, but the harddrive was failing (who knows of a modern harddrive that still works after 20 years, afterall?)
Could you just replace it with a modern harddrive? Or is it some arcane interface noone makes anymore.

soniczev · Post by **soniczev** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:43 pm

I wonder if it would be possible to make a software version of it.

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:20 pm

There are dozens of software version of it already. Every software sampler can do the exact same things. And any sequencer like Cubase or Live can sequence the notes. It is an obsolete item now.

soniczev · Post by **soniczev** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:23 pm

Bitexion wrote: It is an obsolete item now.

Only because I like to argue semantics...

The only obsolete [instrument] is an unused instrument!

AstroDan · Post by **AstroDan** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:18 am

Cool thread. That creaking gate sound during the sniper execution scene has stuck with me since I first saw that movie at 12. Probably that fairlight. Truly disturbing.

Kubrick's the best.