The great thread of electronic/synthesizer soundtracks

[severen]

I like tony's theme from scarface soundtrack.
I like that pad sound. cs-80?

but I prefer movie version to album version.
so I sold this soundtrack cd.

movie version



album version

[ppg_wavecomputer]

Klaus Doldinger

Being well aware of his other achievements, but still.. everytime I hear his name... all I can think of... is Josef Matula getting his a*s kicked and this brilliant little theme:



If anyone has this on a 7", I want it. Also, Josef Matula RIP.

Aaahh, fond memories of many childhood Friday evenings spent in front of the telly .

This version here seems to be some kind of readio remix as it´s rather poppish. There were various slightly different title themes that had been used over the years, some of them very electronic in an almost TD "Streethawk" kind of style and another which was very much reminiscent of Doldinger´s own "Constellation" album (think of the closing title "Time Signature"). I´d love to hear these again.

Stephen

[ppg_wavecomputer]

I like tony's theme from scarface soundtrack.
I like that pad sound. cs-80?

[...]

Sounds more like a Jupiter 8 to me. Too raspy for a CS80.

Stephen

[Micke]

Here's some interesting insider-info on the making of "Tony's Theme" from Scarface (exclusively for VSE):

German composer/arranger/keyboardist Kristian Schultze did the synth-work on "Tony's Theme", both the album version as well as the film versions of this track.

I had an email conversation with him not long before he passed away (R.I.P. Kristian) and he told me that he worked quite a bit on the scoremusic of Scarface after Sylvester (Levay) finished and left LA and Giorgio.

Says Kristian: "I scored some takes because of a lot of edits that had to be done to get a movieversion that could pass the censoring (the original version had too much slaughter in it to get the permission to be played in public cinemas!!). I stayed some month with Giorgio Moroder and worked as sub-composer,arranger and keyboarder - did the entire scoremusic for the comedy "DC-cab" and some work on "Metropolis".

The equipment used on the material he recorded for Scarface (mostly different stems/remixes of "Tony's Theme") included his own Fairlight CMI Ser.II (which he transported to Georgio's place from Munich, together with his custom library on those big disks!!!!) a hired Yamaha CS80, Minimoog and Moroder's Synclavier II. For the big pads/chords on "Tony's theme" he used the CS-80. Kristian: "no other synth was able to produce such strong fat padsounds - due to the genious filter and the individual touch-response of that instrument. I layered three or four custom made padsounds with slightly different sppeds for modulation (pwm mostly)."

"The bass sound was a combination of a sampled sound played far down of its regular sampled pitch (Fairlight) and a minimoog. I remember that I hired a CS80 because that was cheaper than to transport this heavy weight!!! The only problem of the cs80 was the tuning instability. I learnt from a Yamaha technician how to tune those 96 pots which was necessary quite often!!!

"We extracted quite a lot of stems (different remixes) of the main title of scarface where I played on - it was a 48 track (2 studers synchronized) production containing a lot of sounds which then have been mixed in different ways to fit the screen!
And yes, we used the linndrum in combination with cmi-percussionsounds."

Enjoy!




The 'raspy' intro chords in this version are most likely from the Synclavier or Fairlight. Note however that the music that kicks in after the main theme was
performed and arranged by Arthur Barrow, who played on all of the songs as well. Barrow used all analog synths at the time - Roland jp8 mostly, along with Serge Modular a bit, too.

[severen]

thank you Micke

[ppg_wavecomputer]

Thanks for sharing, Micke!

I didn´t know Kristian Schultze and the Old Boys from the Munich Maffia were involved in the creation of the "Scarface" score... I remember Schultze sold off a huge lot of instruments on eBay back in 2002, one of his two CS80s among them. I was outbid by 10 Euros, I think, and it was cheap (something around 2,000 Euros). A friend of mine bought Schultze´s Roland MC-8 which arrived in a cardboard box without any padding around. It was still working.

Kristian Schultze was also involved in the German rendition of the music to anime series "Captain Future" -- a very nice electronic score whereas the original Japanese version was orchestral. Would have been stunning if they had had YMO deliver the score...

Stephen

[Micke]

You're welcome, guys

I'd guess the Fairlight was also used for the "Aahh..Aahh..Aahh's" in the second half of the track, and the gun shot effects are probably coming from the Minimoog.

I'm not sure what gear Sylvester Levay used on the stuff he recorded for "Scarface" but chances are he used some of Moroder's synths such as
the Jupiter-8, Synclavier, Prophet 5 and DX-7. I remember that he once told me that the Oberheim system (OB-8, DMX, DSX) was heavily
featured on the "Airwolf" (The Airwolf TV-series first aired in Jan '84, a month or so after Scarface premiered) so maybe it saw some use on Scarface too.

[Micke]

Thanks for sharing, Micke!

You're welcome

I remember Schultze sold off a huge lot of instruments on eBay back in 2002, one of his two CS80s among them. I was outbid by 10 Euros, I think, and it was cheap (something around 2,000 Euros). A friend of mine bought Schultze´s Roland MC-8 which arrived in a cardboard box without any padding around. It was still working.

Thanks for that tidbit, Stephen!
yeah, that guy had a ton of synths. When I emailed with him back in 2008-2009 he still had the Fairlight CMI III.

Kristian Schultze was also involved in the German rendition of the music to anime series "Captain Future" -- a very nice electronic score whereas the original Japanese version was orchestral.

Oh I didn't know that, one learns something new every day. Besides his work on the scores to Scarface, DC.Cab and Metropolis I also like his solo albums "Expedition extra" (1983) and "Metronomics" (1986/87).

Here's some more good stuff that Kristian has been involved with back in the '80s:

Xynn
Computed man (from the album "Computed man", 1980)

Xynnthetic Lady (from the album "Dreams about reality", 1980)


Kristian Schultze solo:
"Zyklonentanz"- from a rare German radio-library music record, 1980?:

"Tour 3" (from the album "Expedition Extra", 1983):


with Demis Roussos - House of the rising sun (from the album "Attitudes", 1982)


I just love his synth-work on this record record, very powerful stuff and great arrangements!

and finally some clips from "Captain Future" (German version, 1980):

[forcedopinion]

Micke - Maybe the answer to this is hidden in previous pages but have you ever spoken with Fabio Frizzi about his gear set up in the late 70's/80's?

[Micke]

As far as I know Fabio Frizzi has used the Mellotron, Minimoog, ARP/Solina string ensemble, Rhodes ep, TR-808 and a Roland Jup-8 (which he still owns).
He had/has a great passion for the mellotron and he personally played it on his scores. The ominous sounding male voice sounds in classic horror
scores such as "Zombi 2" (1979), "City of the living dead" (1980) and "The Beyond" (1981) are from the 'Tron.

Moreover, like most other film composers, Frizzi hired session musicians (incl. keyboard/synth players) to play on his scores and Maurizio Guarini
(of Goblin fame) was the one he usually worked with in the late '70s and early '80s. Guarini's keyboard setup at the time included a Yamaha CS-80,
ARP 2600, Prophet 5 rev 2 (which he bought in 1980), Korg VC-10 vocoder, Rhodes ep and, I think, a Yamaha CP-70 (or CP-80).
Guarini played on the aforementioned Frizzi scores, however he was not available for "Manhattan Baby" (1982). On that score another musician/
composer friend, M° Gianni Mazza, performed the synth parts using the Elka synthex prototype.

Here's a couple of live photos of Maurizio Guarini from 1979 and 1980 respectively.

[Micke]

Some more synth-driven scores from Italy...

Cannibal Ferox(1981) - Music by 'Budy-Maglione' (Roberto Donati and Fiamma Maglione).
Arranged and directed by Carlo Maria Cordio:


Note that most of the music in this film was originally composed for "Eaten Alive" the year before.


Rosso Sangue (aka Antropophagus 2, 1981) - Music by Carlo Maria Cordio:

[Micke]

I very much like Jonathan Newton's synthesizer score to "Unhinged" (1982) and would love to have it on CD:




Synthesizer programming by Paul Nelson & Jim Fischer.
Equipment used: Prophet 5, Minimoog, ARP 2600, Oberheim 8-voice, Oberheim DMX drum machine,
Oberheim DS-2 and SCI model 700 digital sequencers.

I contacted Jonathan a while ago and asked him if there's any chance for a CD release but unfortunately he can't find the master tapes.

[tomorrowstops]

I very much like Jonathan Newton's synthesizer score to "Unhinged" (1982) and would love to have it on CD:




Synthesizer programming by Paul Nelson & Jim Fischer.
Equipment used: Prophet 5, Minimoog, ARP 2600, Oberheim 8-voice, Oberheim DMX drum machine,
Oberheim DS-2 and SCI model 700 digital sequencers.

I contacted Jonathan a while ago and asked him if there's any chance for a CD release but unfortunately he can't find the master tapes.

Micke! I just finished watching it - man, was that gorgeously terrible! I haven't been skulking around here lately and its nice to see this thread still KILLS it!

[Micke]

Welcome back "tomorrow"

Yeah, that movie is really bad but the same goes for many other movies mentioned in this thread. The score is pretty cool though.

[tomorrowstops]

Agreed! I'd love to have a copy of it....

I listened to some of that Russo Sangue score this morning....definitely cool - I'm going to hunt down the LP if there is one.

Also (by pure coincidence) I watched Scarface at my sisters last night. Man oh man, what a movie. I loved Tony's pad cues. Moroder's work still doesn't quite turn me on, but there were definitely moments, and overall definitely worked well with the movie.