Is this a classic 80s synth piano sound?

[andrew732]

I have a mystery sound that I'm very interested in, but I can't identify. It sounds a lot like an 80s-era synthesized attempt at a very percussive or maybe plucked acoustic piano sound, but as always with these things, I could easily be wrong. Here is a brief clip with some examples:

https://soundcloud.com/andrew-yancy-910 ... y-keyboard

The recent Ariana Grande/Max Martin song "Bad Decisions" uses a similar sound right at the start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVTxmZOfOKQ

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[tehlord]

It's from the Korg M1

[andrew732]

It's from the Korg M1

Wow, not only are you right, but I'm embarrassed that I didn't know how important the M1 was to music in the 80s and 90s. I'm listening to some demos, and almost every patch I've heard so far is instantly recognizable. In fact, now I know the main reason that this particular keyboard sound has been stuck in my head for 25 years: it's the sound used for the piano riff in Madonna's Vogue. It's crazy how obvious it is now that you've pointed out where the sound comes from. Thanks very much!

[K-Bee]

Korg M1, Yamaha DX7 and Roland d-50 - that's all you had to use in the late 80s. Preferably factory presets too
I absolutely love that stuff and frequently use the M1 vst, a Hardware DX7 as well as the wealth og D-50'esque sounds in my Roland d-XV5080 module.
Unfortunely, no d50 plugin exists and probably never will.

[andrew732]

Korg M1, Yamaha DX7 and Roland d-50 - that's all you had to use in the late 80s. Preferably factory presets too
I absolutely love that stuff and frequently use the M1 vst, a Hardware DX7 as well as the wealth og D-50'esque sounds in my Roland d-XV5080 module.
Unfortunely, no d50 plugin exists and probably never will.

It does seem like a simpler time, for sure. I picked up the M1 vst, and if it wasn't for the fact that I would be too self-conscious sounding like I'm stuck in 1990, it almost feels like the ideal synth to me: plenty of choices and flexibility, but not insane amounts. It constrains me in just the right way.

Don't get me wrong, I love playing with state-of-the-art stuff, and I've had years of fun messing around with sound design. But now that I've started to get serious about actually making songs and productions that other people might want to hear, it often seems like the newer stuff is either overwhelming (Reaktor, Omnisphere) or highly specialized (Diva, Serum). Out of curiosity, what modern soft synths do you (or anyone reading this thread) use as your go-to source of basic, usable sounds?

[Zexila]

Out of curiosity, what modern soft synths do you (or anyone reading this thread) use as your go-to source of basic, usable sounds?

Not modern or synth, but factory/stock library/sounds from EXS24 sample player in Logic and other stock synths (ES1, ES2, EFM1 etc.)

This is a small Teaser for my upcoming Synthesis Tutorials ! The challenge was to recreate almost all sounds using the Logic Pro internal Plugins/Synths, no external Plugins have been used !I´ve managed to recreate the original sounds almost 1:1 using the mainly ES2. The rest comes from the EXS24. The Left Bass sound was the hardest to recreate because of the Voice Management/Allocation in unison mode of the OBX. I could have been used a OBX Plugin to make it a 100 % but that is not really a challenge then The "Agogo" Bell sound was actually an IPhone recording of a almost empty bottle of whitewine " Riesling " In one hand I´ve used a pen to bash on it , and on the other Hand i held the IPhone as far away as i could. A little EQ, resampled it and brought it straight into the EXS24 to play it. I had lots of fun doing the playback. Use what you have, even if it´s just the built in Plugins.

Info:
Song: " Sweet Dreams " - Eurythmics (1983)
Synths: ES2 custom patches
Drums: Kik (Fairlight), Clap, Hihats (ES2) , agogo Bell (Whine Bottle) , LowTom (EXS24 Factory) ,
Noise FX: (ES2)
Piano: EXS24 factory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzfAfRzibfg

[fluffy_little_something]

Well done Now the only thing missing is the most difficult part, an intersting voice like Annie's
It is always interesting to realize how simple most synth sounds in the 80's were, but somehow it was enough.

[Aloysius]

Out of curiosity, what modern soft synths do you (or anyone reading this thread) use as your go-to source of basic, usable sounds?

PluginBoutique VirtualCZ

[xoxos]

stuck in 1990

right the korg m1 "house piano chord donka donka" stuff was more predominant early 90's than 1980's

[funky lime]

Super Audio Cart from Impact Soundworks, interestingly enough, has a lot of M1-esque sounds in the form of SNES patches. Apparently the M1 was very popular among the composers for that era of video game music. It has a lot of bread-and-butter stuff with that lo-fi, vintage sampler quality to it.

[andrew732]

Super Audio Cart from Impact Soundworks, interestingly enough, has a lot of M1-esque sounds in the form of SNES patches. Apparently the M1 was very popular among the composers for that era of video game music. It has a lot of bread-and-butter stuff with that lo-fi, vintage sampler quality to it.

Nice! Not exactly sure how it's legal for Impact Soundworks to do that, but yes, the "mystery keyboard" samples that I posted are also extracted from a SNES ROM. (Gold star if anybody can name the game. Hint: it's a Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack.) I don't know much about classic systems other than the SNES, but the way that SNES game music was generated on-the-fly using individual audio samples means that it's particularly easy to extract and analyze every sound used for any SNES game soundtrack, assuming you have the ROM dump.