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Which Cues Showcase JW's Use of Synth?


Will

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6 minutes ago, alextrombone94 said:

I don't want to sound patronising but it's great to have younger people who are interested in film music. I'm 21 and I barely know anyone who are into it

 

Fantastic! I remember when I was 21. We're talking 1998 here, and internet had barely gotten off the ground. I was convinced I was the only one in Norway who was interested in film music. But then I discovered FSM and various film music places, and saw that there was at least others out there in the world. In later years, I've found a handful (or two) of Norwegian fans who share my interest.

 

It must be brilliant to be 21 and starting off the journey into the wonderful world of film music. So much to discover, and so much readily available -- to a far greater extent than when I was your age.

 

Damn, I'm old.

 

(sorry, this had nothing to do with synths).

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2 hours ago, alextrombone94 said:

I don't want to sound patronising but it's great to have younger people who are interested in film music. I'm 21 and I barely know anyone who are into it

 

I am...not 21...and I am still the only person that I know (apart from JWfaners) who constantly, and consistently, listens to, and buys, film scores. Unfortunately, t'was ever thus (sigh).

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Several people I know became familiar with the Jurassic Park theme independently of me, and one even started humming it spontaneously during school one day.

 

My former literature teacher played LOTR music during our unit on the Hobbit -- and he seemed somewhat familiar with the famous parts of Williams' output; in fact, when I told him I listened to Williams music he asked whether I had heard JP, I said no, I checked out the theme, and it may well be my favorite Williams theme now.

 

I overheard one of my friends talking to another friend and he mentioned how great the music was when Ren's shuttle landed in the opening scene. He's a fan of SW and superhero movies. While working on a short film for school he contemplated using the music for the ROTS lava duel, but in the end decided on something that I assume was a superhero cue by Zimmer or someone else at RCP.

 

But I don't know anyone aside from at JW Fan who's a true, consistent film music fan. 

 

It seems to me that there are basically three levels of film music awareness. 

 

1) Superfan.

2) Fans of major film franchises, particularly action ones, who have heard some of the major themes written for the franchise aside from in the film.

3) Know the name John Williams and maybe a couple of his most famous films but don't really care about or know anything about film music (this is probably most people).

 

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8 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

Percussion and synth, two in one

 

 

 

At 1:45 you can a very early (and low bit) occurrence of one of Williams's favourite synth requests, "low explosion." Here it is 14 years later at 0:24, ablate with greater low end and higher fidelity.

 

 

On his use of it Nixon.

 

 

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"Be Careful of Your Friend" is such an awesome cue!

 

Williams employs that low end rumble with such class. Such electronics are all over modern scores and used to an obnoxious extent.

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42 minutes ago, TheWhiteRider said:

That's all over Minority Report and WOTW too, right?

 

Yep, though for some reason my mind went straight for ROTS. It must be because it was the first post-2000 Williams score that leaked on Pianofiles.

 

 

How could I forget this cue? Absolutely awesome synth patches.

 

Recreate that now!

 

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I'd just like to thank all those here who have been so welcoming to me and helped me learn about film music since I became a member last year. It's so great to be in contact with a community equally enthusiastic about JW's music. The couple months before TFA's release were tremendous fun as we pored over every trailer, TV spot, and article in search of JW music/news, and anticipated the release together. Equally exciting was the analysis we did for months after release. BFG wasn't quite the same on the forums, as the overall excitement level here was much lower than with TFA (causing much less discussion). But it was still marvelous -- I still remember the day when I was combing through the Internet for anything JW at Cannes and I stumbled across the first bits of the BFG score. 

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Going through AOTC I think it has the most synth out of the Star Wars films... mostly a lot of synth choir, some of which is used a few different times, such as this insert here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4TAY1QZsUSYYzZzdUUteDRNcW8/view

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On 7/30/2016 at 0:04 PM, Jay said:

Exactly. How many teenagers do you think there are walking around today that have even heard of Heartbeeps, let alone heard it, let alone appreciate it?

 

Will could be the only on!

 

For the next six days, me! But after sunday.

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14 minutes ago, Muad'Dib said:

That weird synth at The Eiger Sanction's main titles (album version)

 

 

Ah yes, the 'zithering', pulsating 70s synth sound. It appears in several Williams scores at the time. Like the 'horror outburst' in JANE EYRE for the woman in the attic.

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On 3.8.2016 at 7:21 PM, Thor said:

 

Ah yes, the 'zithering', pulsating 70s synth sound. It appears in several Williams scores at the time. Like the 'horror outburst' in JANE EYRE for the woman in the attic.

That passage from Jane Eyre uses echoplex to achieve the bloodcurdling effect for those strings. Very effective.

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29 minutes ago, Incanus said:

That passage from Jane Eyre uses echoplex to achieve the bloodcurdling effect for those strings. Very effective.

 

I jump sky high every bloody time! Like that outburst in ALIENS ("Sublevel something").

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On 03/08/2016 at 5:07 PM, Muad'Dib said:

That weird synth at The Eiger Sanction's main titles (album version)

 

 

 

That's an electric organ with a 'percussion repeat' setting. Probably a combo organ like a Farfisa 110-R or Gibson G101. There's an electric harpscihord playing the 16th note fifths and a guitar (Tommy Tedesco) doubling the organ line.

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Maybe not the right place for this, but I was reading the Cinesamples description of "Randy's Celeste"[sic] and the brief quote he gave says he created the synth celesta sound (identified in this thread as serving the purpose of reducing the harsh attack of a physical celesta) for HP1, but to me it sounds the same as the one in a number of earlier Williams scores (especially some cues in Home Alone).  Thoughts?

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44 minutes ago, Gnome in Plaid said:

Maybe not the right place for this, but I was reading the Cinesamples description of "Randy's Celeste"[sic] and the brief quote he gave says he created the synth celesta sound (identified in this thread as serving the purpose of reducing the harsh attack of a physical celesta) for HP1, but to me it sounds the same as the one in a number of earlier Williams scores (especially some cues in Home Alone).  Thoughts?

 

The celeste in Home Alone is marked as "Synth Celeste", and Randy Kerber is listed in the album credits under "Synthesizer". So I presume he's just using HP1 as an example, since it's more famous for its celeste passage(s) than films like Home Alone or Jurassic Park are; he doesn't mean that HP1 was the first score to use his celeste sound.

 

EDIT: After having read the actual quote in question...it is a bit mystifying, since not only is there a clear implication that the celeste sound was tailor-made for HP, but it also implies that the same celeste sound was used for HP1-3 even though the one in HP3 doesn't sound the same as the one in HP1! 

 

 

 

(well, it is played an octave lower...but it also sounds a bit more distorted? like there's some sort of chorus effect?)

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