Styx "Come Sail Away" synth sound

H2oskiphil

H2oskiphil

It needs more cowbell!
I know the original was done on an Oberheim SEM 4 Voice...which are REALLY expensive pieces of synth history. Has anyone had any experience trying to recreate that sound on something a little less expensive? The synth behind the second verse will always stand out in my mind as the first synth that I heard and went "WOW!!!!!". I still love that sound...
 
It had all those octaves stacked up, only synth I know that would do that is a Roland SH-7 - they're probably cheaper than the Ob, though.

How about grabbing your favorite analog modeling virtual synth (I like the Model E), tripling the midi track, transposing the other two tracks up an octave and two octaves (or 2 and 4), and then mixing levels?

Or if you have midi hardware synths, you could do the same thing with your midi tracks, and just record audio one track at a time.

BTW, I think I hear some slapback echo in there too...
 
Sorry to revive an old thread, but I've always wanted to know the synths on this track and have never got a definitive answer. Most theories I've heard are that the shimmering sound before the solo starts is either an ARP Omni or (more likely) an ARP String Ensemble, (with a chorus of some sort? I've come close on a Quadra using its onboard phaser and the strings which are Omni strings) and the solo being an ARP Odyssey not an Oberheim 4 voice. Anyone care to comment. BTW the Korg Mono/Poly had four VCO's which could be played in unison, and if you ever so slightly detuned them the sound was incredibly thick. I sold one a while back for way too little money, (the rubber on the keyboard switches had shrunk and I had trouble finding parts) but damn I regret that.
 
All I know is that it's a beautiful song. When I was a teenager, I used to sing on the final interlude going into the final chorus "I thought that they were angels, but to my surprize/ they turned out to be demons that worshipped shepheds pies....."
My lyrics have improved a bit since the early 80s.
 
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