JUST WONDERING, NUMAN RECORDED AN ALBUM “THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE”
through which he used poly and mini moog, it,s the mini moog sound (if any one knows the album)used to open “METAL” “M.E.” and nearly all the album, ok i can recreate the polymoog faithfully, but this sound i cannot get quite right, i think it may be fed through overdrive, i’m not sure, if any one out there knows how this sound was produced, a few pointers would be much appreciated, thanks
Nuuuumannnn!!! Actually i’m seeing the Gaz perform The Pleasure Principle in November (UK tour only). i know exactly the sound you mean.
There’s three things you need to do:
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Go to dubsounds where you’ll find: a) Polymoog freaks and b) Numan freaks. The site owner Shaun knows a thing or two about Numan’s early sound. It is also home of the Polymoog Owner’s Club.
Ask your question there, although we are still searching for a real Vox Humana replacement - no-one’s really got it nailed yet (sorry to rain on your parade
). -
Get a copy of The Pleasure Principle Outtakes which has isolated tracks from the original multi-track tape. Here you can here that some sounds are actually a couple of sounds combined.
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Get an mxr phase90 pedal. It’s all over the Polymoog - the intro to Cars requires it, and it may also have been used on the Minimoogs too.
Now that you mention it i want to go back to TPP and try and get that sound myself.
PS. What synth are you trying to recreate these on?
If you find any information on the sounds, be sure to post it back here!
I’m a huge Gary Numan fan, I saw him last month in Melbourne. Top bloke. I’d love to find out any information you get on his patches/sounds!
thanks for replying. access virus ti2 im using, have nailed the vox humana, its the minimoog for “METAL” im after, nearly got it but nearly is’nt good enough lol ps where can i get the PP outtakes, i can tell you how to recreate the polymoog if you are interested, i actually posted that in my first reply to you, bu t seems to have dissapeared,
have seen numan every year since 1979, if i get any info i will let you know,
Wow, that’s dedication!
I’ve only seen him the once. The Melbourne show was the first time he’d played here since 1980. So I don’t get the opportunity that often, as I (sadly) wasn’t born when he was in his android prime. I’m assuming you live in/around the UK, so you’d be lucky enough even to see his Replicas and the upcoming Pleasure Principle shows! I’d love to hear PP performed live, it’s top quality stuff.
absolutly, it’s one of my favourite albums, yeah im based in southampton hampshire, UK, i demonstrate and sell synths for a company called Digital Village, The sounds Numan Used all those years ago, are still selling synths by the bucket load today,
k try this, there is quite alot involved getting it right, but this is the stripdown for vox humana, you need to have 2 independant LFO,s 2 oscillators set with a sawtooth, add LFO to osc 1 listen to the polymoog to get depth and rate, then add LFO2 to osc 2, basic same depth, but slow the rate down, then mix the osc’s equally, filter the sound as you see fit, the lfo’s take a bit of fiddling to get it right, but when you get it right you will hear it instantlly. hope that helps
for jamezDD73 also
It’s such a shame you did’nt get to see the fairwell concerts at wembly 1981 (cd Living ornaments 81) they were really something, they were the end of the numan/spaceman era,
I’ve seen a few vids on youtube of the 81 show.
I actually found a cd the other day of “Gary Numan: Engineers” which is a rare live cd released 2 or so years ago of GN performing in Sydney in 1980. It’s a great listen that’s for sure. I believe there were only 3000 printed, so I think I got lucky with it.
As for the Mini-moog patches, there’s a video on youtube of a guy playing the bassline of “Metal” on a Model D, I might pm him and see if he can’t spare some info on how to get that sound. I’ll post back here if I find anything out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJlI3cR4WM
Here is a link to the aforementioned video.
maybe if we look real close at the D, we can see where his knobs are!
ok ,look forward to it thanks for your time,
ps, engineers is good, i have it also,
Alright, I’ve sent him a message, so fingers crossed for a reply!
Engineers is great, I don’t own the Living Ornaments albums, so I can’t actually compare, but I really enjoy it! The cover, with Numan behind 2 model Ds is one of my favourite pictures of the good man. Being an “electro-god” you don’t often actually see pix of him behind synths, so I think it’s awesome.
yea it,s good, he actually plays synth qiute a lot on the replicas 08 dvd, as on micro music (wembly 81 gig) he played the arp odyssey for complex, thanks for researching the minimoog, im going to see GN in london in july, if im lucky to meet him again ill ask the great man himself,(
( he;ll probably tell me to sod off LOL)
Alright, I got a reply!
So hopefully this will at least get you the basic sound.
All of the oscillators are square waves (16’)
Cutoff is at 10:00 (on a minimoog, not sure what this equates too, but you can probably figure it out by ear)
No resonance
Contour is at 1:00 (again, on a D)
Envelopes have immediate attacks and short release times
And he recommends using the “Electric Mistress Flanger” to get a closer sound.
Personally, I’ve been throwing in a bit of Triangle waved LFO to the Filter, because I don’t have any flangers.
Thanks to GNeuman from youtube for the above information.
James
Numan definitely used an mxr phase90 around that era, so that might be a good alternative to the Electric Mistress.
In the youtube video i think can see that one of the oscillators is set to 32’ and he (Neuman, not Numan) switches it in part-way through.
thank you so much for your time and effort, i will transfer that info to my virus, again thanks
[quote=“jamezdd73”]Alright, I got a reply!
So hopefully this will at least get you the basic sound.
All of the oscillators are square waves (16’)
Cutoff is at 10:00 (on a minimoog, not sure what this equates too, but you can probably figure it out by ear)
No resonance
Contour is at 1:00 (again, on a D)
Envelopes have immediate attacks and short release times
And he recommends using the “Electric Mistress Flanger” to get a closer sound.
Personally, I’ve been throwing in a bit of Triangle waved LFO to the Filter, because I don’t have any flangers.
if you dont have a flanger try putting the osc into sync and sweeping the sync’d osc with your triangle LFO .HAVE THE OCTAVE SETTING OF THIS OSC SET QUITE LOW SO THE SWEEP SORT OF GOES IN AND OUT OF RANGE BUT DOES’NT GO TO HIGH, IT HAS A NICE EFFECT WHEN IT COMES IN AND OUT OF THE LO RANGE FIDDLE ABOUT SEE WHAT YOU THINK