Journey Key Sound Soft Synth?

schnarf2

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Dec 30, 2006
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I'm looking for a good software synth for a 80's metal Journey pad sort of sound. Anything good out there?
 
Me too, in fact, im seeking this too, because im playing in a 70´s, 80´s, 90´s cover band, and will play some journey, and i fucking love Journey, one of my favorite bands.
 
Hey man, Raised on Radio is one of my favorite CD's of all time - besides, people here admit to liking freakin' Porcupine Tree (who I love, but definitely admit are pretty vaginal at times and Steve Wilson's lyrics ugggghhhhh)
 
Off subject from the original post...but Neal Schon is (IMO) one of the most underated guitarists in rock. About the Journey synth patches...are you looking for more of the Separate Worlds synth sounds, or Raised on Radio sounds? Yes, huge Journey fan here. :)
 
Yeah, i remember that thread where a lot of guys here liked kelly clarkson or some bitch like her. Raised on Radio and Frontiers have some special vibe.
 
I'm not much of a keyboardist. But I'd think any good, modern analog synth or synth plugin should get close to the Frontiers type of sounds. And for Raised on Radio, maybe FM synthesis, like FM8? Those good old DX7 type sounds. Or early wave table synth stuff like the Korg M1? Just trying to think of what synths were out and widely used at those times. Anyone else have ideas?
 
I don't know about Raised on Radio, but Frontiers, Escape, and Departure are utterly classic albums. RoR was OK for me (although I did see them on that tour as an impressionable 11 year old :grin:)
 
I was mainly just giving you guys shit. I own their greatest hits album and I will say Neal Schon has got to be one of the most underrated guitarists to come out of the '80's. He's got a LOT of melody and feel to go along with his flash.
 
Yeah, Schon's style is so immediately identifiable (I love his vibrato especially, hot damn), and I really love RoR because of how rockin' and synth driven it is, totally purging their classic rock/blues rock roots (I can't listen to anything before Jonathan Cain replaced Gregg Rollie on keys). I feel like Escape and especially Frontiers have some moments (Separate Ways being one of the greatest songs of all time IMO), but also some real stinkers (Chain Reaction, Troubled Child, and Back Talk, anyone? :Puke:)
 
Oh well, not gonna argue with you. :) I like basically the whole Frontiers album, except Back Talk. But I'm biased because that album came out when I first really started getting into music and playing guitar. Yes, I'm old. :lol: I'll give you this though, I just about :Puke: when Open Arms comes on the radio. :shudders with convulsions:

Anyone else have ideas for the synths?
 
Definetly try the FM8 or FM7. The 80's digital stuff really has a trademark sound.

Anything that models the Roland JX 3p, D50, Jupiter8 or the Yamaha DX and SY series should get you that 80's tone.

there's a few soft synths from NI that use FM synthesis, but any you can find using it should give a bit of the old digital magic.
 
I've gotten some very convincing 80s key sounds out of Reason, but as others have said, NI FM8 is a good bet, as I'm sure Journey used the Yamaha DX7 on their stuff. There's a lot of other popular synths from that period they may have used too, such as Moog and Prophet 5. Overall though I've found that while Reason may not get you 100% accurate 80s synth sounds, it will get you so close it won't matter, and will even sound better in many ways.

A previous Backmask incarnation did metallized covers of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" and Berlin's "Metro" for an 80s theme show a few years back, I programmed all the synths with Reason, and it ended up sounding amazing, in many ways cooler than the original synth parts.