Synths used in Rocky IV and other Q\'s

[soloist]

Hello everyone, since this is my first post I would like to tell a little bit about myself. I have been playing guitar for about 7 years; studying music theory (during high school and college), and learning the techniques of John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencourt and others. Since I was very young I always had an interest in keyboards and synths, actually I used to record old nintendo music from classic games like Castlevania II and Mega Man II, that probably sounds funny but either way I still enjoy a lot of that stuff. Anyway, it was not until about a year and a half ago, when I heard Vince DiCola\'s score for Rocky IV, that I decided to take up keyboards (took some class piano courses at college). Anyway, my question is, what gear did Vince use for the soundtrack? I already have a standard ROMpler type synth that does great for real acoustic sounds (it is a Roland FA-76), I am looking for a great analog or virtual analog synth that can do some sounds similar to the various leads, basses and pads that you hear in the Rocky IV soundtrack. Also, since I seem to hear some FM-like sounds in that score (maybe I am wrong), is there a modeling synth that can do analog and FM or would I be better off getting something like a Virtual Analog synth and maybe a Yamaha TX-802 (basically the module form of the DX-7II); I seem to be getting a little ahead of myself but either way any help with that would be greatly appreciated. Last question, which Vince DiCola CD would any of you recommend for someone who really enjoyed the Rocky IV soundtrack?

[Travis]

Hello soloist, welcome to the forum.

Vince checks in now and then and I\'m sure he will be glad to help. He has talked about his setup a bit here: http://www.tdrsmusic.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=TDRS;action=display;num=1100748342. Of coarse the Rocky stuff was done with different gear, mostly modular analog if I remember correctly and there may have been some DX7 in there as well. I think the new modeling synths, Virus, Nord and the like offer some of the best of both worlds. If your on a budget, I fooled around with the Alesis ION and was impressed.

[Vince DiCola]

Dear "soloist",

Thanks for your inquiry about the gear I used for my earlier film score work.  There was a TON of analog and digital gear used on the ROCKY IV score.  Most of the sounds were designed by my good friend (and synth programmer extrordinare) Casey Young, and most of the gear was Casey\'s as well.  I don\'t recall the complete list, but to the best of my recollection we used the following:

Moog Modular
EMU Modular
OBERHEIM Modular
ROLAND Jupiter 8
YAMAHA DX-7
YAMAHA TX-816 (8 DX-7\'s in a rack)
OBERHEIM OB-X
SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS Prophet VS
MOOG MiniMoog
PPG Wave
EMU Emulater 2
AKAI S-950
AKAI S-1000
ROLAND D-50 and (D-550)
KORG M1R

We used a lot of external processing gear as well, like the Lexicon reverbs, Eventide Harmonizers, etc.

Your question about which synths today can get close to the sounds we made back then is a tricky one.  Some would say some of the newer gear closely replicates those sounds, but others maintain that it\'s simply not possible to expect a software synth to
have the \'fatness\' and \'punch\' the old hardware synths have.  I still use some of the older gear like the YAMAHA DX and TX stuff, Prophet VS and D-50.  I also use an ALESIS Andromeda (good analag synth), and a KURZWEIL K-2000 (very versatile and good-sounding sampler/player) in addition to some of the newer software units like ilio\'s "Atmosphere" & "Trilogy".  (For some of my recent movie score work, my partner Kenny Meriedeth and I made use of some of the new orchestral libraries, but that obviously gets away from actual synth sounds.)

The real tricks with synth pragramming are, a) tweaking the sound to sculpt it into whatever piece of music you\'re working on (I very rarely just call up a preset) and...  b) stacking instruments and getting each one to contribute vastly different elements of the overall sound.  Some programmers choose to stack similar sounds from different instruments, thereby creating the illusion of a \'bigger fatter sound\'.  There are certainly times to do this, but we haven\'t really used that technique very much.  As in acoustic orchestration, a lot of times less is more and you can often get a \'bigger\' sound by arranging the notes and putting sounds together in such a way that you end up with a huge and very effective sound with surprisingly few notes and sound sources.

Just as one example, a lot of the bass sounds we used were made up of one synth handling just the attack ("punch") element of the sound while another synth was used for the sustaining "warm and fat" part of the sound.  We mostly used  the modular synths for that stuff and I have yet to hear any software modular synths that come close.

Some of the current synth gear I would recommend looking into would be the YAMAHA Motif (great sound and quite versatile) and ilio\'s "Atmosphere" (fairly inexpensive but make sure you have a good computer system to use it on).  As far as piano and organ sounds go, I really like this new software piano program called "Ivory" (from a company called Synthogy... a division of ilio) and Native Instruments B4 organ program.  The authenticity of both these programs is very impressive.

OK, so ends Vince\'s "Synth Programming 101"!  Credit must go to my friend Casey Young for his extremely valuable guidance throughout the many years we\'ve worked together.  I hope I\'ve addressed your questions and thanks again for your interest.

Cordially,
Vince

[soloist]

Vince, thanks for taking the time to write such an incredibly thorough response; also, thanks for sharing your insights and experiences with synth programming and arranging. I am actually quite surprised that you mentioned that some of the basses were done with one synth doing the "punch" and another synth doing the sustaining portion; I had actually thought that that is what you did when I first heard some of those bass sounds on Rocky IV.
 
I will look into some of those software based synth programs you mentioned; actually since my first post I was able to try out an Alesis Micron, Yamaha TX-7 and DX-5. I ended up getting the Micron and a TX-7 (I did not have enough room for that big DX-5; plus I can always add more TX-7 modules.  
 
I do not know if you will get a chance to read this but I was just wondering what CD of yours you would recommend to someone like me, who really enjoyed your compositions in Rocky IV? Thanks again for your help and inspiration.

[Vince DiCola]

Dear Soloist,

Regarding which CD\'s I\'d personally recommend to someone who likes my material from ROCKY IV, I suggest 2 for starters which are available here at tdrs music...  "In-VINCE-ible!" and "Falling Off a Clef".  Both feature quite a bit of soundtrack-related material (though "...Clef" leans a little heavier in that direction).  Half of "In-VINCE-ible!" consists of vocal tracks, but even some of that could fit well into the soundtrack genre.

Hope this helps.

Vince

[freddiemercury]

Dear Soloist,

Regarding which CD\'s I\'d personally recommend to someone who likes my material from ROCKY IV, I suggest 2 for starters which are available here at tdrs music...  "In-VINCE-ible!" and "Falling Off a Clef".  Both feature quite a bit of soundtrack-related material (though "...Clef" leans a little heavier in that direction).  Half of "In-VINCE-ible!" consists of vocal tracks, but even some of that could fit well into the soundtrack genre.

Hope this helps.

Vince

hello vince , are you the real vince

i have a yamaha dx7 and dx21 , i want if it\'s possible to play the song " training montage " ? thanks

my email kombattivi@hotmail.com

sono italiano e tu ? bye bye

best regards from Belgium