Best Synth Solo Ever Recorded // Note by Note
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Published 2024-06-14
In 1979 Gary Numan toured 'The Touring Principle' in which Billy Currie played a stunning synth solo during the performance of On Broadway, which appears on the Living Ornaments 79 album. This is widely considered as one of, if not, the best synth solos ever. It's musically accomplished and technically brilliant moving from organic orchestral style tones to worm hole ripping screeching electronic sync tones and back again.
It's a wonderfully emotional and very clever performance. In this I break it down note by note and show each of the tweaks on the synth (the Arp Odyssey) to get those dramatic changes in timbre.
**and it's got a copyright notice**... so must be pretty close!
You can hear the original version here:
• On Broadway (Live)
GForce article on Billy Currie
www.gforcesoftware.com/blog/billy-currie/
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► Clubbing TV From the Studio:
• From The Studio
0:00 A Little Bit of History
2:55 What's So Good About It?
5:22 How to Recreate the Basic Tone
7:23 Breaking Down the Solo
14:07 THE SOLO - Putting it All Together
#demo #synthesizer #music
All Comments (21)
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Billy Currie = the reason i have a room full of synths.... I bow in the presence of a genius.
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You’ve got to be joking. Currie’s solo on Ultravox’s The Voice is truly hair raising. He was a master of the Odyssey.
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My favourite Billy Currie solo is on Sleepwalk by Ultravox also on an Odyssey
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I love that synth solo I'm a huge Gary Numan fan, and have been since he started way back in 1978
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Please, many more of these "Note by Note" videos!! Great!
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Currie is the reason many of us fell in love with the Oddy , certainly for me growing up in this era anyway - really f'in nice work Matt
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I love the clean, timeless design language of ARP products.
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This is awesome! Recreation of classics with sound design on the original synths! Looking forward for more … Thanks for sharing!
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Awesome rendition keep looping the final part and love the idea of superimposing Gary Numan on your synth keep up the good work thanks
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Great work. One of Billy’s skills was ‘playing’ the synth, i.e. not just the notes, but adjusting the synths parameters as he played. There’s a picture of one of his ARPs when he sold it, and front panel was worn down in specific places where he used them so much as he played.
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Ahh, that was a great recreation. Also it's nice to be reminded why the Odyssey is on my want list :) Thanks.
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Love these videos keep em coming.
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I love seeing the gear we love featured in an expressive, musical way like this. Beautiful!
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Simply Beautiful! Well done sir! 👊
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I still have the limited edition 7” single of this that came as a freebie with the Telekon album back in 1980. To this day it is still the best live synth solo I have ever heard.
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well done! Billy Currie is one of my synth heroes.
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Big up from Brazil! Lovely work!
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I agree it’s is one of the top 3 solos. The arp with the poly Moog in background is just hypnotic. Thank you for posting this. I’m happy to see I’m not alone I’m thinking the solo was amazing
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Going to try and do this on the Hydrasynth! Nice break down!
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Woah starsky shreds too , love to see it
