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Keyboard magazine article about Steve Winwood sound


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In my head there was a keyboard magazine article about recreating the Steve Winwood lead sound, but I can"t seem to find it. Yes it did bring my to the hilarious Nord thread, so I had a good laugh. But still curious to that article, if it even excise and I didn"t make it upâ¦

Rudy

 

 

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It was a Multimoog. He also played all the instruments on the track (whole album if I recall correctly). And the tambourine was an actual tape loop. Different Era, for sure. I still have the issue of Keyboard (might have been CK back then). May try to dig it up...

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It always pains me when we are faced with the realization that we can't link to online articles/interviews from Keyboard, nor any of my and others columns. Here's is the main text from my Art Of Synth Soloing column when I covered Winwood's sound:

 

The Sound

Mitchell Sigman did a great column on this back in the June, 2006 issue, entitled 'If You Hear A Solo, Take It', which we have reposted online for you to peruse. This column is also included in his very cool book 'Steal This Sound' from Backbeat Books. The gist of the sound is a dual oscillator setup with both waveforms set to pretty narrow pulse waves, with little to no detuning. On most analog/virtual analog/modeling synths this is achieved by using a Pulse wave and using a pulse-width parameter set to below 50% (around 20% is best), so it is more narrow/nasal compared to the pure square wave you would get at 50%. The filter is open around 75-80% and you"ll want to dial in a bit of resonance, maybe 20%. A simple 'organ' envelope (instant on, full sustain, instant off) for the amp and you"re pretty much there.

 

Mitchell"s column teaches how to do this on a Prophet-5 (real or virtual), as Winwood used one extensively at that time. But reading interviews from that time (like the June "81 Keyboard), Winwood clearly stated that he used a Multimoog for the solo in 'While You See A Chance'. He also told Musician Magazine in October 1982, 'the Multimoog is where I get the effect that everybody thinks is a saxophone'. That should put to rest any Internet chatter that it was a Minimoog, or even a DX-7, which he did use later in concert. Digging further, a friend of mine, Bill Busch (burningbusch on the Keyboard Corner and Korg Forums groups) feels that adding a touch of Pulse Width Modulation to one of the oscillators helps give the note attack more interest, and this was possible on the Multimoog (and the Prophet-5), by routing an envelope generator to the PWM of one of the oscillators (so the effect is not too pronounced). Most modern synths offer modulation routings that would allow this: create a gentle ramp down envelope shape (see Fig. 1) and use that to modulate the level of the PWM with a positive amount, so the effect happens instantly and fades away gently. How gently? That"s up to your taste/ears: too fast and it sounds like a 'thwack', too slow and your sustained notes might sound too animated/detuned. Experiment with the envelope to PWM modulation amount as well.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jerry

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Thanks Jerry. I though it was your article, but wasn"t sure. It is the envelope modulating the pulse width which is the trick. I did it with an LFO and it didn"t sound right. Also tried modulating pitch with env (classic blip), also did"t sound right. Env to pulse width is the trick.

Rudy

 

 

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Thanks Jerry. I though it was your article, but wasn"t sure. It is the envelope modulating the pulse width which is the trick. I did it with an LFO and it didn"t sound right. Also tried modulating pitch with env (classic blip), also did"t sound right. Env to pulse width is the trick.

 

Great - glad it helped. And props to Bill Busch for his great insight.

 

:cheers:

 

Jerry

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