Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Analog-Umph]

Some troubles with the place of the reverb the mix, don't know how JMJ use the reverb with the technology he had at that time....but i won't give up !

Polarity just mentioned it. Just put it before the delay on your original signal. Make sure you are not stereo chorusing anything prior to that reverb and delay. That would mess it up.

On Oxygene the only true stereo he had was on:

1) Oxygene 1 Eminent bass pedals (using the Orbitone chorus on this I think?)(there is something interesting going on on this bass though, the G bass note seems to be in mono, others in stereo)
2) The clean Eminent strings on Oxygene 2.
3) Oxygene 3 birds (cheep, cheep...)
5) Oxygene 5 Eminent bass pedals
6) Oxygene 5 Eminent Trumpet/Horn Lead (stereo probably due to the strong reverb on it.)

Everything else is either mono (delayed mono on the same channel or not delayed at all, only using a little bit of reverb) or delayed to the other channel to mimic stereo width.
The reverb on certain non-echoed leads makes them slightly stereo, not fully though, because the source is still mono.

[Analog-Umph]

Yes the O2 flute is definitly not the mellotron. I think there was a mistake since Live In your Living Room when everyone saw Dominique playing this part on flutotron...

Yeah there is that little part where the Mellotron comes up and the sound is the Eminent.
But if you look carefully, he is still playing the Eminent after that shot, you can see he is playing something. It's that sound.

The interesting thing with that sound is how Jarre treated it in the overall composition.
He was playing the kind of melodic line with that sound that could have made the entire second part of O2 sound a little too melancholic/over-sentimental/even cheezy.
So what does Jarre do?
Instead of playing it throughout at full volume, he buries the thing so deep in the mix, it becomes this mysterious little thing, that you can't get enough of. That's orchestral composition skills for you, right there. Knowing how to and when to weave sounds in and out of the mix, to bring about just the right emotional response.

Eminent users will certainly agree about a kind of Horn preset on the eminent with chorus (i don't think it was orbitone, right ?)

About the reverb, my problem is that i don't know if i'had to use serial routing/chaining in panned delay sound, or if i use a simple reverb insert in paralel bus.

I play again and again the Equinoxe 4 Eminent string part, L et R channel separatly and i ear the following :

in the delayed/stereo channel , we could ear what's sound like a kind of queue reverb effect of the mono channel

OR

maybe a kind of pan issue (maybe only 90% 95% percent of the signal is panned due to the use of analog devices, but that's just a supposition ).

It's subtle and not easy to ear for non train ears, or if you don't especially focus on it.

And that's a thing i also ear on the O2 album, so there might be something but i don't really know what

It's serial alright. Insert, no bussing around.

The Eminent strings are a beauty, he uses them with reverb both on O2 and E4.
However while on O2 there is no delay, there is I think 80% panned delay on E4.
I can't remember, gotta check my mix, where I matched his panning. It's somewhere around there anyway.
The magic of the sound comes about when you put the delay on those strings. The echoed channel gets this distant quality, same yet different from the other dry channel.

[Analog-Umph]

and the ' counter melody ' a sawtooth. Matt uses the same sawtooth in his Oxygene 5 experiments.

Jarre is not using a sawtooth sound on the album. I know that Matt used it on his cover and that you can use it for your own cover, extremely filtered that is.

That's not what I recommend, I recommend building the sound up from 3 harmonics to give you the standard flute sound.

We know the sound comes from the Eminent organ and that it's additive in nature.
Only using a few harmonics to get the job done. The thing about that sound, is its movement. It's not a static sound at all.

It's sort of similar to the Oxygene 5 Trumpet/Horn sound, because both are very controlled/filtered sounds. The old organs could afford to do this, after all they had to, to compete with numerous other instruments vying for attention, so the manufacturers did everything they could to make them sound useful and unique. Much more handy work work went into them than into synthesizers. Same thing goes for most high end digital organs of today.

O5's lead for example is naturally filtered in the bottom range and across the whole spectrum to get a more acoustic-like timbre, otherwise it would sound just like any old synthesizer saw passed through a solina chorus. O5's lead is a combination of I think 3 sounds: Oboe, French Horn and Trumpet. All those sounds are very bandpass filtered on the Eminent, so they are immediately ready for use.

If you start out with a saw, just bear in mind, you're gonna need to do a lot of filtering, and even this won't suffice, because Eminent had something akin to keyboard tracking, that's what makes the filtering move across the keyboard with each note pressed. Otherwise you'd have this static filtering on one note, where its's perfect but just 2 or more notes in either direction and you already have a sound that's either too filtered or not filtered enough.

[Polarity]

On Oxygene the only true stereo he had was on:

1) Oxygene 1 Eminent bass pedals (using the Orbitone chorus on this I think?)(there is something interesting going on on this bass though, the G bass note seems to be in mono, others in stereo)
2) The clean Eminent strings on Oxygene 2.

wtf, I was doing my replica with main strings passing through SmallStone phaser and then the panning delay trick...

[Polarity]

The Eminent strings are a beauty, he uses them with reverb both on O2 and E4.

Sorry, but wasn't the Elka Rhapsody doing the main strings part of Equinoxe 4?!?

[Analog-Umph]

On Oxygene the only true stereo he had was on:

1) Oxygene 1 Eminent bass pedals (using the Orbitone chorus on this I think?)(there is something interesting going on on this bass though, the G bass note seems to be in mono, others in stereo)
2) The clean Eminent strings on Oxygene 2.

wtf, I was doing my replica with main strings passing through SmallStone phaser and then the panning delay trick...

No small stone on Oxygene 2 strings, only reverb. And I think also some eq to make them softer, less string-like, slightly more pad-like.
(except for the beginning phased strings, which are really the end of Oxygene 1. )

[Analog-Umph]

The Eminent strings are a beauty, he uses them with reverb both on O2 and E4.

Sorry, but wasn't the Elka Rhapsody doing the main strings part of Equinoxe 4?!?

Noooo!
Where did you get that from?

It's pretty much general knowledge that Eminent is Jarre's main instrument for strings on Oxygene and Equinoxe.

[Polarity]

Noooo!
Where did you get that from?

Actually here:
http://www.jarrography.free.fr/details_ ... _equip=116
I know that database site is known on this forum.

And maybe I read it also in some topic here on blahblahcafè?

uh, and I'm not talking about the chorus sound of Equinoxe 4,
but just the long strings part.

Wasn't JMJ using it in the original E4 musical video for that part?

I didn't begin yet my Equinoxe 4 replica (I just have the cover I did before 1998...)
so I haven't check the sound A/B comparison...
but I had Elka Rhapsody sound on JV1080 and by memory it seemed to me close to the album track.

So I thought it was the one to use.

[Polarity]

Yes the O2 flute is definitly not the mellotron. I think there was a mistake since Live In your Living Room when everyone saw Dominique playing this part on flutotron...

I saw that concert recently, so perhaps that's why I had in my mind Mellotron Flute playing that Oxygene 2 part.

[Analog-Umph]

So I thought it was the one to use.

Forget about the Elka bro. In that video Jarre wasn't playing live, he had the tape playing back his album, while he mimed. He is just pressing the keys on the Elka, trying to look better than he already does.

Also that link makes no inference whatsoever of the Elka being used in E4.

Be careful of falling for quick impressions, without doing further research. Thinking that just because Jarre is using the Minimoog in these recent Oxygene concerts, he must have been using it in '76. The same thing with that flute sound. Look at the album sleeves, look at the pictures of Jarre's equipment around that time.... Look at what people have said in forums! Look at the Equinoxe 4 music video, is that how he composed it? Absolutely not!

The inherent difference between the two instruments makes the case for one self evident.
Mentioning the Elka in this context would be like saying Jimmy Hendrix was a water polo swimmer.

[Beelooo]

Analog, thanks very much for your explanations !

That's exactly match to what I though.
Now I can go forward.

@Polarity ==> If you use VST in addition to reason, I recommend theCROMINA VST for the EMINENT string sound.

You won't regret it !

[Analog-Umph]

Good recommendation that ^

Actually, as far as software is concerned there really is no perfect Eminent emulator, they have some ways to go yet...

As far as I'm concerned, it's a tie between these 3:

1) http://www.loomer.co.uk/string.htm

If anyone gets this one, I've created a massive free soundset for it, which has excellent string/pad/lead sounds in it.
This is the most versatile string synth right now, with many wide ranging uses, other than just your standard Solina sound.


2) http://www.native-instruments.com/index ... tchid=6747


3) http://music.service-1.de/html/cromina.html

[Polarity]

Forget about the Elka bro. In that video Jarre wasn't playing live, he had the tape playing back his album, while he mimed. He is just pressing the keys on the Elka, trying to look better than he already does.

LOL JMJ miming? of course, one of his "specialties" ... or perhaps not
I re-watched on youtube a video of Equinoxe 4...
for sure miming isn't one of the things that JM makes well.
Anyone here attended by chance to Twelve Of The Dreams concert?

Thank you Analog for your advices.
I trust you. I will perform E4 replica with Eminent then,
however Rhapsody doesn't sound bad on its own.
I will use it maybe for my future projects as alternative sound.
So... Elka Rhapsody was used for something else on Equinoxe album at least, or was just standing in his studio and used only for miming?

About the Minimoog, well I know he didn't used it till now.
JMJ always preferred the ARP2600 to it... (of course because ARP initially stole the Moog ladder design for their filters )

@Polarity ==> If you use VST in addition to reason, I recommend the CROMINA VST for the EMINENT string sound.

You won't regret it !

Thanks for the VST suggestions!
THAT Reaktor one I didn't know about at all...
I just knew the one already inside the library...

Actually I found myself confortable with this one for Kontakt (that I use a lot):
http://www.hollowsun.com/HS2/products/strings/index.htm
the Eminent 310 sounds very good... and I can modify also all the ADSR envelope entering the Kontakt parameters inner editor.
At 15 UK pounds it's a great deal, considering it has sounds from five (six) vintage machines.

PS: I don't use Reason at all usually. Just have it because years ago I collaborated with a friend for a Trance album and he was actually working almost only with Reason at that time,
so I was forced to integrate it into Cubase.

[Analog-Umph]

however Rhapsody doesn't sound bad on its own

hell no, that's why Vangelis used it

So... Elka Rhapsody was used for something else on Equinoxe album at least, or was just standing in his studio and used only for miming?

It doesn't say so. Probably just a miming friendly instrument. We see it at Plaze de la Concorde concert, that's about it. It's safe to assume that he got equipment for free back then (at least after the success of Oxygene) as a promotional thing from those companies. Or he was just trying different instruments.. (usually finding out that what he already had was superior.)

OXYGENE Instruments Used:

- ARP 2600
- Eko Computerythm
- Eminent 310
- EMS AKS
- EMS VCS3
- Farfisa Organ
- Mellotron
- RMI Harmonic Synthesizer


EQUINOXE Instruments Used:

- ARP 2600
- ARP Sequencer
- Elka 707
- Eminent 310
- EMS AKS
- EMS VCS3
- EMS Vocoder
- Korg Polyphonic Ensemble
- Matrisequencer
- Mellotron
- Oberheim Two Voice SEM
- Oberheim digital sequencer
- Rythmicomputer
- RMI Harmonic Syntheziser
- RMI Keyboard Computer
- Yamaha CS-60

[Polarity]

Yes right, I haven't check the albums covers recently to check if Rhapsody was there or not.
My fault.

I remember an advertize on a musical instruments magazine in late '80s with Jarre endorsing the Elka 77 (if I remember right the model, that was a mere clone of Yamaha DX7).
So I would not surprised if JM got from them the Rhapsody before as a gift for some endorsment after Oxygene success.
I was too young at that time, wasn't reading musical magazines and haven't discovered his music yet.

What I'm also trying to make is a doc-txt file with complete list of what instrument played which part inside single tracks.
I know, it takes some time and research...

PS: Minipops is missing in your lists... but we know he used it