Roger Taylor synths question

Can anyone give some pointers as to what synths Roger (and David Richards) used on Fun In Space and Strange Frontier? It would be logical to assume he used the same synths as were used on Hot Space and The Works, but on his solo albums I hear quite a few sounds that I couldn't immediately place. Any help would be welcome!

Oberheim OB-X on 'Fun in Space'.

OB-X, OB-Xa, Jupiter 8, VP-330 and probably a couple more things on 'Strange Frontier'.

Thanks Seb, I was hoping you'd pick this one up. Is that informed guessing or are there sources I missed?

157 Synthesizers ;)

[QUOTE] [b]Fireplace wrote:[/b]

Thanks Seb, I was hoping you'd pick this one up. Is that informed guessing or are there sources I missed? [/QUOTE]

Neither.

Any further knowledge you could share on this subject would be greatly apprreciated. I am trying to do some covers from those albums for my own educational purposes (love the production and want to more or less figure out how they built the sound).

[QUOTE] [b]Arnaldo "Ogre-" Silveira wrote:[/b]

157 Synthesizers ;)[/QUOTE]

No wonder he didn't list them :-)

I wish there'd been an in-depth feature at the time, with detailed footage and photographs of each guitar, each bass, each keyboard, each mic, each lead, each plectrum... but in reality what we've got is what we've got.

Roger had reportedly bought the OB-X for his first solo album, so it makes sense to think he may have played it there.

The rest is taken from what the band had around those days. Some of those synths may have been Roger's, and/or used by him when recording:

- A VP-330 which can be seen from 1982-ish onwards.
- An OB-Xa which can be seen in 1982 and then again in 1984.
- A Jupiter 8 which was their main one for 'Hot Space'. It can be seen in photographs, videos and mentioned in several interviews.
- A Fairlight CMI-II which appears at Musicland Studios in the making of 'One Vision'. It also appears in some photographs from the Record Plant in 1983, which suggests Roger (and David) may have played it on the 'Strange Frontier' album.

So no, it's not like I went there while the album was being made and took note (I wish!), but it's not like I randomly chose some synth makes and models and listed and assumed I was right because I was me and that was it.

Thanks again for elaborating, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall there. The Fairlight might actually account for some of the more acoustic type-sounds (marimba etc.) that Oberheim and JP-8 won't produce.

If you manage to find what was used where, that'd be fantastic. I'm definitely out of my depth there.

I will share any info I manage to get, but I expect it to be scarce since Roger is far from a technohead and David Richards unfortunately is no longer with us.

[QUOTE] [b]Fireplace wrote:[/b]

...love the production [/QUOTE]

That's a good observation. Strange Frontier sounds better than any Queen album released after Flash Gordon. It makes The Works and A Kind of Magic sound muddy in comparison.

[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Fireplace wrote:[/b]

...love the production [/QUOTE]

That's a good observation. Strange Frontier sounds better than any Queen album released after Flash Gordon. It makes The Works and A Kind of Magic sound muddy in comparison.
[/QUOTE]

Agree completely, the album retains a nice balance of clarity and warmth. I quite like The Works as an album but production wise they just try too hard to sound gritty where they would have been better off just serving the songs. Probably a reaction to the harsh critisim of Hot Space.

Strange Frontier on the other hand is much maligned as being "the poor man's Bruce Springsteen", which is an absolute unjustice in my opinion. The combination of rock music and social commentary delivered with a husky voice is not reserved exclusively for musicians from New Jersey.

These all have samples of the Fairlight ORCH preset: Killing Time / Love Kills (extended) / RT Olympic Theme / Keep Passing The Open Windows (extended)

Thanks Ian! Is that just the Orchestral Hit sound or can you identify more Fairlight in those songs?