a-ha The Sun Always Shines On Tv

[florbo73]

Hi everyone!

I like so much the strings bass line of this song, it's very complicated and I don't know what is the synth/sampler that produces the sound, I readed it's a DX patch, some ideas for that?

I tried to emulate a part of the song using a Marcato Strings sample, from Emu Emulator II.

This file contains an instrumental live intro of Simple Minds song with marcato strings and an extract of 'The sun always shines on TV' by a-ha

https://soundcloud.com/florbo73/marcato ... ii-sampler

...but for the bass line I think it's not the right sound

[Compyfox]

Keep in mind, we're talking 80ies.

So a couple of other things to consider:
a) possible tape sound
b) under-produced(!) sounds - read: not ran several times through a console but actually "cut away" frequencies that are not needed
c) sh*tload of reverb


I have a love-hate relationship with that album. If you have a sibling that was all high on A-HA in the 80ies, you couldn't hear it anymore after a while (it was also on heavy rotation on the radio). But after all these years, it's still great synth pop. And compared to music today, the 80ies and 90ies were just more memorable musically.

BTW: Even English Wikipedia (as if that is a valueable source *cough*) mentions Yamaha DX7, PPG Wave, Roland Juno-60 and sampled instruments (probably early EMU or AKAI).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Al ... nes_on_T.V.

[planetearth]

Aha, was always a great band, even til there recent split a few years ago .

I've heard the Dx7 and Juno 60 synths mentioned in interviews ..

I agree.

Got to love their songs.

And yes, Mainly a DX7, Juno-60 and a PPG Wave.

I can't add much to this, except to say that a-ha used that oboe sound often, in several songs. If it wasn't that exact sound, they at least used oboe in several other tunes, over other albums.

That said, I've always loved a-ha, tried my own version of "Take On Me", and Morten Harket has one of the best voices ever recorded.

Steve