Jean Michelle Jarre sounds

[Sendy]

It's true, there will not be a new JMJ (and to be honest, in my opinion a lot of artists making today much better electronic music than Jarre...)

But there are always things we can learn also from the old artists. Jarre was never a big sound designer and IMO he was never a outstanding composer like his father Maurice Jarre but he was some of the first artist, trying to make electronic music for the mainstream (and we know he had big success).

Some ideas we can learn from Jarre: simple effects like a phaser can make from a simple white noise a great and interesting effect (see Oxygene 4). Lot of small layers also non-tonal sounds are the glue to make a big sound.
I think today nobody will really sound like from 1974 It makes no sense to use exactly the same sounds (or emulations of this sounds) for todays songs.

- 100

I think he made some fair and valid points. When you take away the rose-tinted glasses and quite deserved hero-worship, it sometimes seems a bit excessive. Personally I believe Vangelis was the better composer and creator, he had a more mature sense of composition as well as sound design. Yet I think Jarre is way more famous, for some reason.

[do_androids_dream]

Somebody always rises to the top of a certain genre and becomes the poster boy. I think Jarre found his way there because he was good looking, had charisma and had a great ability to capture the public's imagination with his spectacular concerts. I don't like to compare him with Vangelis - I love them both equally. Yeah, I get the feeling Vangelis was way more into actual sound design - Jarre always had folks around him to program the synths and as soon as digital synths came along he was using a lot of presets from certain machines. I would argue that Jarre wrote more catchy tunes though that were very memorable (Edit - ok so I'm remembering lots of Vangelis's early tunes now... ). I think his music has more parallels with pop music.

[_leras]

Some Synthix pads :


Pads Atmos

and some Leads :

Leads

LtZ

Seriously in what way are those leads anything like JMJ?

Synthex was a JMJ synth, but Synthix VST just doesn't nail. Nowhere near on the synthex classic lazerharp....

[do_androids_dream]

hit the wrong bloody button...doh

[yessongs]

for a lot of what Himalaya did to answer the original OP question I think bigtones bank for synthmaster may also have usable fx very similar.

https://soundcloud.com/kv331synthmaster ... -signature

[kmonkey]

IMHO real art always seem simple to do - which is why it is a real art (again imho).

To all of you saying that JMJ songs and whole concept was easy to do - then go and make something better? Can we hear it? Who are you? Where?

Ahh....there is a reason no one know for you and your work and numerous and various generations of people know for JMJ work (and enjoy it)

[4damind]

Some of the closest I heard is created with Spire!
https://soundcloud.com/reveal-sound/j-m-jarre-oxygene-2

[Lotuzia]

Some Synthix pads :


Pads Atmos

and some Leads :

Leads

LtZ

Seriously in what way are those leads anything like JMJ?

Synthex was a JMJ synth, but Synthix VST just doesn't nail. Nowhere near on the synthex classic lazerharp....

Oh "the return of the son of the nephew of the anti xils crusader chapter IV"
1/ Nobody said iirc these sounds in the demos were intended to recreate some jmj parts. They are just some sounds made with the Syn'X ( ex Synthix )
2/ Did you have any experience with a real Synthex ? I presume not. Paul Wiffen, and the humble me, had a Synthex and a Syn'X side to side in a studio during several days. We made some blindtests between the Synthex and Syn'x. Sometimes eyesshut we could not distinguish one from the other. Now you'll tell me who is Paul Wiffen ? He's just the guy who introduced Jmj ( and Stevie Wonder )to the Synthex, and created many of the original Synthex presets.
We also have some testimonies of real Synthex users who declared that the emulation was very close to the original. So that in the end between their opinions, and yours, while I understand everyone is entitled to have his own opinion, I choose theirs.

Now everyone can demo the Syn'X and make his own opinion about it. As simple as that

[4damind]

Btw. there are some rumors that the Access Virus is developed after some ideas of the Elka Synthex.
Anyway, there is a chance today to replicate most of the sounds Jarre used in the past with modern synth (or emulations of the vintage synth he used). I heard also on Youtube some very authentic things where people used a real Eminent organ and I remember that FXpansion Amber (divide-down string ensemble synths) is very close to this Eminent type of sound....

[do_androids_dream]

Just as a point of interest - this guy does some very authentic covers of some of Jarre's early stuff with a virus KB. Awesome sound design.

http://www.perkristian.net/studio_viruskb.shtml

[BlackWinny]

Synthmaster demos of JMJ sounds created by Nori. These are the best I have heard so far. 


http://www.kvraudio.com/news/kv331-audi ... ster-20713

https://soundcloud.com/kv331synthmaster ... ubukata-11

 

Yes.


I own them, as I own almost all the patches made by Nori Ubukata for many of my synths (Korg Legacy Collection, FM8, all these patches bought on the website of our friend Lotuzia just a few posts above mine here) and those he made for Synthmaster, etc. His patches are probably among the rare exceptions to my preference to independent synths for each emulation.

We are far, far, far from this "Superwave Equinox"... and for much less expensive!!!

Let's make simply the calculation:

First we have this "Superwave Equinox" with its poor, poor quality.
Price : £40/€50/$63.




And now, what do we have on the side of Synthmaster?

• Of course, first the pack "Nori Ubukata Historic Synth Giants Volume 4(50presets)" containing the most famous sounds (with excellent quality!) of Jean-Michel Jarre, Wendy Carlos and Isao Tomita:
• Price: £9/€11/$15

https://soundcloud.com/kv331synthmaster ... -ubukata-2



It remains in our pocket: £31/€39/$48.

With that (or close to that), what could we buy?

• The Synthmaster player (it allows to tweak up to 8 parameters, the most importants for a beginner or for someone who doesn't want to become a soundesigner).
• Cost : £17/€21/$29 (and it includes itself already 800 factory presets!)

Result:

• the purchaser of Synthmaster player + Nori Ubukata Historic Synth Giants Volume 4(50presets)
  have immediately 800 hundred factory presets + all the 50 presets of very high quality emulating the sounds of Jean-Michel Jarre, Wendy Carlos and Tomita and an excellent little synth witch allows him to tweak these awesome sounds at his taste!
  Total of all: only £26/€32/$44!!!

And the purchaser is still winner of £14/€18/$20.

It means that he has still in his pocket enough to buy a second extension pack!!
The Nori Ubukata Historic Synth Giants Volume 1(50presets) for example, which is dedicated to the sounds of Pink Floyd and Genesis!
https://soundcloud.com/kv331synthmaster ... -ubukata-1

And even after this second pack... the purchaser is still winner!!!.

It remains in my pocket almost enough to buy a XILS 3 LE ! (excellent emulation of the VCS 3)



And all that for Windows and OSX... and in 32-bit and 64-bit!


And there will be some which will probably still prefer to take that Superwave Equinox simply because it is adverted with the name "Jean-Michel Jarre"! (who has probably never supported this synth by the way when we hear the poor quality)

[fluffy_little_something]

I love the 80s, but really, JMJ sounds so outdated somehow...

[fluffy_little_something]

While Superwave is a bit expensive by modern standards, I don't think it is poor, poor quality. It is mediocre quality in my view, mediocre quality for people with mediocre computers

[BlackWinny]

While Superwave is a bit expensive by modern standards, I don't think it is poor, poor quality. It is mediocre quality in my view, mediocre quality for people with mediocre computers

I didn't say "Superwave", Fluffy... I said "Superwave Equinox".


One of my ten preferred synths ever is... Superwave P8.

And not because of his "price" (it is free), but really because it is particularly successful, highly well designed. One of the true flasgships of the excellent SynthEdit creations.

In Mulab (an excellent DAW, like Reaper that I have also) we can create several "default configuration" (kinds of "templates") among which we can chose at each start. I have created six "Default configurations" and the P8 is in two of them in order to have it as first choice loaded immediately at the load of Mulab when choosing one of these two among my six most frequent configurations. And you can be sure... I use it very often, generally in combination with Night Flight (an awesome Eminent310 emulation for only 11 euros) and with the Korg Mono/Poly (all them are very complementary, an ideal combination).

[macmurphy]

bah.. too much advertising