Your favorite filmscores with synths in them

[gaf_thit]

"The park is mine" 1985
"The Legend"
Soundtracks by Tangerine Dream, as the other soundtracks by TD I like has been mentioned.
Can also include Main theme from the game GTA V too.

Quite liked the soundtrack to It follows and it was very effective as soundtrack.

"Laserblast" soundtrack by Richard Band and Joel Goldsmith.
Acoustic/synth hybrid. Such a great movie too


There's so many and I can't think straight today

[himalaya]

Speaking of Tangerine Dream I absolutely love their soundtrack to Risky Business. (not sure if this film has been mentioned yet).

[gaf_thit]

Speaking of Tangerine Dream I absolutely love their soundtrack to Risky Business. (not sure if this film has been mentioned yet).

Yes, that one too. Superb.

[Drogers]

Love 'The Shining music' - is that by Wendy Carlos? Don't think I've ever watched Tron, or listened to a whole Daft Punk track either actually

TRON Soundtrack was from Wendy Carlos. TRON sequel (called TRON: Legacy) soundtrack was from Daft Punk. For the record, I am talking about the soundtrack to the original, not the sequel

If you want to see how Daft Punk arranged some of the TRON Legacy music and you have Spire or ReSpire, Templates for most DAWS can be downloaded for free on the Reveal website here:

http://reveal-sound.com/store/product/T ... me_Project

[thecontrolcentre]

Assault On Precinct 13 soundtrack by John Carpenter is another favorite.

[Musicisbest]

Always liked the soundtrack work of Mark Isham.
Also, his non film stuff is also very good.

[aMUSEd]

The 2017 Ghost in the shell had some great synth music in the soundtrack

[Jafo]

Just the obvious here -- Blade Runner in particular, and maybe Ladyhawke.

[fmr]

Not exactly using synths, but the soundtrack to Forbidden Planet is still a pleasure to listen for me, and a mark in Electronic Music

[himalaya]

Just watched Oblivion (again) and was reminded of how awesome the score is. Lots of synth work everywhere, underlying the orchestration...and the end credits by M83 and Susanne Sundfør....epic.

[Jace-BeOS]

Just watched Oblivion (again) and was reminded of how awesome the score is. Lots of synth work everywhere, underlying the orchestration...and the end credits by M83 and Susanne Sundfør....epic.

As flawed as that movie is to so many people, i really liked it. I especially like the How it Should've Ended satire of it on YouTube. I didn't really think about the soundtrack, though. I guess that's another reason to re-watch it.

[himalaya]

I really liked it too. An excellent Sci-Fi movie.

[aMUSEd]

https://soundcloud.com/a-taylor/the-h-a ... l-e-chased

[Jace-BeOS]

I've been thinking about my list for this and it goes well beyond movies. So of course i have a verbose response of my own...

• "Tron" is on my list for sure. The original, with Wendy Carlos. (I did enjoy the sequel)

• John Carpenter's stuff, of course...

• Terminator and Terminator 2 by Brad Fiedel. T1 was definitely more synth-based than T2, but T2 is still probably a lot of synthesis lurking in there. The T-1000's theme, for example. It's neat to compare the two soundtracks. T1 is rather low-fi when compared to the spacious and rich T2 soundtrack, but they are both great.

I'm more interested in TV works:

• Classic "Doctor Who" drove my interest in film score, esp. in the John Nathan Turner era, starting with Peter Howell's recreation of the theme (how can you beat the original Delia Derbyshire version? He almost did!) and his score to "The Leisure Hive". All of his work was good ("The Five Doctors" esp.), but "The Leisure Hive" was a grand and thematic opener to my favorite era of the series. It's kind of Wendy Carlos-like; it really added to the story. Malcolm Clarke's soundtracks also stick with me, such as "Earthshock", which used both synths and acoustic instruments. Dominic Glynn's stuff was also cool (while his theme falls flat, lacking weight in the bass line, it's still interesting).

Classic Doctor Who has been well-regarded over the years as exemplifying both experimental synthesis and the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. The key here was the variety. Each story was scored by different people (some did many scores over the years but rarely back to back). The classic series' soundtracks went downhill somewhat when Keith McCullough arrived in the 7th Doctor era, as it was generic sample-playback keyboard sounds. They were fun in their sheer energy (Delta and the Bannermen was delicious fun), but not really great composition and little apparent synth programming. His version of the theme was kinda cool, though, once i got used to it.

The new series can't touch the classic series in terms of music (though i do dig the electric guitar version of the theme found on the DVD menu for Capaldi's second series). It lacks character. It serves its purpose, but it's often too big, too often, and lacks individuality.

• "Something is Out There" and "Airwolf", both by Sylvester Levay.
Airwolf's theme is well known and loved.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8syGlAMTKA

"Something is Out There", the miniseries, had a moody synth soundtrack (analog & FM) and some neat sound design here and there. The series did too, but also had a super-cheesy, orchhit-as-lead, "here are photos of the stars" intro for the first couple episodes (out of seven total ever made), until they replaced it with something more fitting. They did a great job with the miniseries but a poor job with the series. Levay seems to be doing orchestral work these days. I can't find an English version of "Something is Out There", so here's a German Sci-fi channel version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fTmPgRLqMFs

• "War of the Worlds", 1988 TV series. Season 1 had neat music at times. Mostly off-the-shelf sample-players (D50, Wavestation, etc; 80s synth aficionados will play "spot the factory patch" here), but it's done well. The theme (intro/outro) stuck with me most. It ran the gamut from cheesy, to serious (lots of horror themes & discordant sound), to fun (from synths, to electric guitar, to harmonica for Blues Brothers aliens). The composer appeared as a rock star in one episode, promptly disposed of by aliens. That was Billy Thorpe, for those of you who know of him as a rock legend https://soundcloud.com/toxinom

Season two was completely different; its intro was very cool, but the rest of it *wasn't*.

• "Farscape" Almost the first half of season 1 has fun & diverse music by father & son team SubVision. It traveled the gamut from synth ambient, to ethnic, to rock, and drum & bass. It's probably less enjoyable without the show, so try out the first few episodes, if you've not already seen it. SubVision was replaced by a traditional score composer (Guy Gross) shortly after. He's good, but much less character, less variety, and has recognizable stock library content instead of original composition (especially notable when it's supposed to sound like orchestral scoring- suddenly you hear a string arrangement that you KNOW is from a stock library).

• Sci-fi-comedy "Lexx" has a great variety of music done by Marty Simon. It's all sampler and sample-player synths, and it uses the well-known Symphony of Voices female voice all over the place, so it's not really for synth lovers... but it's definitely a sound of its own. The theme is cool, which is to be found in the very first scene of "I worship his shadow", after the Brunen-G battle song... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1G9erz6LXE It's a very inconsistent program in terms of quality. Cheesy and downright stupid at times, but when it's good, it's good. Marty Simon always took the music seriously, and that helps, especially in the more cinematic moments.

• All of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' soundtracks that I've heard have been excellent. I was already a NIN fan, so it was probably a given for me to like the soundtracks he did with Ross.

And then games:

• "Sylpheed" - The soundtrack requires an MT-32, is kinda cheesy, but is also just darn good space synth rock.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLF08A ... 6ipo5R3vTs

• "Portal 2" may be the best game ever; that includes Mike Morasky's soundtrack. i suspect it's more appreciated when experienced with the game. i suggested it to a friend who hasn't played the game; she wasn't taken with it. My companion has watched me play it, which she enjoys, and remarked positively about the soundtrack.

i think the track my friend tried when concluding she disliked it was my all-time favorite noise composition ("The Friendly Faith Plate" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k0uW04oswbI). If i were Mike Morasky, I'd be apt to die happy, feeling I'd done something really cool that lots of people enjoyed (because his sound design is part of the game's awesome atmosphere). But I'm not Mike Morasky. Here're all three hours worth: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y_gknRMZ-OU

• "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" might be somewhat common fare for Michael McCann's work, but i never heard him before, so Deux Ex was a fantastic experience for me, partially because of his excellent score. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tyG6YMLEWus

• Jarrid Mendelson's House Ordos music for "Emperor: Battle for Dune" is the best techno I've ever heard. If the structure/sound design in this music was common among techno variants, I'd like more techno. One article out there called one track "the best song Trent Reznor didn't write" in terms of its pop-industrial sensibility. I'm shocked that Mendelson has not done more music, at least none i can find. I would love a proper collection of all the pieces he made for this, mastered for CD. Instead i just have an MP3 game rip. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC310CFE6BA0A6281

• If you like freakish Tetris clones, try out "Tetroid 2012". It's got a totally mind-bending (and eye-murdering) glitch design. It has a cool, mostly ambient, soundtrack as well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jzUGS7jU4WQ

(Boy, YouTube is worse than Napster at this point...)

Bonus: not very synthy, more samplers and orchestra, but, Graeme Revell's score to "The Crow" (not the pop-song soundtrack) is excellent and unique. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDB52D4E93625BDB1
His score for "Until the End of the World" is also great (again not the cool pop-song collection), as was the Dead Calm score (especially "In flagrante delicto", from when Revelle was in SPK https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PSCPL0e7498). Revell has gone mostly generic scoring these days.

I could keep listing stuff i like (lots of what people posted here), but this is the stuff that's had an impact on me and this post is too long... Hopefully some of this is of interest to others.

[Numanoid]

• "Something is Out There" and "Airwolf", both by Sylvester Levay.
Airwolf's theme is well known and loved.

Thumbs up for the Airwolf theme