KVR Audio

core · Post by **core** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:56 am

Does anyone know what synth was used in Cameo's Word Up!

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:19 am

No info on the "Word Up" album as far as I can see. On the album as a whole, my guess is they use a lot of DX7 with a variety of Jupiters and Junos on top with some Prophet 5 thrown in for good measure. There may be Fairlight stuff as well. Typical synths featured on many mid 80s r&b albums...until the D50 and M1 took over.

soul_junkie · Post by **soul_junkie** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:51 am

Yeah, as said above, anything from that era you can pretty much raffle a handul of synths (see above).

Maybe have a look at NI's FM8, Arturia's Jupiter 8v & Prophet V & maybe the Korg packs.

There's a fair few quality poly synth emulations but nothing will ever beat firing up all the originals.

core · Post by **core** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:59 am

Thanks guys, I thought maybe it was the DX7 or JV1080.
Found some more info on Merv de Peyer here

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:36 am

core wrote:Found some more info on Merv de Peyer here

Erm...what's the connection? I don't get it. Searching for old Larry Blackmoon interviews would make more sense if you want to know about Cameo's gear back then.

core · Post by **core** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:42 am

Snap, you're right. Merv joined Cameo when word up was just out. Btw, you meant Larry Blackmon right?

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:11 pm

Sorry, I was never familiar with Merv. Apparently he did work on a variety of 80s r&b albums but he was never an official Cameo member. In the Word Up days it was Blackmon (without the extra "o"

), Charlie Singleton and Nathan Leftenant.

Merv de Peyer · Post by **Merv de Peyer** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:45 pm

core wrote:Does anyone know what synth was used in Cameo's Word Up!

Don't forget my beloved Casio CZ101.. Oh and my Korg Poly 6

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:33 am

Welcome to KVR Merv! Any insights you have from your affiliations with the likes of Cameo, Arthur Baker and Brenda K Starr, feel free to share

We are quite a few 80s heads around here trying to keep the decade alive and I bet we're all willing to learn of the masters of the era.
Sorry for not being familiar with your name btw

I really should have since I'm pretty much an 80s soul/funk completist in terms of collecting

Merv de Peyer · Post by **Merv de Peyer** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 3:01 pm

We used next to no sequencing on the Cameo albums. Drum machines yes of coarse. But almost everything was played live to tape. I think quantization makes everybody's playing sound the same. When I did use sequencers back then it was a Akia ASQ 10. Now I use Logic Audio (of coarse) but I'm careful about using to many of Logic's automatic features.. If you let it, it does to much of the work for you, removing both your individuality and those loverly mistakes that can make a big difference to the feel of your music.

pauleyh · Post by **pauleyh** » Thu Oct 19, 2023 11:44 pm

It was all Synclavier through that entire album everything they used in that album was top of the line.

Odd Fella · Post by **Odd Fella** » Sat Oct 21, 2023 10:45 pm

I remember I had their She's Strange album. Good times...
Simmons drums, which are also a kind of synth, basically.

Cameo - Word Up! synth