Hey all, I am kind of a new user, i recently got a Yamaha S08 synth. The first thing i wanted to do was recreate the synth parts on the Who staples Won't Get Fooled Again, Who are You, and Baba O'Riley. I can't seem to get any such sounds. Could anyone clue me in if I am missing something? What kind of effects/equipment did they use?

Ah....the WHO. IMO, probably the greatest Rock & Roll Band ever, and Roger Daltry's scream on "Won't Get Fooled Again"...the absolute best.

I once read an article on the production of Baba O'Rielly. It mentioned an ARP synth. whether that's fact or not I can't be sure, however, depending on the capabilities of your S08 (I'm unfamiliar with it), it may be possible to come pretty close.
I've already had to build the synth effect for that particular song, on my T3, so I would imagine, if you've got full editting and parameter capability on your YAM, then you should be able to build it from scratch with some experimentation.
Don't be afraid to get into your unit and experiment with it, find out ALL it's capabilities and limitations.
Hey..when in doubt...undo...
Good Luck.
btw: I've been playing WHO material since 1967....and I'm still playing it.
Their material definitely stands the test of time.
They must be making great residuals from all the CSI shows out there right now.
Oh...I heard on the radio that today was Pete Townsend's BD.
...Once again..Good Luck with your endeavours.

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...shboom

[This message has been edited by shboom (edited 05-19-2005).]

Thanks kindly for your advice, but unfortunately i am far too much a novice to be able to "build and effect" as you suggest. With that said, is there a good tutorial article online about how to utilise all the complex features of a real synth?

Put a call out to Gary (Travlin' Easy). From what I understand, he knows a great deal about Yamaha kbs. There are probably many other members too.
That said..Don't be afraid to experiment. Everyone has to start somewhere. The more you understand the inner workings of your instrument, the more self sufficient you'll become at building/creating what you need.
Each manufacturer has their own terminology for this and that, which is why I have chosen to stay with Korg.
Yam, Technics, Equisonic etc. owners will most likely say the same thing.
They're "comfortable" with their instrument(s).
Best of Luck.

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...shboom

[This message has been edited by shboom (edited 05-23-2005).]

I think you should call Pete.

...Townshend that is. From what I recall reading about the Lifehouse project (it's failure spawned the "Who's Next" album), it took Pete something like 5 weeks to program the Baba O'Rielly sequence. As for "Don't Get Fooled Again"... I play it live on my Hammond XK2 through a Boss PH2 (yep the guitar pedel effect) phase shifter, with the rate turned all the way down and the gain at about 50%.

At times I play it through a stereo phase shift patch I created on my Alesis Midiverb, but it is just not the same as the analog phase shift (that's where the "grawl" comes from). The down side of the Boss, is that it's only one channel, and for stage set up, that means having to re-route output lines if I want to get the full Leslie effect from other voicings.

Speaking of voicings, "DGFA" is definately played on a Hammond; and Baba is not an ARP, but I cannot recall what Pete used. It's in the Lifehouse story if you can find it.

The synth on baba o riley was in fact a lowery organ. not a vcs3.

there is more information here : http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/equip-baba.htm

unfortunately richard rowleys site is down, this used to have mp3 examples of the equipment, and a midi file for the track, which i used to create a very faithful version (sampling the individual notes from the original track and putting them on my akai s3000)


he also had a section about the who are you synth, which was infact a heavily distorted guitar, through a vcs3!

Yep, I read somewhere that it was a Lowrey - who'da thunk it. Yer average band wouldn't have been seen dead with a Lowrey. But I guess The Who would hardly be classed as average.