Kate Bush - Running up that Hill - main synth sound

[Peter Conz Connelly]

Desmond, I loaded in the SarahIIx (Arrr) sample into my Series III, added a HUGE reverb with massive decay, played C/D# then faded up the sound... it sounded uncanny..

Not sure what that means - do you mean it sounds like the part on the record, or just that you really liked it? If the former - audio clips or stfu

Hi Desmond,

I got it to sound very nearly as close as the record. I can't remember what reverb I used, this was in 2003 or something, but I did assign the Series III filter to LPF the breathy vox. It wasn't exact but I came to the conclusion even if Kate tried to replicate it today, she'd get close but not exact. There are probably a lot of factors that contributed to that sound, I can also hear tape hiss.

I'd imagine it was mostly IIx... but them drums... I aint heard them on any II libraries. Maybe Fairlight recorded them from KB, from that track, and added them to the SIII libs

I really did like your exampled posted... VERY impressed with how close they sound.

P

[muzines]

I got it to sound very nearly as close as the record. I can't remember what reverb I used, this was in 2003 or something, but I did assign the Series III filter to LPF the breathy vox. It wasn't exact but I came to the conclusion even if Kate tried to replicate it today, she'd get close but not exact. There are probably a lot of factors that contributed to that sound, I can also hear tape hiss.

Interesting - I tried all the usual suspects for that lovely mid character (all the other string samples, Arr1 etc), and the *only* sound I could get it with is the Cello2 sound, the same one Kate said she "wrote the song around" - because the tail of the sample is what does it through a long reverb.

It's funny, because that record was one of my all time fave and important "pop" tunes, and the characteristic of the opening and closing pad is *sooo* burned into my consciousness because every time it's played it's the first thing you hear - for me it's actually *the* signature of the track - you know, the bit of audio that instantly tells you what song is coming.

And the reason I'm confident on this is the second that Cello2 sample accidentally went through the reverb, my consciousness instantly pricked up and went "I know that!". It was quite dramatic - so much so, that if you play a different combination of notes with the exact same sound, my conscious brain ain't bothered - it doesn't take the slight bit of notice. Nothing registers. Up to the C/D# though, and straight away it comes to life and goes "Hey!".

And it only does this with the Cello2 sound.

Now of course it's possible that the Arr1 was filtered down to close the filter slowly, which might help get some character into the reverb (did the IIx have a filter and filter envelope on the samples? Can't remember...) I'll have a play and see if I can get close. But I'm still 99.8% sure it's Cello2, with whatever processing/reverb/freezing applied. And very noisy/grainy. *Awesome* sound. I love frozen reverbs...

I'd imagine it was mostly IIx... but them drums... I aint heard them on any II libraries.

Yeah, I had a quick listen to the IIx drums, didn't sound close, but wasn't really concerned at the time with them. Maybe a bit later I'll have a listen and see what I can hear/recreate, if we're going to definitively finish this puzzle

And yes, I am nostalgia-cly jealous of your Series III

I really did like your exampled posted... VERY impressed with how close they sound.

Thanks - like I say, I was only doing this through small cheap speakers and the sounds don't match completely - I could get them closer with some effort and critical listening/adjusting I'm sure. For me the main riff has a slightly sharper, "synthetic" quality which might be some aggressive EQ or something.

For me though the goal was to work out what it was, and I think, for me at least, I've achieved that. I'm not sure the audio examples demonstrate it as much as when you are playing around - it just feels like it's all in the right ballpark.

Great thread - this is something that's bugged me for a long time - rather surprising that it was me that ended up working it out for myself...

I like these "classic" sound deconstructing threads (SOS should do proper articles on this I reckon).

Anyone wanna have a go at the main big synth riff on Go West's "We Close Our Eyes"?

[Peter Conz Connelly]

You could be very spot on Desmond. Your examples are accurately close. I kinda hear there is something different going on with each note too. To me, it is also THE sound that I assoiciate with the track. I remember having this discussion years ago, on a Fairlight forum maybe, and the guesses at what the sound was made of were intersting. I kinda heard it somewhere in real life, can't remember what, but it was to do with something electrical (a lift / sub-station springs to mind) and I recall someone mentioning a recording of an Air Raid siren.

I do love these discussions too. The main lead riff you posted, is the closest replication I have heard yet.

Cheers,
P

[muzines]

I kinda hear there is something different going on with each note too.

On the main riff? Yeah, there's at least some FX splashing, as the top note has more delay than the other notes on the riff.

Also, the sound when played back from software samplers is a bit "weedy", especially on the upper notes - on the record it's more satisfying chunky and meaty, due no doubt to the Fairlight's playback stages, and tape and whatever processing they did.

It's also a bit wetter than my version (I wacked it through the UAD EMT Plate on a short plate setting to make it wetter and thicker, which works quite well, but could've done a little more).

Like I say, these are all differences which add up, but the core sound is that one, I'm sure. I've tried replicating this on synths on the past, and haven't got close to it - as the OP said, it has this weird attack character.

In any case, I'll say that I think the reason this sound is so captivating is not so much *what* it is, but the context of how it's used. Sometimes people get caught up on a particular sound they like in a record without realising that it's often the context which makes it so effective. So in my book, what makes the lead part so brilliant is half the mechanics of what the sound is, and half the role that riff plays in the composition/arrangement - and the two together make a really effective hook for the track.

Good stuff!

[Peter Conz Connelly]

I kinda hear there is something different going on with each note too.

On the main riff?

No, with the C/D# Pad. Might just be separtion. The Fairlight would throw a note out at each output channel (each card was monophonic) which could be routed and panned independantly on a console so maybe this is what I'm hearing... or it could just be the movement of the note played at a lower pitch. The D# sounds smoother.



P

[muzines]

No, with the C/D# Pad. Might just be separtion. The Fairlight would throw a note out at each output channel (each card was monophonic) which could be routed and panned independantly on a console so maybe this is what I'm hearing.

Oh, I see what you mean - dunno, I'll have to defer to your experience on that one. That's a level of detail I hadn't got to

[Peter Conz Connelly]

Ahhh, I just love a bit of Bush

[muzines]

I had a quick look at the drum situation. Obviously, making those early drum machines sound good (as opposed to dull, flat, dead and monotonous) requires a fair bit of skill. The drums on the record are pretty good sounding, and quite heavily processed.

Using the IIx samples I was able to get close to the kick and snare - the snare is quite squished and fattened on the record, and liberal use of the UAD 1176LN, EMTT140 and the SSL Buss Comp was getting it close. The record *could* imho have been using those samples.

But I couldn't get anywhere near the tom sound - none of the toms or tom-like sample in the IIx set I have could get me in the ball park, evening with quite a bit of processing. Can' rule it out, of course, we never know what they did. They might just have tried the library toms, thought they were rubbish, and sampled their own toms and used those.

Or the drums might be coming from something other than the Fairlight. Difficult to say - and I don't recognise the drum character from any of the drum machines around up to that point (and I'm fairly familiar with them - although I didn't look exhaustively).

I don't have any of the factory library from the III, so can't comment on those. I don't even think I've heard them (not in a record, I mean.)

My vote is still I think it was the IIx used on that record, and not the III, for all the sound quality reasons we've already gone into. Plus if Kate Bush got her own Fairlight, she was using someone else's in 1984, and there are plenty of pictures with her and a IIx (but not a III) - so I can't see buying a IIx for fifteen grand and then a few months later buying a III when it came out for £40K in time to use it on RUTH.

So, reasonably confident it was a IIx used. But don't know the source of the drums definitively yet.

[Jonnypopisical]

I did a very quick mock up of the track and loaded in the Linn 9000 drums I had on EXS24 - the toms, kick and snare all sounded like the same (unprocessed) samples - the toms in particular were identical - it was the first samples I loaded - I think I just got lucky! I'l be working on the track proper in a few weeks time....

[muzines]

Hmm interesting... again, the kick and snare were close (after some judicious compression) but I don't think it's the actual samples. It's just how drum machine kicks/snares sounded back then - low, chunky, and once you've bigged em up and swathed them in lashings of reverb a lot of the individual character gets changed and evened out anyway. I think with any of these boxes you could get a kick/snare sound that most people would think is the same without critical listening.

the toms, kick and snare all sounded like the same (unprocessed) samples - the toms in particular were identical

The toms again I couldn't get near, at least with a quick play and my Linn9000 EXS/Ultrabeat kit

Audio clips please

In addition to the 80's drum machine vibe, there's also a slightly synthy/Simmons-ey quality to the drums as well (it's not a Simmons kit, but it has a kind of synthdrum-ish quality in there.)

Listening to the record, I think there's two sets of toms panned left and right anyway, one brighter and one darker...

Anyway, do post your track when it's done, be interesting to hear how successful you were with it...

[Jonnypopisical]

You may be right - I'll have too listen again.....

I'l post a link up when it's done - although it's not going to be a straight copy of the original (what's the point) but hopefully Bush fans will approve.

JP

[Peter Conz Connelly]

... But I couldn't get anywhere near the tom sound - none of the toms or tom-like sample in the IIx set I have could get me in the ball park, evening with quite a bit of processing. Can' rule it out, of course, we never know what they did. They might just have tried the library toms, thought they were rubbish, and sampled their own toms and used those...

Funny you should say that 'cos on this Drumkit11 (or Drumkit13) preset on the Series III... the one I was convinced has a conection with RUTH... the Tom (from memory) sounds just like the one on RUTH. I've heard this sound on other tracks too, particularly stuff produced by Andy Richards who used a lot of III.

There was a IIL (between IIX and III) that looked like a IIx / III hybrid. I wonder if Bush somehow had access or contributed to Fairlight sound libraries before the actual III (and additional libraries, which you could subscribe to) came out.

I'll see if I can get access to them drums sounds... I really wish I'd recorded my libs before I sold my III. I started but it was taking forever, so ditched the idea. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!! I still know many Series III owners, so will see what I can do.

P

[muzines]

Funny you should say that 'cos on this Drumkit11 (or Drumkit13) preset on the Series III... the one I was convinced has a conection with RUTH... the Tom (from memory) sounds just like the one on RUTH. I've heard this sound on other tracks too, particularly stuff produced by Andy Richards who used a lot of III.

How reliable is your memory..?

There was a IIL (between IIX and III) that looked like a IIx / III hybrid. I wonder if Bush somehow had access or contributed to Fairlight sound libraries before the actual III (and additional libraries, which you could subscribe to) came out.

Interesting... dunno. Certainly back in these days, the quality of the libraries was every bit as important as owning the hardware, and users certainly did contribute their own sounds (especially as back then, sampling was far simpler a process than todays multi-articulation multi-keyrange/velocity sample sessions...

I'll see if I can get access to them drums sounds... I really wish I'd recorded my libs before I sold my III. I started but it was taking forever, so ditched the idea. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!! I still know many Series III owners, so will see what I can do.

That would be cool!

[Peter Conz Connelly]

I'm gonna dig out the album and have a good listen on my studio monitors ASAP. I could be eating my words here, so I have a plate and plenty of salt to hand. lol.

Will keep you up-to-date with the sounds... someone's already on the case

P

[Peter Conz Connelly]

... with regards to memory, often it's photographic. Other times, it's the pits. lol.

P

[muzines]

The main reason I have a hunch that it *wasn't* the Fairlight doing the drums is because I have a feeling I've seen in interviews references to Del programming the drum machine, and thinking they used a Linn drum. And having a quick look before I started to second guess myself, I just found this online from a Q magazine interview:

"For the most part, time has been kind to Hounds of Love. Only the clanking, robotic omnipresence of Palmer's Linn drum machine (the pulse of every over-produced record of its decade) dates the sound, its size tens trampling all over the insistent opener Running Up that Hill (A Deal with God)."

Hey, a music magazine review, doesn't particularly mean much for technical accuracy of course, but it's what my subconscious is telling me...

I still reckon it was a more conventional drum machine doing the drums, with the Fairlight put to more creative uses than just using it's limited resources to do what another piece of hardware could do equally well. And Linn's were still popular and fashionable and the sound of pop, to a certain extent...

Kate's own words, talking about Hounds of Love:

"This takes us into The Morning Fog. "Morning Fog" is the symbol of light and hope. It's the end of the side, and if you ever have any control over endings they should always, I feel, have some kind of light in there. This was originally written to a Linn drum machine.

I wrote, on the Fairlight, an instrumental piece of music using the sample of an acoustic guitar. I then later wrote the song on top of this instrumental, building up the voices in layers. The piece I'd written on the Fairlight was transcribed by Dave Lawson for an acoustic guitar player, and I felt that really one of the best people to play this was John Williams, a superb classical guitarist who I had met on a couple of occasions before when I was working at Abbey Road. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask him if he'd like to play on a track. We added Del's fretless bass, Kevin on synth, and built up the backing vocals; then Pad layered up Appalachian fiddles and fujare. We kept the guide vocal as the master voice and mixed up the last track on the album."

So, they definitely had a Linn of some flavour in the studio... (a bit early for a 9000 too*).
So time to check out those Linndrum/LM1/2 samples again...

*Edit: No, Linn 9000 was produced in '84-'86 apparently, so it's not too early.

And then this was interesting:

"Palmer programmed the record’s skeletal pulse on a Lynn drum machine, and those tracks were often saved and used and overdubbed by drummers playing live to the static beat – this is really the groundwork for the unique sound on Hounds of Love. It’s Stuart Elliott who plays on the majestic, holy “Running up that Hill”, which opens the album and made the exceptionally British Kate Bush a star in the US. Elliott truly found her internal timings. “His drumming is the most emotional I know,” acknowledged the delighted artist. “He’s always interested in the songs and the lyrics and has a way of creating the right mood for a track."

My hunch was that the toms sound too good to be an early drum machine. Toms were notoriously bad on those things, getting realistic tom fills was almost impossible. The above paragraph seems to back this up.

Gut feeling: Linn kick and snare, real toms (or at least, real toms with Linn toms underneath). The timing is pretty loose for an early drum machine...

Some other snippets my google fu has turned up:

Opening song on the album Hounds Of Love. Originally titled A Deal With God, this song began when Kate asked Del to program a drum machine rhythm for her. She used the Fairlight to produce a droning sound over the rhythm, and from there the song practically wrote itself.

[Zukan]

Did she ever get to the top of the hill then........or still running?



I'm in one of those 'shroom' moods today....Friday n' all that.

[Peter Conz Connelly]

Did she ever get to the top of the hill then........or still running?



I'm in one of those 'shroom' moods today....Friday n' all that.

I love that Friday 'shroom mood

P

[ramthelinefeed]

Was reading this thread with interest.

I have to say that to me, the 'yelpy' sound Ms. Bush got to do that melody on "Running Up that Hill" always sounded to me like it was essentially the same Fairlight string (cello) sample that she'd already been using for years - for example is it not basically the same things as is on "Army Dreamers" on Never for Ever? (just processed and pimped more here)

[Peter Conz Connelly]

Can the Fairlight not apply pitch bend to a sample in the playing? Not a facetious question, I genuinely don't know. I've seen one in the flesh but not been lucky (?) enough to use it...

I would guess that's what she did, in all honesty. I play a lot with pitch bend to sweep notes.

P

[muzines]

I have to say that to me, the 'yelpy' sound Ms. Bush got to do that melody on "Running Up that Hill" always sounded to me like it was essentially the same Fairlight string (cello) sample that she'd already been using for years - for example is it not basically the same things as is on "Army Dreamers" on Never for Ever? (just processed and pimped more here)

The early albums were done on the first Fairlights into the UK, series 1's. A few years down the line, she got her own Fairlight II. Like many digital synths/keyboards of the mid 80's, the presets were used extensively, especially in the case of the Fairlights/Emulators - and it's not like the Fairlight library contained *thousands* of sounds.

However, there are quite a few string sounds in the Fairlight library (twenty or so in all I think) and she certainly made use of them - those kinds of strings were popularly used at that time (look at the Emulator II's Arco and Marcato strings - West End Girls etc - they were used everywhere too) as you could get a more real string sound and get away from string machine/analog strings/DX7 weedy strings thing - so it's not surprising you'd use them if you had access to them...

So whether it was only that patch she liked and used I can't say, but she certainly got a lot of use out of the Fairlight library...

[arkieboy]

I think I read at the time that the essential element of the voxy pad sound was with a Quantec room simulator - AFAIR it had a 'frozen reverb' setting where you could play something into it and it would endlessly play the reverb of the sound back to you. Fit's with Desmond's observations well... a frozen, grainy reverb tail of Fairlight Arr1

Splendid programming BTW!

Steve

[muzines]

a frozen, grainy reverb tail of Fairlight Arr1

Not Arr1 on the pad - Cello2 from my observations, as it's the only sound that gives that character.

Interesting on the Quantec, thanks. Another piece of the puzzle that would seem to fit nicely...

[Iain_TC]

...only other offerings I've spotted so far apart from Nostalgia are Cult Sampler and this offering from Pro-Rec. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more.

I use this in Reason and it's really very good: Power FX CMI Legacy (it's well worth also downloading the Supremacy ReFill which adds extra patches and some sounds from non-Fairlight synths).

I'd like to back up the theory that the drone was something from the Fairlight through a Quantec Room Simulator with the reverb time set to infinite. I reckon quite a few drones and textures on Peter Gabriel albums were done that way too.

[nathanscribe]

Desmond, if you read this, how much pitch bend did you apply to the sample for the melody part? I spent a while last night on my humble W-30 trying to get this thing in the ballpark and didn't meet with much success. My Cello2 sounds like Army Dreamers, not Running...