It now makes sense to me why those MJ tracks were so awesome: there was a collaboration of great musicians, composers, producers and sound designers at a time of significant advances in music technology. Nowadays - especially in dance music - there is often just a single person behind a DAW trying to do it all by him/herself.
It's the same with Max Martin productions, but he get's all the credits. Weirdly enough. If the rumors are true, probably we can hear it from the man himself in the future on a certain youtube channel!
3:25 The 'Smooth Criminal' bassline is remarkable in that it doesn't start on the first beat. Beat 1 of the bar is the gap. This is why it has got such a great groove - it's wrong but it's right. I found this out by looping it in Ableton. Try for yourself and you'll see what I mean.
3:25 Yes! The 'One' of the bassline doesn't hit on the one of the bar. It actually happens right at the end of previous bar with beat 1 of the new bar being empty. Very clever! 😄
@@rdubb77 It's like the intro synth in New Order's Blue Monday, they missed the correct attack time due to a mistake, but they liked it and they left it in place like that.
@@djdrwatson good point. The bass line is a two bar vamp/loop, and the last 16th of the pattern is the root that should be on the one of the first bar of the loop
the lead guitarist from MJ's song Dirty Diana, said that when MJ was directing him to play the guitar he taught him what chords you dont play or miss out are sometimes just as important to the overall tune as what u play and in fact noticed when he missed chords and told him to keep it like that.
It was amazing technology and it was even used as recent as on the film Avatar for doing some sort of audio conversion. I came close to picking one up on ebay once but I'd have never found space for it and it's like buying an old Ferrari, you need to keep it working and pay someone to repair it should it go wrong. I am good with electronics but I find it stressful working on rare valuable stuff.
In the movie Ferris Bueller's Dayoff, the keyboard Matthew Broderick used was an EMU Emulator 2 which was as expensive as a brand new car back in the day
I was 4 years old when it was released and I would dance to it everyday. My school teacher was a pop singer, when she came to know that I loved MJ, she gave me the iconic Bad poster that I hung in my bedroom. This was my induction to music.
Meh. The sampler has no filter, and the FM is 8-bit. Way cheaper gear already did both of things way better by the mid 80s. However, those physical controls are great. People were making more complicated sampling presets on their Emulators and Rolands, and kicking its FM ass with Yamaha DX everything, but all of those people were doing that on calculator screens, through a maze of menus. The Synclavier and Fairlight were actual workstations!
Back in the 80s, companies lived and died by their little hacks and secrets. A company could go belly up if another company caught on to one of their hacks and created a competing product and you can see how deeply ingrained that fear is in Kevin from those days. The Synclavier and New England Digital's glory days are long past, Smooth Criminal has come and gone, and even on a channel dedicated to showing how the sounds were made, Kevin is like, "The technique to create that sound is kind of a, uh, secret. I won't give it away". It's kind of an interesting peek into a bubble of what the archaic 80s digital culture was like when all this stuff was groundbreaking.
Well hush culture is alive even today, consider Cher's Believe autotuned voice, it was revealed how it was made only years later, and the growling sound used in Skrillex' dubstep.
At 5:00 the "gated snare" example reminded me to the used in the beginning of "The way you make me feel". This kind of videos are a time portal to great creativity moments.
I think what made this, and 80's music so magical was all this new tech that musicians were playing with and incorporating into their music and it was everywhere. It was such a difference from the 60's and up to the late 70's.. I feel like this is why the 80's music is so loved (not saying the 70's 60's isn't) but it was new and different and creative.
Wow!! What a video! Smooth Criminal was the first single I bought as a kid aged 8. The time and perfection that went into all MJ’s albums is mind blowing!
The synth sounds of the 80's were able to create more subtle and complex emotions than the sounds of the 60's and 70's. This song is a good example, you feel the funk right away (feel good) but then/and the danger with building stress (feel concerned) mixes with the mystery (are you ok?) and confusion of the smooth criminal being good or bad, which is reflected perfectly in the music, and the whole time you can't stop dancing.
Amazing. I remember watching Trevor Horn breaking down Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" and he used a grand piano sample, truncated, for the driving bass line throughout the song. So cool...
I’ve always wondered what gave that bass sound it’s distinct character, and now I know that it’s the sampled reverb in the piano that’s creating that ominous sustain. So cool!
Epic sound! Its ingrained in my mind since youth! The entire Bad album is a masterpiece in synthesizer sounds mixed with standard instruments. Still sounds fresh to this day. Legendary.
I didn’t pay attention to the Synclavier until I saw Oscar Peterson use one in the early 80s. I must admit that this Synclavier Smooth Criminal bassline has always been 🔥. The melding of the two sounds (timbre included) and the syncopation is such a hook. This bassline accompanied Michael’s dancing so beautifully. I love this series and thanks for sharing all these secrets! Now we can’t UNHEAR it! 🔥
I was able to recreate this quite quickly on my Kawai K5000 synth. I found a fake-ish (by todays standards) piano sound (done with additive synthesis) and used a PCM sample that sounded similar to the Moog sample, and voila! Edit: I found a nice fire extinguisher sound in the PCM samples, now my recreation is complete!
Thanks a lot to both of you and the team behind for these great videos !!! I'm sure we could organise a Synclavier Seminar like it was organised by N.E.D. in the 80s 🙂
I always thought, wrongly, that the Synclavier was just an early FM synthesizer that was expensive, but was overshadowed once the Yamaha DX7 came out. Wow, was I wrong (except for the expensive part)! Very powerful device!
What an awesome series. I'm so glad you're going beyond Thriller. I understand everything about what makes Thriller iconic, but ever since I heard it, I've liked Bad so much more. Can't wait to see/hear more from Bad and (hopefully) beyond.
Wow! I had absolutely no idea the iconic bass sound was a sample of a piano string of all things and then layered with a Minimoog bass sample. To me, I always thought it was a PCM slap bass layered with an FM bass patch. I've always wanted to recreate that sound and now I finally know how.
John Barnes should be mentioned way more about the synclavier in this interview because he created the sounds for Smooth Criminal and the album Bad. There’s six basses on the song. And I know this because he played it for personally. John worked on Victory, Captain EO and Bad at the same time. It was a little than more than what’s being said here I assure you.
What I like about those Synclavier sounds (including the drums) is the fact that they are really powerful, but at the same have very little subbass in them, practically zero mud. They are sitting in mid range and rein supreme. 80’s creators were blessed with great sounding instruments.
I love the Synclavier. I spent a number of years wishing I could have one, as a lot of people in the world of film sound used to use them as well. There's a sampler that's come out in the last few years that does very similar stuff, including the resampling and quick tweaking of the sounds in this vid, although it's more geared toward what us sound designers do than music. It's totally changed my workflow in amazing ways. Radium for Soundminer if you're curious. But anyway, I love seeing all these Synclavier vids!
And to the comment at the very end of the video: the SPEED! That was the magic of the thing based on what I've heard about it from my mentors who worked with it. Being able to quickly manipulate sounds in such dramatic creative ways is a major game changer.
Thank you for the fantastic video! Could you please also unveil the sectets of the bridge FX part? For me, this is a paramount of synthesis complexity.
Another banger of a video. I’ll never hear that song the same way again. Would love to have him talk about working with Micheal as well. Now everyone needs to go and listen to Al Capone by MJ. That’s the predecessor to Smooth Criminal.
I created this sound (very close) with my SY77 when I was 17 yo!! I exactly started from a FM grand piano and I added a kind of wobble bass. I still remember it!!! I used to amaze my band in studio with that! LoL!
I thought a Yamaha TX816 may have been involved somewhere! I understand JRR played live Hi Hats? I thought a Linn 9000 may have been also possibly involved...... lets see.
Is there gonna be a series of videos like the Thriller ones but concerning the Bad album? I've been wanting to know all the synths behind the sounds of each song.
It's amazing how really simple all this stuff kind of is.... but without the ear and the know how to put it all together all the best sounds in the world can't help, you really need to be a student of the craft
I hope your doing well,I remember when Michael Jackson was sleeping on Barry's couch,you are an amazing person,I'm thankful to find your channel,a person you should meet Charlie Adams he is a drummer,the up side down drummer,my ex father in law was Waylon Jennings,I love keyboard s , specially 80s sounds,I think ALOT of your channel,just powerful and amazing,great video 👍🎉🎉🎉
It now makes sense to me why those MJ tracks were so awesome: there was a collaboration of great musicians, composers, producers and sound designers at a time of significant advances in music technology. Nowadays - especially in dance music - there is often just a single person behind a DAW trying to do it all by him/herself.
💯
Downfall of music
it was possible because back than they had ridiculous budgets. inflation corrected it would probably 8 figures nowadys
It's the same with Max Martin productions, but he get's all the credits. Weirdly enough. If the rumors are true, probably we can hear it from the man himself in the future on a certain youtube channel!
Im.self taught musician I can do it by my own
3:25 The 'Smooth Criminal' bassline is remarkable in that it doesn't start on the first beat. Beat 1 of the bar is the gap. This is why it has got such a great groove - it's wrong but it's right. I found this out by looping it in Ableton. Try for yourself and you'll see what I mean.
Yeah bass line starts on second eighth of beat 1, and beat 1 they left the kick out. Wrong, but right cuz it FUNKS
3:25 Yes! The 'One' of the bassline doesn't hit on the one of the bar. It actually happens right at the end of previous bar with beat 1 of the new bar being empty. Very clever! 😄
@@rdubb77 It's like the intro synth in New Order's Blue Monday, they missed the correct attack time due to a mistake, but they liked it and they left it in place like that.
@@djdrwatson good point. The bass line is a two bar vamp/loop, and the last 16th of the pattern is the root that should be on the one of the first bar of the loop
the lead guitarist from MJ's song Dirty Diana, said that when MJ was directing him to play the guitar he taught him what chords you dont play or miss out are sometimes just as important to the overall tune as what u play and in fact noticed when he missed chords and told him to keep it like that.
I didn't know the Synclavier was such a powerful sampling workstation. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with younger generations.
It was amazing technology and it was even used as recent as on the film Avatar for doing some sort of audio conversion. I came close to picking one up on ebay once but I'd have never found space for it and it's like buying an old Ferrari, you need to keep it working and pay someone to repair it should it go wrong. I am good with electronics but I find it stressful working on rare valuable stuff.
advanced AF for the time, no wonder the high price tag
@@6581punk there's a fully boosted and serviced twin of Trevor Horn's unit on Reverb right now. About the price of a house.
as kevin himself said, this bass is not originally in the synclavier, it was put in the synclavier
In the movie Ferris Bueller's Dayoff, the keyboard Matthew Broderick used was an EMU Emulator 2 which was as expensive as a brand new car back in the day
The whole Bad album was a technical and artistic masterpiece 🔥🔥🔥
I was 4 years old when it was released and I would dance to it everyday. My school teacher was a pop singer, when she came to know that I loved MJ, she gave me the iconic Bad poster that I hung in my bedroom. This was my induction to music.
Meh…
These videos make me appreciate how advanced the Synclavier was at the time, incredible!
Right!? I knew it was cool and some history about it, but not that it was THIS powerful!🤯
same
Incredible indeed. It must have been truly mindblowing to work with a Synclavier for the first time when it came out.
@@kixxalot I can confirm it still is. Love it to death :-)
Meh. The sampler has no filter, and the FM is 8-bit. Way cheaper gear already did both of things way better by the mid 80s. However, those physical controls are great. People were making more complicated sampling presets on their Emulators and Rolands, and kicking its FM ass with Yamaha DX everything, but all of those people were doing that on calculator screens, through a maze of menus. The Synclavier and Fairlight were actual workstations!
3:25 GOOSEBUMPS
One of the best RUclips series right now, it's just amazing! Thank you Anthony 🙏
MJ became Depech Mode by the end of this video. Brilliant display cheers lads.
Back in the 80s, companies lived and died by their little hacks and secrets. A company could go belly up if another company caught on to one of their hacks and created a competing product and you can see how deeply ingrained that fear is in Kevin from those days. The Synclavier and New England Digital's glory days are long past, Smooth Criminal has come and gone, and even on a channel dedicated to showing how the sounds were made, Kevin is like, "The technique to create that sound is kind of a, uh, secret. I won't give it away". It's kind of an interesting peek into a bubble of what the archaic 80s digital culture was like when all this stuff was groundbreaking.
Then he tells us how to recreate it! 😅
Well hush culture is alive even today, consider Cher's Believe autotuned voice, it was revealed how it was made only years later, and the growling sound used in Skrillex' dubstep.
I can bring it old sound and recreated
It doesn't sound like much more than a piano sample and a Moog sample. Still, WhyTF is he so secretive?
because it makes him special@@eti313
These are the best musical ‘behind the curtain ‘ moments on RUclips … I only wish I could have worked in this decade …please don’t stop Anthony
Geniuses! People we never ever see. Thank you so much for making art history!
At 5:00 the "gated snare" example reminded me to the used in the beginning of "The way you make me feel". This kind of videos are a time portal to great creativity moments.
The synclavier is the king of 80s synths. More gold from Anthony.
I love 80s synthesizer
I think what made this, and 80's music so magical was all this new tech that musicians were playing with and incorporating into their music and it was everywhere. It was such a difference from the 60's and up to the late 70's.. I feel like this is why the 80's music is so loved (not saying the 70's 60's isn't) but it was new and different and creative.
I agree!
Truly fascinating! Smooth Criminal is an incredible song.
A Masterpiece ! 😯
Wow!!
What a video!
Smooth Criminal was the first single I bought as a kid aged 8.
The time and perfection that went into all MJ’s albums is mind blowing!
The synth sounds of the 80's were able to create more subtle and complex emotions than the sounds of the 60's and 70's. This song is a good example, you feel the funk right away (feel good) but then/and the danger with building stress (feel concerned) mixes with the mystery (are you ok?) and confusion of the smooth criminal being good or bad, which is reflected perfectly in the music, and the whole time you can't stop dancing.
Couldn't disagree more, they were their own vibe but I felt the 70s synthesizers have held up much better to retrospective scrutiny.
@@robbiedubbelman3024 ok can you share an example? Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream for sure and anything TONTO, that's a great machine.
Absolutely fantastic series of videos, Anthony. ❤️ Your chats with Kevin are like a masterclass! Layering of sounds is key! 🙏👏
Amazing. I remember watching Trevor Horn breaking down Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" and he used a grand piano sample, truncated, for the driving bass line throughout the song. So cool...
Hi do you have an URL for this one ?
can you link it
@@llemaire1 Actually Steve Lipson does a great breakdown with Warren Huart in this video: ruclips.net/video/pQIlQhhAUs4/видео.html&t
@@computationalerror69 Actually Steve Lipson does a great breakdown with Warren Huart in this video: ruclips.net/video/pQIlQhhAUs4/видео.html&t
Well...he didn't. Stephen Lipson did with the help of JJ Jekzalik but Trev was around having tea.
The Way You Make Me Feel drums right there!
I'd say at least 50% of the Bad album has sounds from the Synclavier II
I’ve always wondered what gave that bass sound it’s distinct character, and now I know that it’s the sampled reverb in the piano that’s creating that ominous sustain. So cool!
Epic sound! Its ingrained in my mind since youth!
The entire Bad album is a masterpiece in synthesizer sounds mixed with standard instruments. Still sounds fresh to this day. Legendary.
Minimoog and grand piano sample - and this whole time I thought it was a d50. Crazy!
I thought it was an actual muted Steinway piano, turns out it's a Synclavier sample.
Wow, its so wonderful that you get into the BAD Era. You literally blow me away with every new Video. ✨💫 Thank you
These in-depth discussions is pure gold. Nerding into the Synclavier is even more awesome.
Its amazing how the Synclavier was used on so many great soundtracks too, Harold Faltermeyer used it on Beverly Hills Cop 2.
Woah...Thriller itself is a master piece but I never thought you would go beyond that..This is always something I look forward to..🙏
its insane how much advanced the synclavier was at that time. a full blown digital sampling workstation!
This will be my first live one, looking forward to it.
I would have bet the farm that the bass was a DX7 !!!!! WOW! 😳
Sounded almost industrial when detuning and resampling on the Synclavier, just awesome
This is going to be a good one 😁
These guys are geniuses. It's so cool to be able to see this work out in real time. The wealth of knowledge at work here is spectacular!
That was so much fun watching you guys use an old 8 bit sampler like that. Still a cool and musical instrument.
I didn’t pay attention to the Synclavier until I saw Oscar Peterson use one in the early 80s. I must admit that this Synclavier Smooth Criminal bassline has always been 🔥. The melding of the two sounds (timbre included) and the syncopation is such a hook. This bassline accompanied Michael’s dancing so beautifully. I love this series and thanks for sharing all these secrets! Now we can’t UNHEAR it! 🔥
as kevin himself said, this bass is not originally in the synclavier, it was put in the synclavier
Piano and fire extinguisher? It's kind of awesome! Please more :)
I was able to recreate this quite quickly on my Kawai K5000 synth. I found a fake-ish (by todays standards) piano sound (done with additive synthesis) and used a PCM sample that sounded similar to the Moog sample, and voila! Edit: I found a nice fire extinguisher sound in the PCM samples, now my recreation is complete!
Thanks a lot to both of you and the team behind for these great videos !!! I'm sure we could organise a Synclavier Seminar like it was organised by N.E.D. in the 80s 🙂
WOOOO the fact that George Duke's Minimoog was sampled for that sound makes it even more epic!
I always thought, wrongly, that the Synclavier was just an early FM synthesizer that was expensive, but was overshadowed once the Yamaha DX7 came out. Wow, was I wrong (except for the expensive part)! Very powerful device!
as kevin himself said, this bass is not originally in the synclavier, it was put in the synclavier
All these videos are absolutelly priceless. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing these amazing videos Anthony! 🙏🏻
2 legends talking about a legendary synth. RUclips doesn't get much better then this! 🎹🎹🎹
I love watching these! I’m not surprised so much work went into Michael’s music and sound. His records still sound great!
What an awesome series. I'm so glad you're going beyond Thriller. I understand everything about what makes Thriller iconic, but ever since I heard it, I've liked Bad so much more. Can't wait to see/hear more from Bad and (hopefully) beyond.
We grew up on Mike and my 3 year old daughter absolutely love him and all the music you’ve created
I'm amazed at the speed of the synclavier...and in the right hands must have been so awesome....Thank You.
Wow! I had absolutely no idea the iconic bass sound was a sample of a piano string of all things and then layered with a Minimoog bass sample.
To me, I always thought it was a PCM slap bass layered with an FM bass patch.
I've always wanted to recreate that sound and now I finally know how.
Me too, I'd always thought about the FM slap bass.
I’m getting a musical high. watching you musical legends. The guys from the album credits. Thank you!
Always loved the bassline on this tune, thanks for sharing this.
I could watch these for hours. You are very kind
This tone had alot of guessing for some time. Awesome to truely know how it was created. Incredible video once again.
Love the sounds. Such a badass song. Never fails to get me moving!
John Barnes should be mentioned way more about the synclavier in this interview because he created the sounds for Smooth Criminal and the album Bad. There’s six basses on the song. And I know this because he played it for personally. John worked on Victory, Captain EO and Bad at the same time. It was a little than more than what’s being said here I assure you.
@8:16 heard the opening percussion for "The Way You Make Me Feel"
Loving all these amazing synth videos. I had no idea the power and feature set of a Synclavier.
Thanks Anthony! These videos are the jewel of the nile.
I love these kinds of vids, been browsing about MJ lately
Goosebumps!
I know, right??..
Shamoun. Can’t wait! New subscriber here.
What I like about those Synclavier sounds (including the drums) is the fact that they are really powerful, but at the same have very little subbass in them, practically zero mud. They are sitting in mid range and rein supreme. 80’s creators were blessed with great sounding instruments.
This finally resolves a great mystery!
Thank you Anthony for sharing all of this
Yet another great video Anthony. Please keep them coming. You are doing a great service documenting and sharing this information. Thank you!
😮 the demo of thriller's intro really surprised me, incredible. Never knew it came from that vinyl.
That’s fantastic. Thanks for that interesting look into making that sound.
The most badass song of the century
New century now though.
@@Goettel True Survivor - David Hasselhoff is the 2nd song of the century just after Smooth Criminal, from my point of view ^^
Had no idea you could work whole instrumentals on that thing. A nice workstation that still holds up and I had no idea.
Fabulous to see the Synclavier being used..
Fantastic! I could hear the intro to Danger Zone (Top Gun) in that muted piano sample. But then a lot of keys around that time had funky bass patches.
That bass sound is a Yamaha DX7 present sound Bass 1 or E. Bass 1. It was used everywhere, A-Ha Take On Me. Howard Jones - What is Love.
@@6581punk Thanks, yes I was thinking back and our school had a DX11 with similar-ish sounds. Spent hours on it.
thank you for this! It's like a live instrument for a one man band!
I love the Synclavier. I spent a number of years wishing I could have one, as a lot of people in the world of film sound used to use them as well. There's a sampler that's come out in the last few years that does very similar stuff, including the resampling and quick tweaking of the sounds in this vid, although it's more geared toward what us sound designers do than music. It's totally changed my workflow in amazing ways. Radium for Soundminer if you're curious. But anyway, I love seeing all these Synclavier vids!
And to the comment at the very end of the video: the SPEED! That was the magic of the thing based on what I've heard about it from my mentors who worked with it. Being able to quickly manipulate sounds in such dramatic creative ways is a major game changer.
This is GOLD
when he talked about the partials it reminded me of the roland d50 ... the key to great sounding patches
You guys made timeless music
Incredible history! Great video man
Incredible video!
I've learnt a lot from these series of videos Mr Anthony, thank you very much.
Thank you for the fantastic video!
Could you please also unveil the sectets of the bridge FX part? For me, this is a paramount of synthesis complexity.
This is SUCH gold guys, my word!!
I love these back stories of some of greatest tracks in history!
Wow this channel is of the hook. For a moddest sound designer like me this is really massive. Just bring these videos on :) Specially Jackson ones
Came here after the Billie Jean bass tutorial. Another absolute quality video!
Another banger of a video. I’ll never hear that song the same way again. Would love to have him talk about working with Micheal as well. Now everyone needs to go and listen to Al Capone by MJ. That’s the predecessor to Smooth Criminal.
I created this sound (very close) with my SY77 when I was 17 yo!! I exactly started from a FM grand piano and I added a kind of wobble bass. I still remember it!!! I used to amaze my band in studio with that! LoL!
I loved example of the bass being layered. I have played this for decades now... I might need to go revisit my patch and build a new bass :)
the content RUclips was made for. legendary
I don't understand why you don't have millions of views yet
I thought a Yamaha TX816 may have been involved somewhere! I understand JRR played live Hi Hats? I thought a Linn 9000 may have been also possibly involved...... lets see.
im so lucky i found this account😊Im in love with the content .Thank you sir.😊
great stuf, thanks for recording this history!
Is there gonna be a series of videos like the Thriller ones but concerning the Bad album? I've been wanting to know all the synths behind the sounds of each song.
if this video goes well I'm sure there will
That album does NOT get the due it deserves for the production. It's wild.
@@defcreator187 Still Bad is a great album, specially production-wise. The sounds are just amazing (specially the snare and tom accents IMO)
@@defcreator187 it could be argued, but that doesn’t detract from the production in any way. And Bad was still a monumental album
@@defcreator187 i agree..i think it has a lot to do with the analogue synths they used on Thriller vs the digital fm synths on Bad
Wow that's why its great iconic song ..
It's amazing how really simple all this stuff kind of is.... but without the ear and the know how to put it all together all the best sounds in the world can't help, you really need to be a student of the craft
the sound choice it s so important, the band called the voidz are genius with that ...
Never realized how powerful the Synclavier was until watching this. The emulations i've heard until now don't come close to doing this justice.
I hope your doing well,I remember when Michael Jackson was sleeping on Barry's couch,you are an amazing person,I'm thankful to find your channel,a person you should meet Charlie Adams he is a drummer,the up side down drummer,my ex father in law was Waylon Jennings,I love keyboard s , specially 80s sounds,I think ALOT of your channel,just powerful and amazing,great video 👍🎉🎉🎉
I have the bad Album Anthony an I allways thought the quality an cleaness of the sounds were phenomenal 👍
Im amazed that this workstation still work after more than 40 years, it was realy advance for the time.
I love the creativity with MJ and his Team just being innovative is awesome
It reminds of the bass in Music's Takin Over - The Jackson🔥