Synth masterclass with Dave Gale
Zebra CM: a Ghostly Synth
#07
In celebration of our special, we recreate one of the most enigmatic and haunting sounds of the 80s, which is still just as ghostly today!
DOWNLOAD
Download the accompanying video and the MIDI/audio files at filesilo.co.uk/computermusic
At a time when presets on synths were in somewhat short supply, 80s bands such as Japan would spend many hours preparing and programming sounds, during the preproduction phase of their album preparation. One of their main instruments was the legendary and immensely popular Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, which offered a signal architecture and signal flow which is not dissimilar to our very own Zebra CM virtual instrument.
One of Japan’s most celebrated songs was called Ghosts; its sparse synth bass was punctuated by a variety of sounds which exploited the Prophet’s Poly-Mod cross modulation parameter, while David Sylvian’s voice glided elegantly above interjecting marimbas, and the pad-like lead which we are going to recreate here.