Planet Origo ver. 0.10e
last updated 2008-11-01 18:55 CET
Since the late 1960s, the Greek composer and musician Vangelis has been in the forefront of using keyboards and synthesizers to their maximum potential. His knowledge and creativity has won him awards, recognition, money, fame and interesting projects beyond most normal rock bands. We all know that Vangelis is one of the true masters of popular synthesized music, but which tools is he actually using? Planet Origo has looked at some of his gear in the 1970s.
Yamaha CS80, one of Vangelis' trademark synths, if not *the* trademark synth of the Greek.
Roland SH-1000, the first instrument from the Roland factory, and although it is ugly and limited, it is by many considered a classic.
Vangelis at his 450 square meter Nemo Studio in London, set up in 1974. This pic may be a little later.
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Vangelis has probably owned more keyboard and synths in the past than what you’ll find in his studio today. But let’s look at some of his equipment. Concert photos and studio snapshots will be the best sources for Vangelis gear information. Some of the the earliest such documentation is from 1973, where we in pictures can see Vangelis using an ARP ProSoloist, the Hohner Clavinet, the Hammond L-100 organ, and a Roland Space Echo box. He is probably also using a Rhodes Piano, which is the logical complement to the other units, and Le Petite Fille de la Mer from the 1973 album L'Apocalypse Des Animaux has sounds from the Rhodes.
The ARP ProSoloist is an exceptional monophonic keyboard with after-touch, that allows expression by forcing down key of the note you want, adding vibrato, brilliance, volume, resonance, etc. This synthesizer was very much used by Vangelis until he gets the Yamaha CS-80 in 1977. The wind-like solos in La Fete Sauvage, the epic brass melody on the last theme on Heaven & Hell, the lead melody on the Cosmos opening theme, the solo on Sword of Orion (on Albedo 0.39) are a few examples of this keyboard’s sound, which only has presets (Tony Banks of Genesis used his ProSoloist to imitate the MiniMoog lead sound).
The Hohner Clavinet has a typical "funky" piano sound. Vangelis performs jazzy solos on it in improvisations on The Dragon. In L'Apocalypse Des Animaux the Clavinet was used with a distant sound, processed through three Roland Space Echo units (Alan Parsons used a Hohner Clavinet for the lead sound on Hyper-Gamma Spaces on his album Pyramid).
The Hammond was the first keyboard Vangelis used for many string ensemble sounds. Processed through the same three Roland Space Echo units it produces a very distant pad, a strange and not recognizable sound; half organ - half strings. It was used in the celestial chords on Fais que ton reve soit plus long que la nuit (1972). The main sound and the chords on Creation du Monde is also produced with this processed Hammond sound. Vangelis leaves this sound shortly after. Ignacio is the last album where this sound is heard, although other Hammond sounds are used later, for example on Back to School on Friends of Mr. Cairo. His other main reverb / delay unit in the 1970s was the Binson Echorec (also used extensively by Isao Tomita). It worked on a similar principle to a tape echo but used a rotating metal drum that could be recorded and played back from using recording heads and utilized vacuum tube amplification.
Moving on to 1975, we can see - probably from a concert in London in 1975 - a Roland SH-1000 and the Elka Rhapsody, of which the latter came out the same year. It is also known that he used these synths and keyboards in 1975, in addition to some of his older kit: Korg Mini 700S, Selmer Clavioline, Korg 800 DV, Roland SH-3A, Tornado organ, Elka Rhapsody 610, Farfisa Syntorchestra, and Bosendorfer piano. The strings in the 1975 album Heaven & Hell was produced mainly by the Elka Rhapsody, a keyboard also used alot by Tangerine Dream around the same time. Sometimes he also used the Farfisa Syntorchestra to make the strings fatter and richer. It is curious that Vangelis never used an ARP String Ensemble (also called Solina) to make strings, because it’s sound is sweeter and fuller than the Elka Rhapsody. In 1979, he replaced the Elka and Farfisa with a Roland VP-330 for his favourite string sounds.
In Vangelis’ kit in 1975 there are many keyboard instruments, but only five real synthesizers. A true synthesizer is an instrument that produces it’s own sound with electronic technology, using the basic parameters of synthesis; frequency (and associated waveform), harmonic spectrum (filter role), volume, and changes along the note’s time (dynamic envelope). The only five devices that matches these conditions in Vangelis’ set-up at that time, were Minikorg 700S (two), Roland SH-1000, Roland SH-3A and Korg 800 DV. The other instruments are electro-acoustic (Rhodes piano, Clavinet), electro-mechanical (Hammond B-3), or only has presets with a minimum number of parameter controls (Clavioline, Rhapsody, Syntorchestra, Tornado, or acoustic (piano). However, the ProSoloist has a very "synthesizer style" sound in its preset bank and is one of the most versatile "preset synths" ever made in the 70s. When you hear on Heaven & Hell that CS-80 brass-like sound in many parts of it - well, meet the ARP ProSoloist´s “Trombone" preset!
Speaking of Heaven & Hell, on it he used the Dubrecq Stylophone 350S. This is the deluxe version of the Stylophone, an electronic non-synthesizer instrument (aimed at hobby musicians) played by touching a metal stylus to a metal surface with drawn keys. Albums like Heaven & Hell, Albedo 0.39 and China used a fair amount of acoustic instruments. As a rule of thumb, when you hear "realistic" sounding acoustic sounds on albums prior to the advent of sampling, they often are not some amazing synthesizer patch, they more often are real instruments, though one may also note that sometimes with enough effects processing applied they can sound fairly other-worldly.
Albedo 0.39, the most electronic Vangelis album before his CS-80 period, are basically made with the same synths mentioned above, but adding a few important tools: an ARP Odyssey (and an associated ARP sequencer) and a Roland System 100, plus a System 100 104 sequencer and the System 700 sequencer block. Perhaps Vangelis felt inspired to get the Odyssey, since his full name is Evanghelos Odyssey Papathanassiou? The 104 sequencer had two rows of 12 steps and the ARP sequencer had a row of 16 steps (notes) that could be split along with a number of other options. In comparison the microprocessor based MIDI sequencers of today can store and play thousands, even potentially millions of notes.
We now enter 1977, and the first use of Vangelis’ trademark sounds from the Yamaha CS-80, on the album Spiral. Vangelis main equipment for this album is ARP Odyssey, Korg Minipops 120, Roland System 100, an ARP sequencer and the CS-80. The ARP Odyssey and sequencer was linked with the Roland System 100 and sequencer set, providing most of the sequences on Spiral (as well as in 1979 on the album Odes). The intro sequencer of the Spiral theme is a sound produced by the ARP Odyssey, but it is impossible to say what sequencer was used to control it, because Roland and ARP had compatible control voltage protocoles on their sequencers. The Korg Minipops is a drum computer, most known for being used by Jean Michel Jarre on Oxygene in 1976, but the only likely place for Vangelis to have used it was for the march on To the Unknown Man on Spiral. Vangelis also used three effects units to create the voice on Spiral’s Ballad; the Roland Space Echo 201, Boss Chorus Ensemble and the EMS Vocoder 1000.
In 1977 or 78 Vangelis adds the Korg Polyphonic Ensemble (PE-1000) to his studio, for it’s string sounds. It can be heard a lot on Jarre’s Equinoxe album (1978), but more important for Vangelis is the expanded use of the CS-80, which defined the body of his work between 1977 and 1986. It’s a synthesizer with a very personal sound and a rough temper. It has polyphonic aftertouch, which is difficult to find even on today's keyboards and unique for the synths of that era. It was Vangelis' first polysynth, and he bought a total of eight CS80s, some for spare parts and some for concerts. But, contrary to modern synths, it doesn’t have useful patch storage possibilities. The CS-80 has 22 preset sounds, but no real memory, so if you want the keyboard to remember a custom sound, you must push mini-sliders in certain positions, close the lid and not touch anything until the next time you need that sound. A “prehistoric” way of storing and recalling sounds! The brass preset was the most used sound on this machine. Vangelis also used other presets from the CS-80, for example “Guitar 1” and “Guitar 2” on L’enfant (Opera Sauvage in 1979) and “Electric piano” on Mayflower (with Jon Anderson). The album Beaubourg (1978) is a 38 minute improvisation on one (or maybe two) CS-80, using many of its possibilities. On this album we can clearly hear the temper of the CS-80.
Other synths that Vangelis used in the late 70s include Roland ProMars, Roland Jupiter 4, and Oberheim Two Voice.
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