Nord User Forum

Hi all. Haven't seen much talking heads on these forums. Figured I would share one of my favorite synth patches that emulates Bernie Worrell's synth on Burning Down the House. It uses formant waves and hard sync. I've tried other versions with auto wah and other tweeks and this patch can really hold its own as a synth lead. Check it out below.


Note - Control Pedal morphs the low pass filters of both Panels.

• Burning Down The House Line.mp3

[nordusersounds][/nordusersounds]

andydrummer2009 wrote:Hi all. Haven't seen much talking heads on these forums. Figured I would share one of my favorite synth patches that emulates Bernie Worrell's synth on Burning Down the House. It uses formant waves and hard sync. I've tried other versions with auto wah and other tweeks and this patch can really hold its own as a synth lead. Check it out below.


Note - Control Pedal morphs the low pass filters of both Panels.

• Burning Down The House Line.mp3

Talkbox Solo.ns3f

[nordusersounds][/nordusersounds]

Nice work on this - thanks for posting. I'm not sure how it will sound trying this option, but worth checking out. If you listen closely to the original solo, Bernie's synth is in monophonic with the glide prominent, and then mono is switched off and chords are played, and then mono is switched back on. It's a cool change and breaks it up a little. Take care.

Great sound! I missed this when it was originally posted and can't wait to load up the sound.

My band does a couple of Talking Heads songs such as Burning Down the House, Life During Wartime, etc. and I've come up with some similar type sounds without completely nailing what is being played on the TH recordings. I use a clav with wah for part of BDTH and then have a big layered hard sync sound that is based on a mix of samples and synth sounds. I'll share those later and may need to make a quick video to show how I'm using them (I have 3-4 Programs I use for different parts of BDTH).

ericL wrote:Great sound! I missed this when it was originally posted and can't wait to load up the sound.

My band does a couple of Talking Heads songs such as Burning Down the House, Life During Wartime, etc. and I've come up with some similar type sounds without completely nailing what is being played on the TH recordings. I use a clav with wah for part of BDTH and then have a big layered hard sync sound that is based on a mix of samples and synth sounds. I'll share those later and may need to make a quick video to show how I'm using them (I have 3-4 Programs I use for different parts of BDTH).

Just seeing this now - Thanks! Would love to see your patches if you did end up uploading them.

Cheers

FWIW, the original solo sound is a monophonic Prophet 5 preset.

I’m pretty sure it’s the one available here as "P5 Funkasizer":

https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-lib ... y-30/synth

Wow, I totally spaced out on this thread and I'm glad it came back to life. I'm going to upload my NS3 Programs that I use for this song and will try to take a video to better describe them whenever I have time.

The first one has the floaty sine lead synth in the upper side of the split, with a layered big thing on the lower end of the split. I have a clav sound, an organ sound (routed to output 3 for Vent), and a sync synth sound with a volume morph on the control pedal.

The second one is a wah clav, with the control pedal doing the wah.

I have a solo sound as well, that is like the original post here and the one mentioned by analogika. It is called "Life During 3" as I originally made it for the Talking Heads song Life During Wartime and I borrow it for Burning Down the House.

I have a few other variations of these sounds saved as well.

Hope this is helpful!

analogika wrote:FWIW, the original solo sound is a monophonic Prophet 5 preset.

I’m pretty sure it’s the one available here as "P5 Funkasizer":

https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-lib ... y-30/synth

I don't know if I've noticed this sound before and it sounds great! The sample I have used for a decade or more was a "Nord_PH" sound that was from the Roland JX-3P and called something like "Robot Rock" from the Daft Punk song of the same name. I believe that sample is still on Nord's site.

The Roland JX-3P "Robot Rock" sample that ericL mentioned is available here: https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-lib ... land-jx-3p