The Killers "somebody told me" synth

[pkarr]

Hi everyone, does anyone know how I could create the lead synth that we hear in the intro of this song and at the end of the 1st chorus "1min18"? I have a gig this saturday and it will be so dope if I could have the good sounds for that. I really appreciate your help. Thanks guys.

[RedLeo]

The original sound is a preset on the Microkorg (I forget which one). The Microkorg has a very distinctive bright hard metallic sound which can be difficult to reproduce.

Set up up a two oscillator sawtooth (unison pitch) patch with a little detune and use the Unison function to thicken the sound up.

Set the amp envelope to the fastest attack and add just a touch of release.

Close the filter down somewhat and then use the filter envelope with a fast attack and slower decay to get the filter sweep.

Next you'll need to set the voice mode to Mono or Legato (whichever works best) and then add a little glide.

Depending on how that all works out, you might need to add a little upper mid or treble to the sound if it's not quite bright or hard enough.

[pkarr]

Hey Redleo, thank you so much for your help and advices. Tomorrow i'll try to create the preset with your instructions. It won't be easy because i'm a newbie in synth and i just have the NS2 for 4days but it will be fun.

[RedLeo]

Sorry I can't help you more, but I have an older Stage and the settings are not the same. If you're still having problems because you're not familiar with how the synth works, ask again and I'm sure someone with a Stage 2 will be able to make a patch for you based on my suggestions for you to download and use. Anyone?

[tohtorinpahkinat]

Somebody told me -patch for NS2 would be much appreciated here also!

[vonnor]

I just found a cool site that shows all of the factory patches for the MicroKorg with the parameters in graphical format. I googled a bit and it looks like The Killers used a factory patch called "Phaser Lead" for this song's synth lead. The demo sounds pretty close but it may need tweaking if something similar is built on the NS2. All the OSC, Filter, LFO, Env, FX, settings are there but keep in mind these are for the Korg and may not be the actual settings for the NS2. They should give you a starting point though.

http://www.microkorgie.com/microkorg-patch-b14/

My band wants me to learn this for next weekend, so I may take a stab at something.

~ vonnor

[vonnor]

I have a sound for this song I made on the NS2 several years, but our band only played the song a few times live - it was kind of a weird one for us and did not work too well with the crowds (it is a little bit dated at this point, in my opinion). I had set up a split with the signature phaser synth at the top and a pad on the bottom. It worked pretty well for me. I can't remember if they were based on synth or samples, but I can upload it this weekend. I'm on the road now.

[pianopop9]

Here's my NS2 program I made several years ago. There's the phased lead in the upper half of the split and a pad on the lower half. Working the MW makes the delay go nuts, which I had fun with while playing the song.