Watcher of the skies intro

[Jumbo57]

Hello old Genesis fans,

I've spent some time trying to recreate as close as possible the sound of the Tron+organ in the intro of WOTS.
As you surely know, the original sound in the record (Foxtrot) was made with a double manual Mellotron MkII, with a mix of 3violins and Brass on the right manual, and a Bass Accordion on the left.
On live performances different solutions were used, using a single-manual Mellotron 400, the Hammond organ and the bass pedalboard. Both Tron and Hammond were put into a Leslie.

Here's my solution: I made a split with organ on left hand, and Tron mix on the right.
Slot A: Organ (for the 2nd part of the intro) / Brass MkII
Slot B: Organ (pedal-like sound) / 3violins MkII
Morph (wheel) between Organ-pedal and Organ 2nd part.

All the Synth (Tron) are put into Rotary Speaker, in "stop" position, with a bit of Drive.
Having used the Rotary for the Synths, I was forced to put the organ into a Twin simulation, with a bit a Drive.

Comments, edits and improvements are very welcome. Enjoy it and ciao!

[nordboard]

Any chance of an audio demo?
Thanks

[Jumbo57]

Here is an audio demo, straightly played.
Of course many things can be improved and adjusted (morphing with a pedal instead of the wheel, more/different reverbs, EQ and so on...)

• WOTS NS2 demo.mp3

[nordboard]

Excellent - I'm a massive Genesis fan and WOTS is my favourite song of theirs.
Thanks so much for uploading.

[zoolansky]

This is really great! Thanks a lot!

[JapeFil]

Hello friends,

Yesterday I made the sample for the Electro 5. I've made it from the two seeded mellotron samples: 3 violins; 2 brasses. The file is 9.7 MB, but in Sund Manager it says 8 MB.

I've made it this way:

1. Created a midi with 3 semitone intervals starting at F#1, ending at C8. Same velocity every note.
2. Played the midi twice: one for the violins and other for the brasses, saving both .wav files
3. Mixed the files, balancing volumes (brasses sounded louder than violins
4. Sampled with loops in every note, adjusting parameters in NSE trying to get the best joint

This is my first sample, so maybe it can be improved. If someone ask, I can send the .wav file to be sampled again.

Hope it's useful,
Jape

• Watcher of the Skies (intro).mp3

[Garion]

Nice ! Good Job !

[JapeFil]

Here it goes a demo of the complete intro. The sound at the closing section is the B3 C3 868868446 organ.

• Watcher of the Skies (complete intro - 2).mp3

[JapeFil]

• WOTS (intro - closing).mp3

I've made some changes to the sampling. Instead of using 2 Brass_Mellotron_M400 2.0 I've used Brass_Mellotron_MKII 2.0. It was the original sound that Tony Banks used in the original studio version of the song (Foxtrot - 1972).

It has to be in layer with B3 C3 868868446, slow rotary.

There it goes the new sampling and a new demo of the intro and the closing section of the song.

File size: 8.6 MB

[FirstNonRoland]

Nice sample! I have been using one I made by recording from Foxtrot (to .wav) the note held at approx 1:00 of the intro. Not bad. Looking forward to trying yours!