Nord User Forum

Does anyone happen to know the type of synth patch used on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer? It's played throughout in addition to the horns and shakuhachi flute. Any help would be greatly appreciated - I need to learn the song for my band and as a classically trained pianist am just getting my feet wet with synth sounds and synth programming.

I'd ask this question in the samples section.

Will do, thanks!

Kremona73 wrote:Does anyone happen to know the type of synth patch used on Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer? It's played throughout in addition to the horns and shakuhachi flute.

Hello Kremona73,
are you referring to the almost farfisa organ-like 2 chord rhythm progression part, the one that seems to have a lot of vibrato on it?

If so, then it's a saw wave organ synth sound with LFO vibrato. It was possibly, originally a NED Synclavier. However it could be recreated on just about any polysynth.

The biggest issue will be getting all four significant sounds spread across the NE3.
1. Synth bass
2. Octave Brass
3. Vibrato Synth Organ
4. Bamboo Flute

Cheers, Hanon

Hi Hanon,

Thanks for your quick reply and sorry for my slow one!

Yes - I am referring to the 2 chord rhythm part - it sounds like that sound may also overlay some of the brass intro part. And I agree that it does sound kind of like a farfisa! Do you happen to know of any pre-existing Nord patches that would work for that part? I am trying to avoid programming sounds from scratch on my synth (I'm not very proficient at it and it seems to take me forever) so was hoping there might be a close match somewhere in the Nord sample library. I figure that another option could be to just tweak the Farfisa settings on my NE3 to get somewhat close.

Regarding spreading the sounds across the NE3 - you are right - that will be a challenge. Fortunately I have two other keyboards that I can use for the other sounds. I was hoping to use my NE3 for the Farfisa-esque part or possibly the brass part, as Nord has some nice brass samples in the library.