Nord User Forum

Hello can anyone identify this instrument. The one that plays the melody in the intro to Sade's By Your Side.



Even better can anyone emulate it on the Stage 4?

Z

To me, from 0:00 to 0:21, the melody is played by a Rhodes (with delay, EQ, etc.)...

*Edit*: or possibly a Wurlitzer... but would stick to a Rhodes if I had to bet...

yes myeRhodes is getting near it. There is a kind of pitch. End I think

Im hearing an organ. quite percusive.

• Mixdown.mp3

Yes, this is definitely an organ.

I'd use two instances of synth with simple sine waves, one at true pitch and one tuned 5 semitones down, and I'd put it in mono mode, and add a bit of glide.

I can see why someone might think organ or rhodes... the basic tone of a Rhodes tine or a single drawbar of tonewheel organ is similar to a sine wave. And you can definitely get very close with an organ drawbar setting like 080 800 000, but you won't have the glide, and you'll probably get additional note-on/note-off key click that you don't want, even if you turn the treble EQ all the way down. On a Rhodes, besides again possibly having to use EQ to minimize any bell overtone, you'd have to play both notes, which makes it a 2-hand part, and it would be hard to play it as evenly as what we're hearing there, especially with Rhodes sounds being responsive to velocity, so you'd also have to focus on maintaining very consistent velocity between both hands and between all the notes. So while you could get in the ballpark with an organ or Rhodes sound (which is what you'd have to resort to on an Electro), since you've got a Stage, use the synth.

Yep, you can do as AnotherScott suggested.

I'd maybe try different waveforms… there's a graininess and some more overtones to them. Maybe an actual organ sample.
Turn the filter down, add chorus and a tapped delay.