How did the keyboard sound in "The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again" get made?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

A friend of mine wants to replicate this organ sound for his sell-out 80's pop band. They look like Haircut 100 and sound like latter day Tears For Fears with a bit of The Strokes thrown in, but I digress.

I remember a doco where Townshend was explaining how he did it, but can't remember much more than that. Can anyone help?

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 04:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Years later I realized that this was probably the song I remembered hearing while under anaesthesia for some dental work as a kid. It made the song very creepy. I think it was this one. They used to give us some kind of gas. Weird, huh?

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 17 June 2003 04:42 (twenty-two years ago)

They still do, RS. If you go to the right dentist.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 04:53 (twenty-two years ago)

some sort of arpeggiator?

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 04:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Now, there's a video on the making of "Who's Next" where the great man himself explains how he did it. But was was the gist of that? I can't recall.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

its an organ going thru an EMS synthi...

god...i feel like such a loser for knowing that...

― geeg, Tuesday, 17 June 2003 05:43 (twenty-two years ago)

(Soothingly) No Geeg, you're a winner, a real winner. And thanks for the knowledge.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 06:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Why not ask Mr. Rowley, the web's foremost Use Of Synths In Who Songs investigator? He claims that Townsend remembers it wrong on Classic Albums and gives the full skinny here.

― Alan Connor Junior, Tuesday, 17 June 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Your dentist put on Who's Next?!

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean...think of Daltrey's scream at the climax of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and then you're in a heavy drug fog w/ a bunch of steel in your mouth. No good.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the Who just sampled it from PuffyAmiYumi's "Jet Police"

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

It is an organ--signal routed through the EMS Synthi envelope filter.
Go, Geeg!

― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

See, when I was young they always told us it was an ARP synth. But if not, good, because you'd have to trade in one of your castles to buy one that still works these days.

― Taylor Parkes (Taylor Parkes), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

there's a funny part of the stevie wonder 'songs in the key of life' doco - where they can't get their arp working, so he bangs on it and laughs, explaining that they're just going to use this modern synth instead (ah fuck it)

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 17 June 2003 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.