Yes, this is more certain than most things in vintage keyboard land.
But it's apparently the preset-only 'Polymoog Keyboard' (model 280a, 1978-80) on the record, although the Polymoog Synthesizer(203a, 1975-80) seems to be featured in the official video.
The preset patches of the Keyboard (e.g. the famous 'Vox humana' patch) couldn't simply be reproduced by the full version because (amongst other things) the filterbank was voiced differently.
What makes things confusing is the fact that the early versions of the full version were branded Polymoog Keyboard and then after the introduction of the preset version (which was called Polymoog Keyboard) it became the Polymoog Synthesizer.
Last edited by sphinx; 11-09-2014 at 06:54 AM. Reason: Clarification, Orthography
Interesting, I never knew that it was the preset model (which had a couple extra presets that the full blown version didn't have, right?) on the record. I always thought it was hilarious that's he got four guys playing synths in that video, one of whom is just karate chopping the keyboard in time with the electronic handclap effect (do we know what he used for that on the record? It's not the Polymoog, I'm sure of that, but what was out at that time that could do that kind of percussion effect?).
BTW, I love the drumming on that track. Simple but perfectly elegant. And I also love that nobody seems to notice there's a bass guitar in the instrumental bridge.
The white noise clap could have been almost any mono synth of the day, but I imagine it was a Mini-Moog on the record.
The Polymoog is definitely responsible for that swirling string sound (actually the “Vox Humana” patch) but the rest is almost certainly not. I know Numan owned an ARP Odyssey and a Roland Jupiter-4 Compuphonic, and I’m willing to bet those are responsible for most of the rest of what we’re hearing.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 11-10-2014 at 01:00 PM.
Yeah, I'll pop out with you. I can understand CoH, but UFO is one cool-ass track, IMO. It's like an updated version of Astral Traveler. It's probably far too Wakeman dominant for anyone to love it though. That said, if YES were to play UFO live today, and do it justice, the crowd would go ape shit.
He did indeed. Incidentally, the guest vocals on that were by the wonderful Colin Blunstone:
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
Well, a few people around the webz seem to think he used a Claptrap on that song and it could be, with a ton of reverb. The Cars sound seems to have a lot more decay to me than the digital claps would have unless they could be tuned down really low. I'm not convinced the Claptrap was out by then though. It would have to have been one of Simmons flagship products (and it may have been). Info is sketchy, even Simmons website doesn't seem to sy. So I think I could for sure program that effect on a Minimoog but it may have been the Claptrap. It was definitely ClapTrap on Betty Davis Eyes!
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, I thought the ClapTrap came out later, more like 81 or 82, but from what I can see on the Simmons website and a couple others, there were at least a couple different products with the ClapTrap name, and the one I'm thinking of is a later model.
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