This video demonstrates some lovely phased Eminent 310U style strings, improvising on Jean Michel Jarre’s Equinoxe Part 2.
via Yorkshirelad69:
Equinoxe part II. Original music composed by Jean Michel Jarre.
This video is here only to show the Korg Radias doing quite a passable emulation of the phased strings created by passing the sound of the Eminent 310U through an Electro Harmonix Small Stone phaser.
This is the swirling string sound that helped define Jean Michel Jarre’s first two hit albums, Oxygene and Equinoxe.
No external effects were used, only those on the Radias.
I don’t play it note for note, it’s only to give you an idea of how good the emulation is.
It’s not a standard preset I use, you need to download the Radias Heaven presets – by Rune Foshaug. The preset I used was called 1976.
What do you think? Does it capture the classic Eminent 310U sound?
That’s intriguing, it sounds stereo — I wonder when YouTube made that switch for regular-quality videos, as I recall they used to be mono (and hence, did horrible phasey things to sounds like this).
I’ll have to listen to my old Jarre to compare (as one of the things he does so masterfully well is offset the “airy” sounds with deeper fare), but the sounds certainly evolve well; younger audiences might suggest “MORE BASS!” and I think a touch of detuning and more chorus would enhance its variety.
Torley
I’d noticed that, too. It works great for this sort of thing, because you can hear the lushness of the stereo sound.
I thought this was a very good emulation. It’s sort of amazing how good that vintage gear sounded, given the technology!
Any "analog string" patch running through a phase shifter gives that "instant jarre" sound.
But nothing replaces an Eminent for THAT sound.
The Radias emulation is ok but surely not outstanding. R3/MicroKorg/XL give the SAME result, be can do even better on better V.A. synths (Virus, Micron, Ion, Miniak, Q, etc…)