Duran Duran-style synth line

Duran Duran’s sound defined the 80s. We recreate the arpeggiated riff from the opening of Save A Prayer using Roland’s scarily identical JP8 software plugin

> Step by step 1. How to create that famous Duran synth line

1

Let’s begin by opening a DAW and loading an instance of the Roland Jupiter 8 plugin. First, we’ll create an initialised patch; click on the Patch button, which will open the patch browser. Then click on the New button in the bank section, to create a new patch Bank. 2

Select your patch location – we’re using A1 – then hit the Rename button. You can now type your patch name into the text field, pressing the Write button once you’ve finished typing. We can now shut the patch browser window, and start creating your sound. 3

The subtle elegance of this Duran Duran patch all stems from the use of triangle waves, so let’s move to VCO-1 and select the triangle waveform, using the Selection pot. 4

Moving to VCO2, we also need to select a triangle waveform, while also moving to the VCO mixer section, and increasing the volume of VCO2 to the value of 150 to make VCO2 slightly louder than VCO1. 5

Much of the overall colour of this patch emanates from some subtle detuning of oscillators. Staying with VCO2, change the octave Range to 4, while increasing the fine-tune Amount to a value of 35. 6

Now we can begin to shape our sound, using an envelope. We’ll use Env2 for both volume/amplitude control, and filter modulation. Decrease the Sustain amount to 0, while increasing both the Decay and Release phases to a value of around 100. 7

We are going to employ both the hi-pass and lo-pass filters; move the HPF fader to a value of 85 and decrease the VCF fader to a value of around 150. The VCF is in fact the lo-pass filter, with VCF being an acronym for Voltage Controlled Filter. 8

Apply the envelope modulation to the VCF. Flick the Env-Mod switch to the Env2 position, and increase the Env-Mod fader to a positive value of 85. This now means that Envelope 2 is modulating the low-pass filter, while also controlling the amplitude of the patch. 9

Add chorus and tape delay effects; use the Jupiter’s included Chorus1 effect, located in the Delay Type section. Use a level value of 20. Adding a tape delay from your DAW gives a perfect repetition of sequenced notes. Try an 1/8th note dotted delay value. To save, re-write your patch from the browser.