Jamie xx has appeared on the Tape Notes podcast to break down the songwriting and production behind three tracks from In Waves, a follow-up to 2015’s Grammy-nominated In Colour released late last year.
Digging into the gear and techniques behind Breather, a standout cut from the recently released project, Jamie revealed the synthesizer that he considers his all-time favourite, an ultra-rare vintage instrument that has featured on both Breather and Gosh, one of the producer’s most popular tracks: the Oberheim EVS-1 Eight Voice.
Released in the late ‘70s, the Eight Voice was a polyphonic analogue synth that brought together eight of Tom Oberheim’s Synthesizer Expander Modules, or SEMs, in a single instrument, each equipped with two VCOs, two envelopes and Oberheim’s legendary state-variable SEM filter.
“I used the Oberheim Eight Voice to make these really lovely synth chords. It’s like my favourite synth ever, because you can tune every oscillator,” Jamie says of the synth, which is capable of producing rich, harmonically complex patches thanks to a uniquely modular architecture that combined eight fully independent analogue voice modules.
“There are sixteen different oscillators, and they all go out of tune all the time, so by the time you’ve tuned it all, they’re all slightly out of tune, and then when you play these chords they’re all just a little bit wonky - just the right amount,” Jamie says. “You can also pan them, so each note is panned in a slightly different place.”
Though the Eight Voice’s architecture can be harnessed to create some phenomenal sounds, it’s also notoriously time-consuming to patch, as all eight of its modules must be programmed independently. “It’s a beautiful-sounding thing, but it does take a long time to program,” Jamie tells Tape Notes host John Kennedy, admitting that it took him “a few days” to cook up the swirling, cinematic chords that feature on Breather.
“If I get something good sound-wise I’ll try to make as many things with it as possible because I know the next day if I’ve turned it off and on again, it’ll be totally different,” he continues. “It’s very versatile, you can kind of do anything with it, but it takes a while.”
These days, a fully-functional Oberheim Eight Voice can fetch upwards of $50,000, but if you’d like to recreate the sound of this classic synth without remortgaging your home, both Cherry Audio and GForce have developed software emulations that do an admirable job of capturing the spirit of the original instrument.
Listen to the full episode on the Tape Notes website or subscribe to Tape Notes' YouTube channel.
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