Chords for Michael Jackson - Thriller [MiniMoog Model D Tutorial]

I'm going to show you how to recreate the bassline from [C] Michael Jackson's thriller,
using the Minimoog Model D.
So I have a pretty basic tone right now.
_ [C#] _ _ _ [E] _
[F#] _ [C#] _ Single oscillator set
to a sawtooth, volume all the way up, and octave set to 16 feet.
No filtering as of
right now.
Let's bring in a second oscillator.
I'll set that to a square. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C#m] _ _ [G#] _ [F#] _ [C#m] _ [C#] _ _
Let's bring the
level up, approximately at the 8 mark, and let's turn it on.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _
[E] _ That thickens up the sound
a little bit.
[F#] _ _
[G#] Now for the third oscillator, make sure the oscillator control is on.
I'll
set the octave to 8 feet, leave the tuning in the center, leave the waveform at [C#] sawtooth,
and also set the volume at about the 8 mark.
Don't forget to turn it on. _ _
[F#] [C#] Make sure oscillator
[N] 3's tuning is right in the center.
It could be a bit hard to get it exactly.
[C#] Try to make
it as close to the center as possible.
_ With an analog synth like this, you'll definitely
get that detuned beating effect.
[C#m] _ [F#] _ _ [C#m] _
Alright, so that's the oscillator section.
Next let's
move on to the filter.
_ I'm going to bring the filter cutoff all the way down to negative
4, so you can barely hear anything.
Let's crank up the resonance to about 6, _ _ contour
also up to about 6.
[C#] _ _ _ _ _
So now the filter [C#] envelope comes into play.
I'll give it just a little
bit of attack, just slightly above nothing. _
TK I'll set to approximately 600 milliseconds,
and sustain all the way down.
[N] Let's hear that now. _ _
_ _ _ _ [F#] [C#] That's a lot closer to what we're going
for.
Now you notice if I set the attack back down to zero, _ it has a bit more attack, but
with that wee bit of attack, it gives a little bit of a swell.
_ _ _ [F#] _ _ _
That works pretty well. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C#] _ _ _
Now
for the loudness contour, _ I'll keep the attack all the way down, bring in some DK at about
600 milliseconds, _ and set the sustain to about 5. _ _ _ _
_ _ Now one thing you will notice on this keyboard
is that we have low note priority.
Meaning if I hold down a note and I try to play a
higher note, it won't sound.
Now this is how the original Minimoog was set, but on the
new Reissue, you can change that.
You can set it to a high note priority, or even a
last note priority, [E] which works even better.
Hold [N] down a C major triad in this register,
that would be C, E and G, and then power cycle the synth.
_ Now you will get a last note priority.
_ I like this mode.
So now I can hold a note, _ _ and trigger a lower note, _ _ _ _ as well as a higher
note.
_ _ _ _ [E] Now another thing you will notice is [Fm] that the filter envelope does not re [E]-trigger
when you play legato phrases.
This also applies to the amp envelope.
Now to change this, if
you hold down a D major triad in this register, so that would be D, F sharp, A, and then power
cycle the unit. _
So now we set the synth to a mode where it does re-trigger the envelopes,
no matter how we play.
_ _ _ So now even when I play legato, you will hear that that envelope
re-triggers.
_ [G#m] _ _ _ _ [A#] _ _ [G#m] _
[G#] So to play this particular bassline, envelope re-trigger mode is the best option.
_ _ Ok now one last thing we can do to the sound is to add some portamento or glide.
So I'm
going to turn on the glide on the left over here, and increase the glide time a little
bit. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
And there we go.
So that's the bass sound from Michael Jackson's Thriller. _ _ _ _ _ _ _