How to make the sounds from Vangelis ‘Tears in Rain’ (from Blade Runner) with DRC

With the new year comes new ambitions and goals, new dreams joining old ones, and new ways to challenge and better ourselves.

As we push forward into 2023 with excitement and enthusiasm, it is with a slightly heavy heart that 2022 was the year that we said goodbye to one of our all-time heroes; Vangelis. This week to start the year in sonic style and to look back on a legend, Lucas decided to feature another amazing track from the film ‘Blade Runner’ (Ridley Scott, 1982). We already brought you the enigmatic ‘Blade Runner Blues’ from the same film, and today rather fittingly we have a track from the film’s final scene ‘Tears in Rain’.

Composed, recorded, mixed, and produced by Evangelos Papathanassiou AKA Vangelis, in 1982, Vangelis immersed himself in the cinematic world of science fiction, which saw a meteoric rise during the 1980s. To score and create the audio ambience and atmosphere was no easy task, back then even more so. What does the future sound like? How can an audience have an immersive or engaging experience with something so foreign/unfamiliar to the present day? And what could even create such sounds?!

At the tail end of the 1960s the first analog synthesizers were introduced, a whole new world of fresh electronic sounds, full of experimental sonic possibilities. By the time that ‘Blade Runner’ was filmed, there were already several commercial synthesizers to choose from, much more affordable than before, thus encouraging their rise in popular music and media. It was a series of synthesizers, such as Yamaha CS-80, Roland VP-330, Prophet-5 and Yamaha GS-1, which contributed to the nostalgic melodies of an almost dystopian future. Following an intuitive and spontaneous methodology, Vangelis composed the entire soundtrack after the movie recording had been completed, watching the film and composing the music simultaneously.

While Lucas rehearses the rest of the ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack album, we leave you today with ‘Tears in Rain’, supported by an Ableton Project file to follow the tutorial to the letter… or to the note!

Download the Ableton project from this video: https://www.imaginando.pt/uploads/goodies/tutorials/blade-runner-tears-in-the-rain-project.zip

00:00 Music Demo
02:54 Intro
04:28 Patch Construction
04:36 Pad High
08:21 Pad Mid
10:51 Pad Low
11:22 Bass
14:21 Rhodes
17:48 Lead
21:57 Music
25:08 Outro

DRC – Polyphonic Synthesizer:
DRC for Mac & Windows – https://www.imaginando.pt/products/drc-polyphonic-synthesizer
DRC for iOS – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drc-polyphonic-synthesizer/id973055710
DRC for Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imaginando.drc

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