Remaking the lead synth from the 1972 song "From The Beginning" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "From The Beginning" lead patch and play this iconic sound on most hardware or software subtractive synthesizers (Serum, Vital, Pigments, Prophet, Korg, Moog, etc). We've included the preset download directly for your convenience, but we strongly recommend you use our programming tutorial to recreate it yourself.
Original Audio
Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s 1972 track “From the Beginning” features a distinctive buzzy whistling lead synth during its solo section starting at 3:04. Keith Emerson achieved this using a Moog modular system, leveraging its three-oscillator architecture and resonant ladder filter to emphasize the upper frequencies.
Original Performing Instrument
Moog Modular
Our Remake of The Lead Synth
This audio clip is how close we've matched the original tone of the lead synth from the song "From The Beginning" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, giving you a reference point as you design your own synthesizer preset. Play it as often as you need to familiarize yourself with the nuances of the sound.
Synth Patch Programming Recipe
Getting Started
- Start by initializing your synthesizer to a plain saw with no filter, modulation or effects. For soft synths use the "init"/"default" preset or the the button to reset all parameters to their default factory values.
- No two synths are exactly alike, so treat the values below as approximate, and use your ear.
- Percentage values (e.g. 50%) represent the relative position of a knob or slider within its full range. The full range of each parameter may differ from synth to synth, so use your ear.
Voices
- Voice Mode: Mono
- Portamento: 30 ms
Amp Envelope
- Attack: 0 ms
- Sustain: 100%
- Release: 20 ms
Oscillators
- FM Amount: 50%
- Carrier
- Waveform: Triangle
- Volume: 30%
- Modulator
- Waveform: Sine
- Pitch: +3 Octaves
- Volume: 70%
Filter
- Type: Low Pass
- Cutoff: 85%
- Resonance: 95%
- Key Tracking: 100%
Reverb
- Mix: 20% Wet
- Size: Big
Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.
Explore More
- From the Beginning (song) – Wikipedia
- Faithful recreation & analysis: “From the Beginning” SYNTH SOLO (Soundologie)
- ELP ‘From the Beginning’ synth solo tutorial (Synthesizers.com Modular)
- Patch for ELP’s “From the Beginning” for the Voyager (Moog Forum)
Preset Downloads
Don't want to learn synth programming now? Use our synth preset as your starting point and tweak it from there. Register an account with Audible Genius and download the presets for free for the following synths:
- Primer, our free synthesizer VST
