Remaking the lead synth from the 1987 song "Call Me" by Spagna can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "Call Me" 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
The brass-style lead in Spagna’s “Call Me” is a horn-like synth melody that enters at 0:18. Likely a combination of horn sample and synth, but we recreate it with just synth here. It is characterized by octave-stacked, heavily unisoned sawtooth oscillators that produce a wide, brassy tone. A fast filter envelope with a quick but noticeable attack creates the percussive transient that mimics a horn attack.
Our Remake of The Lead Synth sound
This audio clip is how close we've matched the original tone of the lead synth from the song "Call Me" by Spagna, 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.
Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.
Explore More
- Call Me (Spagna song) — Wikipedia
- Spagna – Call Me (1987) — Discogs release listing
- Call Me — WhoSampled entry (credits and samples)
- Spagna – Call Me discussion — KVR Audio forum
- Italo Disco instrumentation references (mentions Jupiter-8, Synthex) — Decadance blog
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:
- Vital
Comments
This recipe is the result of a Syntorial community preset remake request. Need support remaking this sound? Have comments?
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