Remaking the lead synth from the 1980 song "Fade To Grey" by Visage can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "Fade To Grey" 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 high, shiny lead in Visage’s “Fade to Grey” is a bright, bell-like octave-stacked synth line that sits above the mix with a narrow, high‑frequency sheen. It is clearly audible around 1:35 in the single and throughout the instrumental interludes. The tone is thin in the low end and wide/smearing in the upper harmonics, often reproduced with unison/stacking, pulse-width movement, and a high-pass approach. Numerous recreations and discussions attribute the effect to vintage polyphonic lead/string synths and Juno/Polymoog-style patches.
Our Remake of The Lead Synth sound
https://soundcloud.com/audiblegenius/visage-fade-to-grey-lead?utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=social_sharing&utm_source=id_300780This audio clip is how close we've matched the original tone of the lead synth from the song "Fade To Grey" by Visage, 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: Poly
- Voice Count: 6
Amp Envelope
- Attack: 0 ms
- Decay: 1900 ms
- Sustain: 0%
- Release: 1600 ms
Oscillators
- Oscillator 1
- Waveform: Pulse
- Pulse Width: 50%
- Volume: 50%
- Pitch: +4 Cents
- Oscillator 2
- Waveform: Pulse
- Pulse Width: 50%
- Pitch: +1 Octave and -14 Cents
- Volume: 50%
- Sub Oscillator
- Waveform: Pulse
- Pulse Width: 100%
- Pitch: -1 Octave
- Volume: 40%
- Unison
- Oscillators: All
- Voice Count: 4
- Detune Range: 4 Cents
- Stereo Spread: 50%
- Reset All Oscillators Phase On Note Start: No
Filter
- Type: High Pass
- Cutoff: 60%
Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.
Explore More
- Fade to Grey (Visage song) (Wikipedia)
- Vintage Synth Trumps with BILLY CURRIE (The Electricity Club)
- How to synthesise the sounds of Visage: Fade To Grey (MatrixSynth)
- Why (and How) did I cover Visage’s “Fade To Grey”? (Juggernaut Music)
- FAMOUS SOUNDS — The “Fade To Grey” synth bass, fx and pad (Synthmania)
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
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