The FinalCountdown
The sound, the song and the riff behind the most famous synth fanfare in rock, on one colourful A4 page you can print and pin up. Free, straight to your inbox.
- A4 poster · print-ready PDF
- TX-816 + JX-8P: the two-synth stack
- The 1986 rig vs. the Doctor Mix rebuild
Everyone knows the riff.Almost nobody knows it's two synths.
Ask most people what that fanfare is and you get a shrug: "a DX7, probably?" The real answer is a Yamaha TX-816 and a Roland JX-8P, stacked. FM for the bite, analogue for the body. Neither one on its own is the sound.
I rebuilt the whole track note by note to find out exactly how it works. This poster is what I learned, boiled down to one page you can actually hang on the wall.
The sound. The song. The riff.
01THE SOUND
The TX-816 and the JX-8P, drawn panel for panel, and how they were stacked to make the fanfare.
02THE SONG
From a riff on a borrowed Korg Polysix to No. 1 in 25 countries.
03THE RIFF
Three things I only noticed by rebuilding it, plus the 1986 rig next to mine.
I'm Claudio. I rebuilt it note by note.
I've mixed, mastered and produced records out of my London studio for twenty-plus years. For this one I recreated every part of The Final Countdown from scratch, then mixed it to sit right next to the original. The full multi-track and the MIDI for the entire song are available now, if you want to take it apart yourself.
Put it on the wall.
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