With Depeche Mode’s 15th studio album, Memento Mori, out now, we’ve decided to look back at the band’s synth history and have a go at recreating some Mode-like beats, riffs and sequences. We’ll not only wrestle some sounds from our trusty Zebra CM free synth, which you can download right now, but also use an emulation of Depeche Mode’s most widely used synth.
When the band first got together back in 1980, they used cheap analogue synths of the time, including a Kawai 100F, Yamaha CS5 and Moog Prodigy. However, the one synth that has been used more than any other, and across most Depeche albums, is the ARP 2600. This was Mute Records owner Daniel Miller’s (and once owned by Elton John, synth fact fans). It onwards, but also for creating drum sounds, specifically the kick.
