Mike Olfield's Tubular Bells (Theme from The Exorcist) performed on the Roland System 8 synthesizer

Published on Oct 26, 2019 Sean Christopher Evoking Emotion with Synthesizers

"Mike Oldfield's brilliant Tubular Bells album, released in 1973 was pure music genius in mine and many others opinions. The intro to part 1 was especially a favorite of mine and others.

Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by English multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. Oldfield, then 19 years old, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album. The album initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist (1973). This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield's profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200, and reached the top position in Canada and Australia. The album has sold over 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million worldwide.

I did this arrangement on the Roland System 8 and multitracked to Cubase 10 Pro. I tried my best to stay true to the original 1973 version and the System 8 was the perfect choice for the task."