I’ve updated this article with a newer version. This one remains available for archive purposes, but you can find the latest version here.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World was the third single released from Tears for Fears acclaimed second album, Songs From the Big Chair, and it immediately propelled them to success, especially in the wave of British synths bands popular in the US. Originally titled Everybody Wants to Go To War, the song is built around a bouncy 12/8 shuffle feel – a far cry from the moody sound of their debut album, but still retaining the bands signature sounds of guitars, synths and robotic drum machines.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World was the last song to be recorded for the album and was put together in less than two weeks, much shorter than other tracks on the album. The track helped Songs From the Big Chair became an 80s milestone, and one that has aged considerably well, with songs being used in Donnie Darko, Ready Player One and The Hunger Games.
Tears for Fears were keen explorers of the fledgling technology of the era, including the Fairlight CMI as a sampler and sequencer, drum machines such as the LinnDrum, Drumulator and Oberheim DMX, and the brand new Yamaha DX7, released a year prior to recording. Many of the sounds in Everybody Wants to Rule the World are layered sounds, a recording technique made easier with the introduction of MIDI sequencing.
For this article I’ve put together a remake of Everybody Wants to Rule the World using software emulations of all the synths used in the original song. I’ve previously covered Tears for Fears with a remake of Shout, which can be read here. Most of the synth sounds in my Everybody Wants to Rule the World remake were made with the Arturia Collection plugins Prophet V, DX7 V and CMI V. Another suitable DX7 emulation plugin is Dexed, which as well as being free, can open DX7 factory sounds. Before discussing each individual sound, here’s my full remake:
“The Prophet T8’s even better than the Five, I think it’s my favourite analogue synth. I like the piano-weighted keyboard — in fact everything I found wrong with the Prophet-5, like the fact that you had to use the modulation wheel for any modulation, seems to be put right on the T8. You’ve got in-built modulation, touch sensitivity, and I really like the Poly Mod.” – Roland OrzabalI recreated the main Everybody Wants to Rule the World synth part using Arturia Prophet V, a software emulation of the T-8’s younger sibling. The patch gets the distinct guitar character from two detuned pulse waves, done in Prophet V by setting Oscillator A & B’s PW knobs to 0.30 and 0.78. Set the filter frequency to 83 Hz with no keyboard tracking and the envelope modulation knob almost at maximum. Then, set the filter decay to a long 3.5 seconds with sustain set to 0.32. Turn on Prophet V’s onboard chorus with all three knobs at 12 o’clock and the chorus type set to 3. Here’s what that sounds like:
The Prophet T-8 chord patch is layered with Yamaha DX keys, or rather two keys patches layered together. It seems like the band double-tracked a Yamaha DX7 for the patches in Everybody Wants to Rule the World, but it is also possible that they used a Yamaha DX1 instead, which is essentially two Yamaha DX7 chips in one keyboard (with wooden side panels!), which the band did own at some point.
The DX7 had only been out for less than a year when Songs from the Big Chair was recorded, and the band only used presets on the notoriously difficult to program synth. For the layered chord patch, they used the factory presets ROM1A 08-PIANO 1 and ROM1B 01-PIANO 4. Here’s what they sound like individually, and then layered together:
In the November 85 Issue of Keyboard Magazine, Ian Stanley said the bass synth sound on Songs from the Big Chair came from a “MIDIed PPG bassline mixed with a DX7”. The DX7 preset used is the ROM1B 32-BASS 4 sound, and the PPG Wave sound is a modified version of the 013 A preset, tweaked with lowered Osc Wave setting and reduced filter envelope depth. For the remake, I used Waldorf’s PPG Wave 3 VST plugin. Here’s what both bass layers sound like individually and layered:
The choir sound that plays the long note during the intro, as well as the melody during the bridge, came from the group’s Fairlight CMI, a sampler & workstation that was used extensively on Songs From The Big Chair, such as several of the layers on Shout. The Fairlight patch in Everybody Wants to Rule the World uses two samples, OOHH1 and CHOIR6. The former is a mellow sound and the latter has more high-end, so they blend nicely. Detuning the CHOIR6 sample helps add more thickness and natural chorus to the sound. I used Arturia CMI V for the remake, here’s what it sounds like:
There are a few more DX7 patches used in Everybody Wants to Rule the World. The 5-note lick that opens the song is the the factory presets ROM1B 23-GUITAR 3 and ROM2A 23-VIBE 2 layered together. The 3-note arpeggio played by the guitar during the intro is also doubled by yet another Yamaha DX7 sound, this time the ROM1B 04-E-PIANO 3 patch.
The hi-hat and shaker sounds are classic LinnDrum sounds. The song has a bouncy 12/8 triplet feel with the shaker playing steady triplet 1/8th notes and the hi-hats playing a syncopated pattern, which together create a cross-rhythm. The hi-hats rhythm sounds weird in isolation, but complements the rest of the beat. The groove was actually inspired by Simple Mind’s Waterfront and Linx’s Throw Away the Key.
The MixOnline article states that the snare in Everybody Wants to Rule the World is the snare from Shout pitched up. To my ears, they sound like different snares; the snare on Everybody Wants to Rule the World sounds more like a classic 80s gated snare drum, as opposed to the crunchy Drumulator sample heard on Shout. For the remake I used a snare sample from Zenhiser’s “Classic 80’s Snares” sample pack. Here’s the full beat:
The guitar sounds in Everybody Wants to Rule the World sound like they used a Roland JC-120 amplifier for recording. The JC-120 is a solid state amp with a very clean sound, and I also double-tracked most of the guitar parts, panning the recordings hard left and right.
There’s a lot of chorus-y stereo-widening in the production, particularly on the synths, and I used a combination of iZotope’s free Ozone Imager 2, Soundtoys Microshift and my Roland Dimension-D to add chorus and widen the sounds. Arturia have also recently released a software version of the Dimension-D as part of their software effects lineup.
Below is a complete list of all the interviews and articles I referenced throughout this article:
Thanks for reading! The Arturia Prophet V and CMI V patches used for the remake are available to download below.
The presets from this article are also included in the Synth Sounds Collection, a free preset pack collecting the synth presets from all of my articles in one download.
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Brilliant again, great info, love your Tears For Fears work! Thank you!
Wow great research! Thank you! For the longest time I thought this song weighed heavily In the PPG camp, did not know they were relying on the Fairlight so much!
But this makes sense to me as 1983-1984 was awash with a ton of new synth technology coming out every 6 months. So basically they used everything they could get their hands on except an Oberheim Xpander!
Also as a drummer who is currently doing a deep dive into TFF drum parts, EWTRTW is deceptively difficult to play on acoustic drums – as the bass drum mimics the bass-line and the 16th note HH pattern is sequencer tight but the feel is elastic. Until your article I thought Manny Elias played acoustic drums on top of drum machines. But i can hear it now. There are some things in the drum part a drummer wouldn’t do. One give away is toward the end with a random cymbal crash with no bass drum behind it. Drummers tend to punch crashes up a bit with bass drum behind it. To be all machines though the song really grooves!
Anyway great job!
Beautiful job!! Really good!
I was inspired to do my take on Shout after reading your previous article; life got in the way, so I never finished it, but I’ll let you know when I’m done so we can compare!
Take good care!
thank you for this kind…
please little dragon or the radio dept…
Wow! That was a lot of work even before the video work started, and I’m still trying to figure out how you get the keys to animate themselves in synchronization with the audio.
This is incredible, you do god’s work.
I’d love to know how to achieve some of the synth sounds in Tame Impala’s “Music to Walk Home By”. it is a very synth drenched song and it is deathly underrated.
Floored with this incredible breakdown and through citation! I’m a huge fan of tears for fears and always thought the bass was PPG .. of course layered with DX7 makes sense.
Lately I’ve been trying to get my hands on as many 80s reverb impulses as possible.. Especially the EMT250 – holy grail of verbs
Thank you so much for sharing all your research I hope you consider doing early Pet Shop Boys or Frankie goes to Hollywood at some point ..
Thank you! Definitely considering both those recommendations!
Another brilliant remake and article.
Please, please, please do something on Trevor Horn: FGTH – Pleasuredome or Art Of Noise – Moments in Love or Grace Jones – Slave to The Rhythm or all of them in in a special!
FGTH is something I definitely want to tackle, need to spend some time with the Arturia Synclavier V plugin first!
Hi,
I’m struggling to import the .prox file. When I do, it doesn’t show up anywhere in Prophet. Any advice?
You might need to update your copy of Prophet V3 if you’re using an older version.
I’m having the same problem too
try looking in Saved Presets Under My Library in the browse preset screen
Could you provide any insight on the opening chimes lick? I have the presets loaded in but can’t get the sound right? Especially that almost “squeak” on the first note. Any insight on processing or layer %, is it octaved?
No layering or octave doubling on that sound, just chorus and the usual mixing comp/eq. Most of the DX7 presets are velocity sensitive so playing around with the MIDI velocities can change the sound a bit.
Lovely work. I’m having difficulty pulling the CMI V choir sound in. Any suggestions. Thanks for the great stuff!
What preset is used in Prophet V before the adjustments with pots are made?
I usually start with the initalized preset which you can load by clicking “New Preset…” in the menu.
This is stunning!!
I have analog lab V and CMI V. But I can’t find OOHH1 and CHOIR6 in the presets.
OOHH1 and CHOIR6 are samples, not presets. You can find the sample list by clicking the screen and choosing the ‘browse’ tab.
Well done and grateful you shared it with us. Can’t seem to get the dx7 piano sounds right. Am guessing you processed them at least with a chorus. Anything else ?
The two DX7 tracks in my remake are grouped and the group effects are EQ (boost highs/cut lows), chorus, compression, stereo widening (Ozone Imager 2) and reverb.
Such a fat live jamming guitar play, especially the first one.
I would like in close future try to rework this sound track for my own usage, do you think i could request you for the sample of your guitar ? I would love to drastically transform it and integrating it in my future composition.
If not, no problem i will find other ideas.
I am struggling to get a smooth sound for the OOHH/CHOIR sample in the CMI. I can’t find a way to eliminate the clicks that occur as the sample repeats. Could you share how you deal with this?
Unfortunately the clicking is part of that vintage sampler sound, the heavy amount of reverb on the OOHH/CHOIR track in helps to mask the clicks, you can still hear them in isolation but they can’t be heard in the full mix.
Brilliant work. Thank you for all the effort!
Excellent work Dan!
I was struggling with the bass. I tried the split with a PPG but failed! Thanks for putting me on the right track!
Happy new year sir!
Gary B.
Glad to hear it, happy new year!