Vangelis “Tears in Rain” Project
This pack contains the Ableton Live Project for my full remake of Vangelis’ Tears in Rain, which is from the soundtrack to the Blade Runner, and which I featured in my Vangelis’ Blade Runner Synth Sounds article.
I had started slowly started working on this remake in early 2022, however I completed it shortly after he passed away. Recreating it really made me appreciate how much Vangelis did with quite a simple setup; most of the tracks were likely recorded live with little overdubs to minimize noise as he was recording straight to tape.
The project uses a fair bit of automation; I sequenced everything on the grid and then automated the tempo to match Vangelis’ free tempo playing. There’s also some automation on filters and volumes which were likely adjusted manually while performing. To recreate the background noise heard in the original song, I simply added a ‘tape noise’ sample to track 9. If you want to hear less noise in the project, simply mute this track.
The included Ableton Live Project features the following tracks:
Tears in Rain
6 synth tracks:
- Melody / Rhodes (Arturia Stage-73 V2)
- Strings (XILS V+)
- High Strings (Arturia Prophet-5 V)
- Swell 1 (Arturia CS-80 V4)
- Swell 2 (Arturia CS-80 V4)
- Bass (Arturia Mini V)
3 audio tracks:
- Percussion 1
- Percussion 2
- Tape Noise
This Ableton Live Project requires Ableton Live 11 or later and uses the following plugins:
Synths
- Arturia CS-80 V4
- Arturia Mini V
- Arturia Prophet-5 V
- Arturia Stage-73 V2
- XILS V+
Effects
- iZotope Ozone Imager 2 (free plugin)
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys EchoBoy
- Valhalla ShimmerVerb
- Valhalla VintageVerb
All tracks have been frozen so if you’re missing any of the above plugins, you’ll still be able to hear the tracks and play the project. If you own the plugins, you can unfreeze the tracks to edit the sounds.