Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science | Lead Synth Patch Remake

Remaking the lead synth from the 1982 song "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby can be an exciting challenge for any synthesizer enthusiast. Here’s how you can create the "She Blinded Me With Science" lead patch and play this iconic sound on most hardware or software subtractive synthesizers (Serum, Vital, Pigments, Prophet, Korg, Moog, etc). We've included the preset download directly for your convenience, but we strongly recommend you use our programming tutorial to recreate it yourself.

Original Audio

Thomas Dolby’s 1982 hit “She Blinded Me With Science” features a memorable pitch-bendy lead synthesizer sound at the very beginning of the track. This sound is primarily generated by the Roland JP-4 synthesizer, which was used to create the song’s iconic keyboard parts. The lead synthesizer sound is characterized by its dynamic pitch-bending and expressive timbre, setting the tone for the song’s blend of synthpop and new wave elements. You can hear this distinctive lead synthesizer sound from the opening notes of the song, establishing its unique and catchy melody.

Original Performing Instrument

Roland JP-4

Our Remake of The Lead Synth

This audio clip is how close we've matched the original tone of the lead synth from the song "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby, giving you a reference point as you design your own synthesizer preset. Play it as often as you need to familiarize yourself with the nuances of the sound.

Synth Patch Programming Recipe

Getting Started

• Start by initializing your synthesizer to a plain saw with no filter, modulation or effects. For soft synths use the "init"/"default" preset or the the button to reset all parameters to their default factory values.
• No two synths are exactly alike, so treat the values below as approximate, and use your ear.
• Percentage values (e.g. 50%) represent the relative position of a knob or slider within its full range. The full range of each parameter may differ from synth to synth, so use your ear.

Note: the patch settings may slightly differ in the Syntorial challenge.

Explore More

• • She Blinded Me with Science (Wikipedia)
  • Classic Tracks: Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” (Mix)

Preset Downloads

Don't want to learn synth programming now? Use our synth preset as your starting point and tweak it from there. Register an account with Audible Genius and download the presets for free for the following synths:

• Primer, our free synthesizer VST