Musician Recreates the Complex Drum Track Behind Ray Parker Jr.’s ‘Ghostbusters’ Theme

In the spirit of Halloween, musician Captain Pikant used his Hapax sequencer to recreate the complex drum beat behind Ray Parker Jr.’s classic Ghostbusters theme. He explained that the original version used a LinnDrum drum machine and a Simmons SDS-V electronic drum kit.

The sounds come from the LinnDrum, which of course by the mid-80s was one of the most popular drum machines in music production. …The SDS-V was actually velocity sensitive, meaning it reacted to soft and loud drum stick hits. …

The track also featured a lot of guitar, which created the creepy laughter in the song’s intro.

The lead guitar is on the right with a prominent chorus effect. And you know that creepy laugh at the start of the song? Nearly my whole life I thought this was something like a laughing bag toy. You know like “Ha – Ha – Ha – Ha”. But while we were picking apart the track, I realized that this was actually done on guitar as well.

After Ghostbusters became a huge hit, it was revealed that the opening phrase was quite similar to the Huey Lewis and the News song “I Want a New Drug”. This was not coincidental.

…”I Want A New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News, which director Ivan Reitman used as a temp track while cutting Ghostbusters. He wanted the song for the movie but when Huey Lewis declined, he gave the temp soundtrack as a reference to Ray Parker Jr.

This, of course, led to a lawsuit, which was settled out of court in 1985. Nick in Revue summed the whole case up nicely.