“It's been excruciating”: A musician recreates the Human League's Don't You Want Me using the original synths, and it's as much of a faff as you thought it would be

The Synths Behind Don't You Want Me - YouTube

Watch On

YouTuber Alex Ball and friends have meticulously recreated The Human League's biggest hit, Don't You Want Me, using the original synths, sequencer and drum machine. If ever an advert for modern soft synths and laptops were needed, this is it.

In the year 2025, we really have got it easy. With our soft synths, computers, and DAWs, knocking up old synth tunes is as easy as working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. And with AI already doing some of the heavy lifting in our music production, it's only going to get easier.

So spare a thought for your dads and grandads - or indeed old music technology journalists like us - because they/we had to use hardware, spreadsheets, and a lot of faffing around, not to mention sheer luck, to come up with decent tunes.

The Human League - Don't You Want Me (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Watch On

Take The Human League's 1981 smash hit single Don't You Want Me, for example. We reckon we could knock that up with some LinnDrum samples, a basic softsynth and a decent DAW in no time.

Things were very different 45 years ago, though, because while the song might well have had some genius songwriting to help it on its way back in '81, it was a pain in the neck to record. Or at least that is the conclusion of Alex Ball's video on its recreation.

Ball assembled the original synth line-up - using his existing gear or borrowing in other items - and used the original Roland MC8 sequencer to recreate the tune, track by track. The synths included a Roland System 700, JP4 and a Korg Delta, with the drums supplied by a Linn LM1 and programmed for the video by synth maestro Benge.

However, the biggest challenge wasn't so much assembling the gear, but programming the sequences and getting the various pieces of gear to talk to each other. There was no MIDI back in 1981, just some unreliable syn'cing, and the Linn in particular had problems 'speaking' to the MC8.

Ball took a good six hours to program one part of the song, and while other tracks were significantly easier to recreate, he concluded that the exercise was "excruciating", although he did admit that this was his favourite video to make overall.

"It took a lot of willpower not to cheat and use computers and other workarounds to save hours," Alex concludes. "I'm glad we stuck at it and you learn so much. I've got a new appreciation for the songwriting, the arranging, the performances, the production and the engineering."

You can see the full video below, and if you want to see the real thing, The Human League are playing dates in the UK and Ireland this summer, but not with the original synths. Go to their website for more info.