John Lunn: Composing for The Last Kingdom Using Authentic Analogue Soundscapes from AJH Synths
For Netflix Series Composer of The Last Kingdom, Downton Abbey, Grantchester and more, his AJH modular system remains a massive part of his sound
London, UK, 18 September 2025 — With an impressive track record of film compositions including Netflix blockbusters such as The Last Kingdom, Downton Abbey, Grantchester, and many others, John Lunn has always harboured a desire to be an avant-garde classical composer. While his innate talent shines through all his work and has contributed to the overall success of every project he has worked on, it has taken time for Lunn to hone his sonic toolkit. After a period of feeling that soft synths were all starting to sound the same, he landed on AJH Synths' MiniMod system just over a decade ago and has never looked back.
"When I originally got into film music, everything got more and more into the computer with my film and television work," Lunn recalls. "There was a lot of pressure to do stuff quickly and everyone was using soft synths. And to me, these were all beginning to sound the same." Serendipitously, his landing the composer role on The Last Kingdom helped spark his re-discovery of modular synths, harkening his early work as a student at Glasgow University on an EMS Synthi 100 many years ago.
"I had suggested that we create the music for The Last Kingdom series electronically, since nobody knows what things really sounded like back then," he says. "I started getting more into real synths again at this point, and rediscovered modular - and that was a bit of a gamechanger." He considered purchasing a Minimoog, but the price was prohibitive at the time. Also, since many of them were not MIDI compatible, there were other issues that concerned him regarding synchronising music to picture. "When I saw the AJH MiniMod, I thought ‘this is exactly what I need.’ And that became a mainstay of the soundtrack for the Last Kingdom," he says.
A new low with AJH Synth
"It was the low end that hooked me - and the low end in film and TV is a really complex business that you can’t just take for granted," Lunn continues. "It’s not like doing a dance track, where the speakers will just be there pumping out the bass. In film and television, the bass needs much more attention."
He says that despite his efforts while using soft synths, he could not access the level of level of frequency depth and timbre to achieve what he wanted. But on firing up his AJH Synth MiniMod system with three VCOs, he heard exactly what he needed to hear: "It all just clicked when I used the three AJH oscillators together - the entire sound just opened up, and the low-end presence I needed was there."
More soundscapes with Triple Cross XFader and Entropic Doom
One of Lunn's standard AJH Synth patches is to send four chromatically tuned VCOs into the new Triple Cross XFader Panner, and then have these randomly controlled by the AJH Tap Tempo LFO and Sample Hold & Slew modules. The result is a constant stream of evolving, randomized chords: "I’ve got the VCA controlled by the Tap Tempo LFO, which is constantly altering the voices. I introduce a bit of randomness with the AJH Dual RVG module," he explains. "The result is this four-chord thing that disappears and comes back a little different each time - it could be a song in and of itself."
He says he also uses the AJH Entropic Doom Noisillator for percussive sounds and mixing in noise sources into his synth voices. "The Entropic Doom is brilliant - I use this for percussive things, but I will also put another oscillator through it and have it interact with the noise." Once he finds a patch he likes, he tends to stick with it. "Some of these shows I work on last for six months at a time, so if I get a patch that I like, it stays. The MiniMod is kind of its own self-contained instrument that always stays patched, and then I just extend on from that."
Hooked on AJH Synth
Following his work on The Last Kingdom, Lunn has continued his sonic journey with AJH Synth. "I think I've got virtually all their modules now, and it is still a massive part of my sound. I was completely hooked after I got the MiniMod."
Lunn remains extremely busy, having completed a score for a forthcoming Downton Abbey movie, as well as with ongoing work from another successful television series called Shetland. His music for The Last Kingdom and Shetland is available on major streaming platforms and other popular listening formats. For more information, please visit his website at www.jlunn.com.
About AJH Synth
AJH Synth is headed up by Allan J Hall, who has been involved with synths, electronics and music for several decades. He started by building a guitar fuzz box at the tender age of 12 and his interest in synthesisers and electronic music soon followed, fuelled by an unhealthy overexposure to early Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, Vangelis and Kitaro. For the last 15
years he has been building and modding synth systems both for himself and other electronic musicians, as well as spending some time as a semi-pro musician playing keyboards in several rock and tribute bands. Allan spent five years as a service technician repairing and modifying Moog, Arp, Korg, Roland and other analogue synthesisers along with some Pro Audio design work, previous to this he spent two years designing and building "boutique" valve (tube) guitar amplifiers. AJH Synth are based near Durham, in the northeast of England, where this small but enthusiastic bunch of synth heads now indulge their passion for all things modular.
