(80's vibe synthpop with Bitleys refills) Dire Times

[jappe]

Yet another 80's vibe synthpop song.

All my stuff is work in progress, so feedback & suggestions most welcome!

How I made this:

As almost always I started by building some blocks of drums.
Then experimented with chord progressions.

When chord progressions determined, record chord rhythms that fits with the drums.

Recording vocals: Center, Left, Right, and center overlay tracks. Polish the vocal tracks in Adobe Audition (Remove strange sub frequencies appearing from some unknown source) + Fix hilarious peaks and oddities like minor explosions which probably is saliva effects; swallowing a mouthful of olive oil helps. Pitch fix in Reason.

Lead synths recorded block by block; sometimes slowing down the tempo when recording so I can more easily follow the chord progressions. Retry until I find something that fits.

And then bass and filler instruments(bells etc)

Gradually improving parts after listening through: Play the song identifying the weakest spots, fixing them, and repeat the procedure. I stop when I'm done or when I fall asleep.

Most important: Asking Tomorrow if the changes made were good. Today doesn't know this, he's just guessing.




* All instruments from Bitley Fairlight CMI, Synclavier and other soundlibraries for Reason (bitley.laconicsounds.net)
* Jiggery Pokery's Steerpike Delay and Chenille Chorus to make anything shine
* Synapse GQ-7 EQ to cut and boost.
* Seligs Leveler for fixing vocal dynamics.
* Onyx Tube Limiter to tame the peaks
* Softube Fet Compressor.
* Rob Papen RP-Verb & RP-EQ
* Adobe Audition for manual tinkering,
* Mastered through emastered.com

Bitley patches used:

Fairlight CMI Supremacy
707 Kit 1
AttackPad1
Scritti Politti - Cupid n Psyche '85

WBF:
Cymb & Tamb
LinnDrum 1
909
Electro 02
VS Choir
Fairlight Attacky Air
Mixed Voices
Dirty Funk Bass
Aggro Bass
Analogvetu3
Lately Bass 1
Mallets with spacious decay

Orlando JX10:
analogvetu3


Way beyond synclavier 1
Omd Synclav
Synclawave II

PolyX3M
EP Choir
PD Bass 05
Danke Choir


Lots of layering going on with these patches

for example, in the final part the bass is a layer of Dirty Funk bass, Aggro Bass, 1982 bass and analogvetu3.
analogvetu3, 1982 Bass and Aggro Bass plays around c2-C3
Dirty funk bass plays from mid C3/C4 to mid C5/C6
I'm cutting the lows on Dirty Funk bass, aggro bass and 1982 bass, and adding some mids/highs on some.

[Micha1973]

perfect 80´s! superb!

[bitley]

A fun mix between Genesis, Münchener Freiheit, Scritti Politti and more influences I think vocals must up in the mix & try to choose longer words perhaps than "phone" and "home", but awesome work!

[jappe]

perfect 80´s! superb!

Thank you for listening & confirming my suspicion that this one had some 80's in it

[jappe]

A fun mix between Genesis, Münchener Freiheit, Scritti Politti and more influences I think vocals must up in the mix & try to choose longer words perhaps than "phone" and "home", but awesome work!

Many thanks!

I'll keep your advise on the vocals in mind. I felt that increasing the vocals made them stick out in a disconnected way, but I guess I just need to glue it together with the music in a better way. And maybe I should cut some more on the vocal lows.

Longer words, that sounds like a good new challenge, I struggle quite a bit to maintain the pitch for sustained vocals.
Training, training and training.

And thank's for improving my 80's playlist with Münchener Freiheit, they were new to me!

[bitley]

I thought I was thinking of them but it sounded less synthy than I remembered...

[raymondh]

Great job (again) - cool song and great 80s vibe.

Thanks for sharing your workflow too, it was interesting to listen to the song, while reading how you built it up.
A cool showcase for Bitley's WBF refill too!

[jappe]

Great job (again) - cool song and great 80s vibe.

Thanks for sharing your workflow too, it was interesting to listen to the song, while reading how you built it up.
A cool showcase for Bitley's WBF refill too!

Thanks!

The WBF refills are nice for my workflow; very easy to fit in those sounds without having to tinker with them too much. And then stack some of them whenever I want a fatter sound.
I've really been using WBF (and Synclavier etc) almost exclusively the last two years.

[bitley]

<3 Made for guys like you!

[Some Desperate Glory]

I can't believe I missed this! One of my favorite songs of yours, and to my ears takes you more into the Scritti Polliti side of things.

Can you possibly list the patches in WBF you are using? I would love to listen to them alone to learn about how you put them in such great context.

[jappe]

I can't believe I missed this! One of my favorite songs of yours, and to my ears takes you more into the Scritti Polliti side of things.

Can you possibly list the patches in WBF you are using? I would love to listen to them alone to learn about how you put them in such great context.

Thank you!

I listened a lot to Scritti Politti; one of the Bitley patches also has "scritti politti" in the name

I updated the song description with the Bitley patches used, listed under specific Bitley refill.
Some of these refills probably went into other refills like WBF R2 in case they're not sold anylonger.
Would be great to have kind of a Bitley Refill historical roadmap of key points in the refill updates to get a better idea of this.

[modecca]

when i hear stuff that is this level of quality i gotta ask : u makin money with this stuff man?

[bitley]

when i hear stuff that is this level of quality i gotta ask : u makin money with this stuff man?

(I'll have to reply answering for myself only of course) Sadly not.

[jappe]

when i hear stuff that is this level of quality i gotta ask : u makin money with this stuff man?

Thanks for the compliment. No money involved.
My long term ambition with making music is basically to build my time capsule for someone to dig up in future, maybe my fourth great-grandchild.

[jappe]

when i hear stuff that is this level of quality i gotta ask : u makin money with this stuff man?

(I'll have to reply answering for myself only of course) Sadly not.

Hello Bitley,
late night for you too in Sweden!
I don't know why you're up late, but I had two cats insisting that I play with them in the middle of the night, one of them is very convincing, biting my toe
And now I can't get back to sleep again... excellent...

[bitley]

Ah, that's happened to me as well My current cat is just friendly, a wonderful being.