I Love Synth Pop
OK this track is a second outing for my voice
so your are duly warned! For the inquisitive, the other outing being my DAF tribute track.
By rights this song shouldn't even exist. I was fooling around with my newly acquired MSQ-100 sequencer driving a Juno 106 and came up with a cheesy octaving bass line. Sadly (for me), I really liked it. I made a further commitment when I added plinky complimentary stabs higher up on the Juno keyboard. Too late, the seeds of synth pop song had been sown - the track had to get finished. A catchy Juno lead line was written followed by warm Juno pads to form a bed for the track.
Now what about the drums, which ones to use, which ones...? Aha! Drawing on inspiration from Depeche Mode's debut album Speak and Spell I chose.....Korg KR55 drums - THE
Speak and Spell drum machine. No they didn't use a Korg KPR77 - it wasn't out then - also I owned a KPR77 for many years - it does sound pretty much the same though. I only had individual drum samples so I formed the rhythms I needed in my DAW software - a bit tedious but ultimately do-able.
Right now it was sounding good but a bit too Depeche Mode-y unsurprisingly! As it was becoming a tribute to synth pop in general I had to add another, and markedly different, band's vibe to it. What I need was some really cheesy FM synth sounds. The inspiration came from Bronski Beat's Small Town Boy
- the cheesy trumpet DX7 sound and that DX7 bass. Well I couldn't be bothered to fire up my soft synths PC with Native Instruments FM7 on it so I turned to a bit of hardware - 1-Nil to hardware - LOL. My FM sounds were going to come from my trusty Evolution EVS-1 - remember them? I hadn't used it on a track yet so now was its time. A quick whizz through the presets picked up sounds that were good enough for my purposes. The EVS-1 trumpet is the lead line in the verses and the Juno bass line is replaced by an EVS-1 bass line in the middle section.
Adobe Audition brought everything together and its native effects added. The only sequencer driven piece is the bass line - everything else is played by hand and then looped as audio in Adobe Audition. The vocal performance is a little loose in places but I hoped I caught some of that great synth pop vibe.
- Download the track I Love Synth Pop
- 3 min 35 secs
- 4.93MB file size
- 192kbit MP3
I Love Synth Pop
Chorus:I love synth pop
It will never ever stop
The incessant beat
Just keeps you on your feet
I love synth pop
It will never ever stop
The incessant beat
Just keeps you on your feet
Verses:
1
The lyrics don’t make sense
But the meaning is immense
They sometimes don’t rhyme
But that’s no crime
Sport a weird hair do
Wear what ever you care to
You need to look right
In that bright spot light
2
The octaving bass
Gets right in your face
That catchy synth lead
Is all that you need
There's wonderful pads
Played using triads
And the high tempo
Lets you go with the flow
3
There's a great sequence
That really is intense
It puts you in a trance
And lets your body dance
Something that's analogue
Will work just like a cog
In the big machine
That's the synth pop scene
4
You don't need a TB
Or anything fancy
Just a simple keyboard
With a sound that's assured
Digital is out
Coz it’s got no clout
It has to be real
To give it some feel
© C.Strellis 2005
