Recording an 80's album.

E

endserenading81

New member
Hey guys,
I am recording a total 80's sounding album, and that means sequenced drums babe. I would love to hear some tips by anyone who comes across this thread, such as: how to get that fat, gated, big 80's snare .... is it better to sample your own drums, or use the stock ones with Reason ..... EQing ... writing order: record rough song on top of drums, or record synth bass first, and everything after?

This is my first time recording this kind of music; 80's dance, with way more synths. Think New Order, Depeche Mode, OMD. What are the key things these guys DID!!!?
Do you think they wrote these songs on all the synths first, or acoustic instruments first?

My Rig:
Reason software
Logic Pro software
MIDI keyboard
Macbook Pro

Listen to my music, what do you think?> http://www.MySpace.com/Stargraph

Thanks for everything,
Rob
 
Im no expert..in fact drums are one of my bug bears but I have listened to bands from that era recently looking for "that" sound

All I can say is if you listen to the electro stuff from the early eighties, League, Blancmange, the drum samples are awful..even using Nostalgia and the multitude of samples I had in Live I couldn't get them that bad sounding

Listening to Numan and others they actually used acoustic kits..so I try to use a mixture..I doubled up the kick in my last track using a DR55 and 909 sample and then used a DR55 snare and an acoustic snare with a huge gated reverb..it gave me what I was looking for but is hardly authentic

another thing..many of the tracks around then had no thoughts on making drums sound realistic so there are two styles of mixes..one with the kit traditionally sitting near the middle and the instruments panned out...and bands that would have the snare and hihat/cymbals panned hard with the kick and instruments nearer the middle..i think the latter are more indicative of the early electronic stuff

so Id say use a mixture..use machine samples for kicks and percussion and an acoustic snare with a huge reverb...just don't humanise it at all or much..any toms should be panned flying across the track when they come in


here's the effect I got on "stand up" (bear in mind I'm a newb at this and there's limited drumming on it)

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1003473&content=music
 
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nice tunes btw...I get your influences :)


I dont know if you've heard Felt or This Mortal Coil, two very different bands but I think the capture a lot of the sound of that era other than the obvious commercial success sources
 
I Like the style of music, think the snare sounds good

thought both of you guys have good music,

Im into that 80's sound myself kinda. still perfecting my techniques tho, more of a creative guitarist, that uses all the other stuff for my arena.
 
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