Production gems

[Guy Rowland]

A thread to celebrate amazing arrangements, productions and mixes over the years. Anything from any genre, from subtle to OTT that really gets your motor running, and the things you love about it.

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I did a Lite subscription on the Mix With The Masters (not to be confused with Mastering The Mix) tutorial series ($99 for 4 video series across the year). They really do have some spectacular heavyweights - film composers as well as pop producers. I just had to get my hands on Jeff Bhasker's series on Uptown Funk. Here's the trailer, which is pretty entertaining in its own right:



From the first blast I heard on the kitchen radio, I knew Uptown Funk was a classic. As Jeff points out, funk wasn't very popular back then, but of course it was just lying dormant to be awakened by this colossus. It was all so perfect, the groove, every lick and turn of phrase. The whole track builds to the final 45 seconds which are completely absurd. It actually makes me laugh for the sheer exuberant musical joy of it. Everything goes to 11 - the transition to the offbeat ride cymbal, those brass, bass and drum licks, the everything.

Woebetide any radio DJ that plays the cut down version.

Although it sounds like an effortless crowd-pleaser, it actually has no obvious chorus at all - the vocal drops out to feature two alternating synth chords (actually just a single chord with one note changing). And I learned today that it was a very long way from effortless - from the first jam to final mix it took a year. They knew they had something special after a rough jam, but wanted to make every single element pop. There are so many vocal hooks, calls and responses that make it irresistible. There's interest in almost every bar, always some new element or twist.

They recorded around 100 sessions over that year. They added parts (such as the famous do-do-doo-do vocal line) when Bruno Mars was on the road. The Vocal was recorded on an SM58, and the take they used was gravelly, horse even, but it was the one that sat best in the mix and groove. There's a ton of spill on the track - no matter. Jeff says he deliberately keeps things loose, not too quantised. In the series he spent a lot of time talking about recording the drums (Bruno played) - one trick he said is not to play too hard / loud, which keeps it both fat and loose, and also means you have somewhere to go on the fills.

The end result sounds effortless and spontaneous but was clearly anything but. Mark Ronson nearly had a nervous breakdown on his inability to get the guitar parts just right. It's curious to me that the rest of the album is so lacklustre - it feels like 90% of the time went into this one track. But it paid off.

[Lawrence]

A perfect production/writing effort. Inspiring.

[My name is Nobody]

If this fits here: an improvised version by the snarky puppy keyboardist of a dua lipa song.


Enjoyed it thoroughly

[Luciano Storti]

If this fits here: an improvised version by the snarky puppy keyboardist of a dua lipa song.


Enjoyed it thoroughly

Outstanding and wicked fun!

[Guy Rowland]

If this fits here: an improvised version by the snarky puppy keyboardist of a dua lipa song.

Well that's a riot. Great idea too, just hear the drums and vocal and build from scratch. That's what remixers do routinely now, but really fun to hear it as a challenge with no reference to the original at all.

[Lawrence]

Always thought this was one-



And this one :

[Guy Rowland]

Talk us through them, Larry!

[Lawrence]

Damnit, now you want me to ‘splain. So I shall! (a bit later)

[Geoff Grace]

It's curious to me that the rest of the album is so lacklustre - it feels like 90% of the time went into this one track. But it paid off.

Thanks for sharing the development process of “Uptown Funk,” Guy. I agree; it’s a very well produced track. It certainly made an impact in clubs around the world and was one of my favorite hits of 2015.

I’d like to gently push back on the description of the rest of the album as being lackluster, however. I certainly wouldn’t put it on the same level as its breakout track, but I enjoy listening to the album as a whole. There are some solid grooves in a few of the songs. Nice harmonies in places as well. Having Stevie Wonder guest on a couple of the tracks didn’t hurt either. I’d describe the rest of the album as being moderately good.

It’s possible that I like R&B better than you do. If so, that may account for our different reactions.

Best,

Geoff

[Guy Rowland]

I’d describe the rest of the album as being moderately good.

I'm sure that's more than fair - next to sheer unassailable might of Uptown Funk it might be described (by me) as lackluster!

[Guy Rowland]

Games Without Frontiers
Peter Gabriel



This is a song - and a production - I feel is timeless. It arrived in 1980 just as synths were beginning their inexorable dominance in pop, never to leave. Surprisingly it is produced by Steve Lillywhite, perhaps most assosciated with U2's first three albums. People perhaps forget his experimental side was present and correct even there - on their debut Boy, I Will Follow features glockenspiel, and - I believe - bicycle spokes. There's all kinds of weirdness embedded in that heads-down-charge of a song.

Games Without Frontiers is a great example of a stripped down production where every element counts. I have the multitrack session via SongStems.net, it's a marvel to see what little is there, and yet how complete it all is.

Perhaps the first thing to note is a very early fusion electronic and acoustic drums. The recently released Roland CR78 provides the main kick and snare, but Jerry Marotta adds a highly unusual acoustic kit on top - kick, sidestick and cowbell, which feels more like a percussion layer than a regular acoustic drum kit. There's two other elements - a percussion track with shaker at the top and deep thuds for the outro, and rototom overdubs used most prominently also in that outro. Finally some filtereed synth noise bursts.

Just have a listen to that outro with just kick, snare, drum kit, synth bass and some wild guitar effects - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/suoiksym ... gnrn3&dl=0

The backline has the exact same mix of electronic and real instruments. The iconic filtered synth bassline and mono lead from Larry Fast sits alongside the edgy electric guitar from David Rhodes. They're all quite in-your-face sounds, but arranged so beautifully there's no clash. A couple of other synths drop in - a gated sweep at the start of each chorus line, a doubling of some of the melody on a sort of plucked synth, and then that flutey-mellotron type motif for the pre-choruses.

If most of those elements are sharp and angular, a breathy Kate Bush placates all with that divine "Jeux sans frontières" over the intro, mid section and outro. And the whistling - from Lillywhite and engineer Hugh Padgham - another left field element that helps make the track so memorable. Peter adds some high BVs on the Games Without Frontiers.

It's a classic tune, and remarkably accessible given how odd almost every single element of the track is. It's a satire that is all about juxtaposition - brutal dictators playing "silly games". It's A Knockout was the UK show that had grown adults falling over each other in daft games - a sort of cartoonish Total Wipeout - and Jeux Sans Frontiers (Games Without Frontiers) was the pan-European version. The music brilliantly reflects all these elements without being crass.

Apparently Atlantic said this track and the album it came from were "commercial suicide". Mercury Records took it on in the US.

[Guy Rowland]

I'm just listening to the new Billie Eilish album (down with da kidz and all). Finneas Eilish is a stunningly good producer, he has such good taste. Sonic sparkles all over the place.

Lunch has to be Billie's strongest non-ballad since Bad Guy. Listen to this.... that great tight beat with the deep snare, those shimmery guitars. Insanely catchy (I didn't know she's gay. Great!)

But those last 40 seconds - holy cow. Definite production envy here. Huge grin.



I want this song to go on and on after that outro, but it's all for the best it doesn't. Makes you play it again.

10/10,

[Guy Rowland]

Y'all probably know of the podcast Song Exploder, which takes one song and deconstructs it with the person or people who wrote, played and produced it. I was recently tipped off about one from last year, looking at Madonna's Hung Up from 2005.

https://songexploder.net/madonna

Hung up is imo one of those rare cases where the song is better than the original song it samples. Abba's Gimme Gimme Gimme never lit my fires beyond that classic synth riff, Hung Up simply sounds like a better song to me.

What's most interesting in the podcast is hearing the process by which Madonna worked solely with her tour musical director and DJ Stuart Price, in his London attic - literally just the two of them, no engineer or other musicians. She sung the vocal hand held (it doesn't mention the mic - maybe the 58 again?) whilst sat on his sofa. They recorded many other vocals but in the end used her original take on the sofa. Because they wanted other voice textures for backing and didn't have anyone else around, Stuart got Madonna to sing it a 5th higher and dropped the pitch so it sounds male (and in isolation you can hear it is glitchy as hell). He then added a vocoder. Neither element is especially prominent in the final mix, but they add together to give it more sonic interest.

To me that's the transferrable lesson from this one. If any of us tried to sample Abba, we wouldn't get as far as Madonna did - she hand wrote them a letter and then paid them a visit before they said Yes (which I think was a first for them). But most of us work alone, often with just one singer and one mic. They seemed to do alright with that setup.



One bonus PS - the aggressive low synth is the sound of a filter cutoff modulated very quickly.

[Guy Rowland]

Something perhaps more to TSB tastes...

A duo I adore is The Civil Wars. Joy Williams (piano, vocals) and John Paul White (guitar, vocals) wrote simple, brilliant songs and their chemistry and complimentary voices are much celebrated, until they dramatically flew apart before release of their second album. That would make a helluva movie one day.



Their producer Charlie Peacock is imo a underrated genius, fusing jazz and pop influences and a great songwriter. Here he goes through the Pro Tools session of Dust To Dust from their second album, and it's fascinating stripping away the layers. His approach was never to add too much or be too intrusive, but when you really break it down there's more going on than you think. An exercise in excellent taste.

Incredible to think Joy and John Paul were at each others' throats for much of the time...

[wst3]

yet another thing we agree on Guy - I adore them, I have a serious "music crush" on both of them, and I was very disappointed when they called it quits. Their voices alone are amazing, more amazing, they blend as well as any duo I've ever heard. Their songs are smart, and simple. The accompaniment fits perfectly.

[Guy Rowland]

The latest multitrack I seem to have acquired is Disco Inferno by The Trammps, and of course it's fascinating. Mostly played in the room - and the slate at the top says take 1. The vocals were overdubs (or very isolated), and possibly also a couple of guitar and synth DIs, where it's hard to tell. Certainly the main clean guitar,, rhodes and clav were in the room. Brass - hard panned 4 piece sounds like - and strings are both full of spill from the rest of the band, and they cleaned up the longer sections between their parts.

This is a masterclass of arrangement. There's a synth doubling the real bass (low in the mix). The Rhodes, clav, clean guitar, horns and strings give the body, and it's pretty much a case of fading them up and it's all there.

It's insanely long - the last chorus is done by 3m 30s and the track ends at about 11m 20s when it sounds like they just dropped out of record. There's a great 30s of the musicians in the room before they start.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5z3ip82f ... 4vmz0&dl=0

[Erik]

Oh, thanx Guy for these posts ! Me love some insights in the magitech side of creation. And it’s quite often I find myself more interested in the hows than in the final art.I’m the only one amongst my friends so I feel rather alone and face the impossibility to share some of my web founds and discoveries.

Of course I think you are completely out of your mind about Gimme. I became a fan of the Fabfour a decade after they split. BUT Gimme was the only one before that belatedly passion came to light. Especially section B - prechorus.
When Hung Up was released I felt embarrassed. For me it was both lazy composing and opportunistic lacklustering effort to jump onboard the housy dancefloor . And this filtered lick… Sheesh… Filtered french house at its worst.
I already new Stuart Price and his Rythmes Digitales ans Jacque Lu Cont moniker (what a career he still has!) But that Hung up… Lazy lazy lazy.
Well, an offense to the swedish canon.

;-))

[Guy Rowland]

Erik - I love Abba but Gimme always was at their naff end for me. Hung Up is simply better to my ears, and the filter works great!

I think Madonna has an absolute right to use whatever dance styles and effects she damn well wants. She's always changed styles with the changing eras. She went full house for Vogue in 1990, a couple of years after house became big, but the song ruled.

Madonna is one of those artists who has knocked them out of the park sporadically for years, but has also been responsible for some horrors. For every Live To Tell there's a Hanky Panky. Like A Virgin is a true production gem - I have the multitrack of that too, it's fabulous and it's all played in the room. There's a great 30s offcut jam at the end of the session, I think they blatted over it for the main 24 track recording:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yz0dwuoi ... do0pk&dl=0

Steve Ferrone's drumming on that track! You can hear the real bass in that version above before they switched to a synth for the record. And speaking of synth bass, Into The Groove has one of the all-time greatest bass lines.

I think Justify My Love is another production gem, I actually did a thread on it here which apparently holds no interest for anyone but me - viewtopic.php?p=45759 . I LOVE very simple but perfect production jobs, just 3 vocal and 2 instrument tracks on that song I reckon, and it's all it needs.