Make an 80s pop anthem | breakdown and tutorial
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- How to make an 80s pop anthem with the iconic Emulator samplers. Very desired, very expensive and they can be hard to maintain.
I had the opportunity to check out the new UVI Emulation II+ plugin of all these dream machines.
I used it to make my new song "I'm just like Ronaldo". Full demo, breakdown and my thoughts.
Check out the Emulation II + here:
www.uvi.net/em...
For once I also enlisted the help of pro sax player. Apart from the sax and my vocals, this is all done with the Emulation II + plugin only. Nothing else, except the song being mixed and mastered of course.
Check out the the awesome Fabian on saxophone here:
fabiansax.com/
/ fabiansaxy
My mixing techniques and how I use the DAW for recordings are well documented in earlier videos on my channel so check out some of them.
The program I use to show the chords are the free version of MIDIculous.
Find the music here:
espenkraft.ban...
iTunes Apple music: apple.co/35ZTdfR
Spotify: spoti.fi/38aoWMB
Google Play: bit.ly/2NrgXD9
Support this channel on Patreon:
/ espenkraft
Find my patches and sample packs through these links:
thepatchbay.co...
sound7.co.uk/p...
Please join me on social media:
/ espenkraftmusic
/ espenkraft
/ espenkraft
I use DistroKid for all my releases onto streaming services.
Try out Distrokid yourself and get a 7% discount off your first year by using this link:
distrokid.com/v...
Growing up I listened to so much synth-pop and it's only natural that my own music takes inspiration from many of the acts I loved back then. I still love them and listen to them!
Howard Jones, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Erasure, Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, The Human League, Propaganda. FGTH, Ultravox, OMD, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Giorgio Moroder, Jean Michel Jarre, Jan Hammer, Alphaville, A-ha as well as loads of artists doing what is now called Italo Disco. And many more great acts like Nik Kershaw, Spandau Ballet, Wham, Dire Straits ++
Ah, the Emulator II. It's old but it's gold!
You have developed a lot recently. Your videos are more professional every time. Forgive me, but when I listen to you, it's like the Pet Shop Boys are hearing. Of course, in a positive aspect. I love PSB. I also watch each of your new videos very carefully. Best wishes.
Cheers!
As a sax player, I have to say the sax parts on all your music are really nicely done! The expressiveness and tone quality are top notch, but the style and melody lines really nail that 80s vibe! The sax solo in this song in particular really took me back to 1985, listening to Corey Hart's Never Surrender on my Walkman. Oh to be young and freshly dumped. LOL.
I know about the "being dumped" thing. :P This is actually the first time I've used a real sax player in any of my songs, after going back to 80s pop about 5 years ago. I will do more real sax in the future. Cheers
"I can show you my eyes. I can show you my thighs" Now that's a banger right there!
Bit cheesy but music is good.
So savage!
Great job, as always! Imagine how much cost, time and energy would have gone into making this track with the real hardware back in period. I love that companies like UVI (and Arturia, etc) make it not only possible, but easy, to create period-correct tracks like this. I only wish I’d known when this was released. As a Vintage Vault 3 owner, there was a huge intro discount which I totally missed out on.
Thanks!
I was smiling all the way through this! Great demo.
This sounds more like the 80s than the 80s itself! We had a sunny afternoon today at the west side of the Oslofjord area and this track suited perfekt. Good stuff!
Awesome, thanks for saying!
Does it have Ferris’ coughs and sneezes? 😎
Your song took me instantly back to childhood! 💯💯💯💯
Everything about this is lovely. The sounds, the production and the songwriting process. I used to compose in a similar way expect on guitar and sometimes keys. This makes me want to get in touch with that way of composing again. The chord choices are pretty nice too. Some nice voice leading going from the Cmaj7 there. 👍👍
Many thanks! :D
Oh my gosh. THE DREAM MACHINE. Aspen does it again.
Cheers!
Great job and funny song too! It's always a pleasure to watch your videos.
I think your idea for this song and the lyrics are quite funny! The pretty pathetic narrative of this "protagonist" somehow fits well with the retro sampler vibe. And the key change is a great touch. Nicely done.
Thanks! I don't think everyone listening or seeing the title realizes the irony here. :P
Guys its very deep. the multi's are fantastic
Good work UVI
I was leisurly eating an ice cream on a stick, while watching this, and as per, enjoying your great content.
We get to the lyrics...
"I can show you my eyes"
(Good start me thinks)
"I can show you my thighs"
*chokes on ice cream!
One coughing fit later..
Oh Espen, that made my bloody day!
You are pure gold!
Great demo.
Great song structure.
and to my knowledge, the only song with reference to a man's thighs.🤣
Happy you liked it! :P
Your music is a nostalgia blast, 🙏 thanks!
I got the UVI Emulation II & Vintage Vault great sounds thanks Espen
Cheers!
@@EspenKraft keep up the great work
Finally some Emulator! I bought it!
Beautiful sounds, great sounding track. Puts me in mind of a song I put on the back burner a year or so ago - I think I might want to finish that one off now! Loving this plugin.
Cheers!
Great sound, Espen and great job!
Thanks!
It's so '80s that the '80s themselves bought a time machine to travel to 2021 and catch up!:))
Unfunny jokes aside, absolutely great song, and yes, UVI make great stuff. I don't have this but I do have String Machines 2 (awesome old-school string machines, etc.) and Key Suite Digital for some lovely '80s & '90s digital keys. I love them.
Many thanks!
I love the melody. It's wonderful.
Thanks!
I really enjoyed the video and I love the song. It gives me Labyrinth soundtrack vibes (which is a big win in my book)! I’ll definitely be downloading the track. Inspiring as always, Espen!! Thank you.
Cheers!
Awesome sounds! The track that you made just to experiment with the plugin truly is candy for my ears! Great job as always Espen!
Cheers!
I have got this Uvi with emulator stuff and love it!
Looks interesting! I picked up a huge E-Mu Emulator II/Emax sample pack for TAL's Sampler, which may not be as great an emulation (pardon the pun), but it's another avenue to be able to have these sorts of sounds at your fingertips. Between UVI, Arturia & TAL, it's a great time to be a fan of playing around with (virtual) vintage synths!
As a side note, I'd happily watch uploads from you just noodling around with these sorts of sounds. Videos like this and your video on the Akai S612 are just wonderful to listen to. Keep up the great work!
Nice 80s sound. The keyboard sounds remind me of nothing's going to stop us now. Think the band was called starship . All good stuff. 👍
I know exactly what song you refer to. Cheers :D
I love your work. What do you think of the Reface series? I’d love it if you covered the CS and DX of those.
Thanks! I've only used the CS and I liked it. You can see it in my Casio FZ-10M video, but I only use it as a controller. ;-) I don't own any of them.
Mark Wahlberg (Marque Mark) used one of these drum machines on his 90s track Good vibration track. With catchy Snare fills. Thanks for another great video
Cheers!
This is a fantastic demo Espen. Really like your content you do good work!
Many thanks! :D
crazy. I did dream about asking you to tell me what Alan Wilder did for DM on the Emulator and you have a video on it already... :D Or wait, i'll have to watch this first
Nice Espen :-) There is a preset in the Korg X5D called “LA Synth” that sounds exactly the same as “Pipeline” In the min 5:21 and belongs to one of their Waveforms. Can’t remember the name. Also you can listen in the Korg Trinity.
How would you compare the UVI Emulation II vs Arturia Emulator II - if you have tested both? Great track!
I have not tried the Arturia Emulator so I don't know. This is not something I would normally buy for myself so I can only test this stuff if the makers send me it to me for review. ;-)
@@EspenKraft one thing I know is that the Arturia version allows you to load original Emulator II disk files as well as modern wav files.
My experience with arturias emulations is, that they spice up thier simulations with many additional funktions, at the end I can not say, that it is still a clone but something new! Uvi are Samples and the sampleplayer is easy to use, but you get the feel of the Real thing, and that counts for me more than having not a clone, but a plugin just the Name is the same.....
Hi dendera. I have both, and IMHO the UVI may have slightly better sound quality & accuracy with vintage sounds, while the Arturia version has greater flexibility re: creating truly unique new sounds & using your own samples. If you own UVI "Falcon", you gain a lot more flexibility with UVI's synths that with UVI's free workstation, however Arturia's software can take the instrument it's modelling towards more unique, unfamiliar sounds. That's why I waited for UVI and Arturia to have their synth collections on sale, so I could purchase UVI's "Vintage Vault 3" and "Emulation II+" AND Arturia's "V Collection 8". Keep an eye on both UVI & Arturia during October, November & December...they often have their collections on sale with large reductions in price.
@@EspenKraft Thank you for a reply :)
Oh and before I forget, you helped me by answering a question about a decent 80's gate plugin before, not sure If I said thank you, so... Thank you!! :)
Great work as always. Greetings from Germany.
Thanks! :D
Espen, I'm so glad your the 80's. Great Review. I'm so tempted by this. But how does it compare with the Arturia version I wonder.
Quite different packages I'd say. I prefer UVI in this particular case.
I know you are a hardware guy but you did an outstanding job with this software video demo. I really hope you do more of these plugins in the future should you be so inspired. I really like the song and choices of sounds. Nice work Espen..... not sure about "showing thighs" LOL!
Many thanks! You should probably NOT watch the music video for this then. :P
Just started watching, saw the Emulator and immediately thought of ferris bueller's day off :) oh and Depeche mode
I think that's why he had Stripped up on the shelf at the start.
@@FixerUK well spotted :)
These are incredible~ Thanks for doing them!
This is fantastic.
That Fmaj7 is very useful when getting into a new scene of the song. Very often used by Swedish hardrocker Joey Tempest during his 40 year long career.😀 depending on the key of course.
Modulation in music is something you rarely hear these days in modern music, If it IS music at all. ;-)
Hi Espen - a quality track and great demo of the sounds from the Emulator Plug in. My own 80s synth hardware consists of 1) Roland Alpha Juno 1; 2) Roland D-5; 3) Yamaha TG500 Tone generator (1993!), and Drum Machine Yamaha RX17 (I used to use a Spectrum SPECDRUM before that!!); Have you reviewed any of these or used any in your Tracks?
You should really browse my channel then. ;-)
@@EspenKraft I will do. When I write a track, like you, I can't help injecting DNA of the 80s :-) ...My friend said it was like listening to Yazoo! Thanks for your time.
Sounds really good! Great review 🚀
Thanks!
Awesome Mr . Kraft.. sounds really well...
Cheers!
Not a bad alternative to the hardware. I own a Chroma Polaris and I've been considering UVI's Kroma - and/or building my own sample set before the Polaris dies.
Hi Espen, another great breakdown - thank you. I have a few of these UVI products and I think they’re very good. It’s great to see an expert make use of them. As an aside… you say you’re not a Man Utd fan. As a matter of curiosity, what is your team?
Thanks! I've been a West Bromwich Albion fan since I was 8 years old.
@@EspenKraft Wow, would never have guessed that! I made a film recently with the daughter of the late, great Cyrille Regis!
Oh, I remember him vividly! What sort of film did you make? Please respond on email if you can, as it's almost impossible to follow up in threads like these as I get so many comments.
@@EspenKraft ok will do!
Always the best ✨👏✌️👍🙏
Many thanks!
Very great job Espen ! The sound of the chords makes me really drunken..... Reminds me to TD / Tyger
Many thanks! :)
I really like that you have some plugins on the channel too, there probably are teenagers watching this channel that cannot afford classic hardware and plugins makes it affordable for them to get 80s synth tones :). Btw if you don't know the channel then I can highly reccomend "Woody's Piano Shack" he even has a discord channel and most of those guys are real gearhounds.
The occasional video with plugins are ok and I do use plugin EFFECTS a lot in my mixing sessions. I have very few teenagers watching this channel though. Less than 1% of my total audience ;-)
Haven't you watched those videos I did a while back WITH Woody?
I'm not really a gearhound and spending time discussing gear on discord is really not something I want to spend my time on. ;-
@@EspenKraft :D
Once an arpeggiato is turned on, I'm back.
Excellent as always!
Cheers!
I recently bought a bunch of UVI romplers, including the Italo Disco Program 24. If it's in your interests to do so, I hope you make more of these videos.
I only did this because they sent it to me.
Very nice song, I love it ! Your videos are always intersting and a great moment for me. I found the little software that you use to display chords very handy. Could you, please , let us know which one it is ?
Many thanks! Like I went through in my "rant" video lately, always check the video description before asking questions to my videos. ;-) Cheers
@@EspenKraft Pfff... shame on me... I checked but I missed it ! Thank you for your kind reply !
Excellent video!!!
Thanks!
You should do a list of epic 80s synth intros! Here's some examples:
We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off-Jermaine Stewart
Jump-Van Halen
Subdivisions-Rush
In Your Eyes-Peter Gabriel
I've done that video, sort of. 10 synth riffs that shook the world.
Nice!
Thanks!
Great as usual 😊
Cheers!
Hey! What happened to Reaper software? Are you a Cubase guy now? Or is it me who hasnt read the linear notes again?
I have almost always been a Cubase user, but I haven't had a 64bit version until quite recently, that's why I've been using Reaper. To show and use 64bit plugins in my videos, Apart from that I can live very good with a 32bit daw.
Please look into some 80s Latin freestyle music and it's production! I can't find ANYTHING on the massive historic genre at all online really... Id say its a close cousin to italo disco and definitely holds a big yet overlooked place in 80s music!
Big topic. ;-)
Excelente video... Saludos
Do these plugins work in any DAW? I use LMMS to learn, since it's free and open source.
This is one plugin only. It'll work in any DAW that os compatible with the requirements. You'll need a license though. Check their website for more info.
As a LMMss user, let me warn you : LMMS can only use .dll files as VSTs, not the VST3 format in itself. If you want an open source alternative to use VST3, I recommend Musescore 4. You can then combine the tracks from the 2 software to get the music you want.
Well I still prefer hardware in the end (Emu Emax)
Espen, now that I use hardware....they dwarf the plugin synths. I spent hundreds on Arturia....but just cant bring myself to purchase anything but hardware.
Like guitar amps, real ones have more low end and harmonics.
But I reckon its all subjective
The problem is you're comparing Arturia plugins with the hardware. Arturia plugins were ok back in the 2000's but they've been surpassed by newer plugins like Roland Cloud and U-HE plugins.
I really liked the chord progression and the saxophone.
I know I should also mention something about the sounds of UVI, but that's too obvious: It's the emulation of the Emulator in Espen's hands. How can you fail ?
Uvi made great products... Got almost them all'.. falcon 2.5 is also very very powerful synth... And their vintage vault 3 is great collection of samples... Go go go
I think 'fire and ice' is not longer my favourite espen kraft track. This one is realy good. Sounds very smooth. Once i thought that the 80s sound was mostly with analog synths. 20 years later i know better. 80 music is that mix with analog, digital and samples, but this track shows how 80s the emulators were...wow...the strings sounds realy good. I have the whole pack of uvi incl. all their emulators.i just bought that last one( from this track) . Yes,i am inspired and going to write a track about Haaland..(a very fast track😆)
Nice! A Haaland track? Awesome. Yeah, mid- 80s pop were mostly samplers. That's why I have so many. Samplers are my true passion. Sample any analog synth into an 80s 12-bit sampler and it'll sound so much more 80s. :P Thanks for the feedback!
Hopefully my Arturia Emulator plugin and Drumulator/SP12 samples will be enough
how long have you been on a top of a mountain to upload this?
It took about 20 minutes to upload this video.
Oh man, I love UVI. I've used this and the earlier Emulator II they came out with a year or two ago for almost everything I've done with songs and scores. It's a very inspirational plugin
meereeeeeooooooowwwww
cmon Espen, do your best "flying fingers" Wilder impression on the EII
I don't do impressions. ;-)
@@EspenKraft 😂
UVI makes great plugins. I have quite a few of their plugins.
I can help but hear some resemblance to Hungry Eyes from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
say, what's that plugin that shows the notes and chords at 17:00 ??
Again, like I address in my "rant" video, check video description before asking questions. ;-)
@@EspenKraft but I did, honestly! ..oh no, it IS there! wow.. I actually watched that rent and thought it was just how people perceived text and I agree that comments can be frustrating, and I'm sorry for being part of that problem, looks like I skimmed over the description and didn't notice.. now it seems to me that the problem all along was the ever shortening attention span.. X_X
No problem. Of course I want have the answers to everything anyone might ask in the video description, but more often than not, that question has been asked already, and answered in the comments so often a good tip to check the comments first too. ;-)
So this plugin is multitimbral?
You have a multi mode with combinations of modules. I never even tried that. That's not how I setup this demo. I just use as many instances of the plugin my computer would allow.
@@EspenKraft is that not CPU intensive? Might that not affect the sound? I switched over to Mac because I could not use the Apati drivers on my PC. I found the more instances I used the worse the sound gets maybe using 20 to 24 plugins. Once i found that I can get hardware instruments that I can run 3-4 channels I was elated. I think k perhaps running your processor as fast as it can go reduces your overall sound quality even if you can run a bunch of instances. Multitimbrality in the instrument plugin may reduce the stress on the CPU and not affect the sound. With multiple instances you are also mixing. 👍😎🇨🇦
@@EspenKraft you can combine modules???
What you're saying makes absolutely mo sense to me, I must admit that. Running several instances of a plugin, or others, reduces sound quality is not true on my system. That said, when I do use a plugin synth, no matter how many instances I use, I always solo each one and export that out as audio before I start mixing. Running more than one at the same time is only done for arranging, like in this video.
I think it's the open hihat... It sounds terrible on Spotify. It's more like a cat hissing at me. Other than that it's a great song. (Love the lyrics)
You can hear it quite well at around 4.51 on Spotify. At that point it sounds half ok i guess, but earlier in the song it really scares the cats away.
That's why I also release my music on Bandcamp, so if you want lossless you can have it. ;-)
Damm my emu IV may get eventually obsolete… lol just kidding … that bass cannot be beat.
its too expensive
That was great. I've got the Emulator II so I wonder if it's worth upgrading? An upgrade incentive would be nice 👍
I have no idea how their earlier versions sound. I only tried this plugin because they sent it to me. ;-)