Sonic Academy Synthwave

[Senaqua Hildreth]

Totalcreative freedom I would argue, yes pretty niche, the instrumentation and style of track would not work without its lo fi counterpart aesthetic. The drums, instrumentation, choices of sounds used and overall feel would not be done justice with modern production values. Not to mention that the process is very enjoyable for a sound engineer and it is a nod to the pioneers who were making this music which was futuristic and cutting edge at the time.

I like the connection you get emotionally by retracing the music of the past. There is also a simplicity to the production which allows the feel of the music to speak a little more than it might otherwise for early dance music/proto trance. In modern forms, melody is implied rather than allowed to flourish. (just await the cheese-tastic solo)

This track is written in Mixolidian mode which has given it a clear eastern melodic feel. It is a great scale to play and as you can hear there is an extended synth solo.I used my usual techniques of Slate Virtual Console Collection with Trident desk which I think may be closest to a mixer that may have been used at the time. Though the Trident almost certainly superior than any home desk such as a Studiomaster Diamond, a Series II 16-8-2 or maybe a Seck Model 1882.

Synths were chosen based on having the right sounds for the time, interestingly some of them modern synths such AIR Hybrid 3 synth which has some lovely old classic sounding synths of bright disposition, there is a distinct smell of cheese with some of these leads.

Other synths that made an appearance were Sylenth1 on bass (a synthwave style bass, multi voice, pseudo stereo and rather unstable), Baby Audio BA-1, D-16 Phoscyon for various acids, TAL-U-No-X (Juno emulation) I also used a KAWAI K1 emulation for some choir pad sounds.

Some Lexicon PCM also appears. Without any doubt a big part of the sound is Wavesfactory Cassette where I made some custom settings to produce the aged sound I was looking for. A silly -54dBFS noise floor with hum (against a peak track level of -12dBFS during mixing) pervading the entire track.

I had to make some sonic adjustments to the voice elements in order to age them a little as I noticed they were a little too contemporary sounding to quite fit in. A little EQ and a pass through Steinberg Magneto helped.

The uploaded master waveform is nice and hairy and not squared, around -15 LUFS integrated. My goal is looking to achieve a specific sound, not a volume level. In 1989, these times the full musical dynamics were intact, even though the origins of early dance music are evident. It is safe to say dither was not required for this track with its very significant noise floor.

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