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Blue Monday '88 - New Order cover


John Bradley

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Blue Monday '88

Another one from the '80s, because as a gentleman of a certain age, that's the music I like the best.

Though for what it's worth, I'd never heard this song until a few years ago.

Technical data: Got to play with lots of toys on this one.

Drums: Session Drummer 3 doing the basic hat/snare/kick pattern

Percussion elements: 2getheraudio's CL4P for both the claps and the echoed 'big claps' that show up every now and then, TX16Wx doing a 16th high-hat, Rapture Pro adding some echoed toms, K1CK and TX16Wx doing the high-pitched synth drums at the beginning of the song, another TX16Wx doing the cowbells that enter in verse 3, and a pair of free-floating samples for the explosion that kicks off verse 3.

Bass: IKM's MODO BASS doing the quarter notes down low, with an Arturia MINI doing the octave bounce.

Synths: Arturia's Prophet for the opening 'squeaky' synth and the 'chiffy' synth solo that appears before the first drum break. Arturia Jupiter 8 for the analog strings, the Mini again for the arpeggio that enters half-way through verse 1, CMI for the 'aahhs', and Pigments for the reverse sweep during the first drum break. 

Guitars: The baritone guitar was played at normal pitch, and octave-downed, distorted, and doubled with a bit of normal-pitch guitar in BIAS FX.  The clean one is just a compressed+chorused strat, also done in BIAS FX.

Effects: normal ProChannel stuff and BREVERB, a couple instances of Arturia's ETERNITY and MEMORY-BRIGADE delays, Izotope TRASH 2 on the aforementioned "high pitched synth drums", Izotope Nectar 2 and 2getheraudio ST3REO on the lead vox. The background vox (including doubling of the 'aahs') were processed through Izotope VocalSynth and 2getheraudio's RE4ORMFX to add auto-panning and filter animation. Ozone 8 on the main bus, doing whatever it felt like doing.

Melodyne Studio 4 on the vox, for obvious reasons.

 

Edited by John Bradley
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21 hours ago, John Bradley said:

Blue Monday '88

Another one from the '80s, because as a gentleman of a certain age, that's the music I like the best.

Ozone 8 on the main bus, doing whatever it felt like doing.

Melodyne Studio 4 on the vox, for obvious reasons.

 

Keep it up '80's man!!! I'm right there with ya.

It's a great rendition and you have a touch with this.

There's a bit of sibilance on the vocals in spots. "Mistaken"  "Speak"   I highly recomment Oeksound Soothe, it would fit in well with your other toys.

I do like how your posts give the background on your tools, and "Ozone 8 doing whatever it felt like doing" was pretty epic!

I would cut the intro or at least cut the high pitched quick filtered synth up top, it opens your effort and makes me think "video game" but that's just me. I think your effort has more weight and substance than an intro with "bleep blurp bleep" signifies.

cheers,

-Tom

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On 6/26/2020 at 5:50 PM, Lynn said:

Count me as a member of your fan club.

Awesome. It's been 35 years since I've had a really good fan!

img095.jpg

Ya ain't seen nothing yet. I've got over 80 of these things queued up, and only a handful are too 'personal' (read: embarassingly bad) to release/inflict. And I try to complete a new one every week or so.

 

11 hours ago, emeraldsoul said:

Keep it up '80's man!!! I'm right there with ya.

It's a great rendition and you have a touch with this.

There's a bit of sibilance on the vocals in spots. "Mistaken"  "Speak"   I highly recomment Oeksound Soothe, it would fit in well with your other toys.

Thanks! Regarding the sibilance, I almost certainly had Neutron 2's de-esser enabled and dialed in to something deliberate. It's a tradeoff between getting the S's to behave and killing the air, and I probably err more towards perserving the air. Some people are bass-heads, I'm all about the high-freqs. Though I acknowledge the possibility of partial deafness after being in various bands for 40 years.

 

11 hours ago, emeraldsoul said:

I do like how your posts give the background on your tools, and "Ozone 8 doing whatever it felt like doing" was pretty epic!

I would cut the intro or at least cut the high pitched quick filtered synth up top, it opens your effort and makes me think "video game" but that's just me. I think your effort has more weight and substance than an intro with "bleep blurp bleep" signifies.

I'm always interested to hear what gear folks use to make their tracks, so I offer the info for any other "yes, but how does it work" people like me.

When I'm 'done' with a mix, or at least ready to stick a fork in it, I slap Ozone 8 on the master, tell it to shoot for "CD, Medium intensity", and let it do whatever it wants. I might tweak the results a bit, but generally I find the changes pretty subtle other than the Limiter, so I assume it knows what it's doing. I do not.

The intro... well, that's what the original song does, and it's only 4 bars before a the groove kicks in. Good enough for New Order, good enough for me!

 

11 hours ago, Kevin Walsh said:

You definitely have something going on with you 80's covers, really enjoyed it. And my wife really likes this. She spent 80's in dance clubs so she knows good 80's music. 

You and your wife wouldn't happen to buy millions of copies of any song you like, would you? If so, maybe I could actually 'make it' in the music biz! 

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  • 4 years later...

I'm on the hunt for the track ID of that unknown version of Blue Monday.

I've been scouring various music platforms and Discogs, but haven't been able to determine if this is an official release or not?

Here is the full version to listen to: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_J_EVjayuLf2nK3ggwGQcLoSHOadUB5t/view?usp=drivesdk
BPM: 124
Duration: 8:15

Perhaps a diehard New Order collector might have the scoop on this mysterious re-edit. If anyone has that information, I'd really appreciate it if you could share the details in the comments?

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Hi got the feeling this is kinda better than the original, I'm saying that because years later you have IMO created a better mix .. well done and NO crits! ( Not my era but I love the lyrics as they fit so well with the beat) B|

Steve (SRM)

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