Lies - Thompson Twins cover

[John Bradley]

Lies

Very '80s, I think you'll agree.

Recorded this one 4 years ago, using whatever version of SPLAT we had at the time, and a different (and minimal) set of toys compared to what I have now. (Thanks Larry!) Could have remixed/mastered it using current tech, but I don't think it needs it. Gets the job done.

BTW, if I could interest a few more of you to take a gander at last week's upload Enter Sandman, please do. You know how "a mix is never finished, it's surrendered"? That's one that I think I nailed, and can't think of a thing I'd change. Opinions may vary, obviously.

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Drums: Session Drummer 3, as always (more or less). Running 5 outputs (kick, snare, hat, toms, cymbals) with different ProChannel-foo on each, and individual BREVERBs on the kick, snare, and toms. No NYC Parallel Compression, no common reverb send... shameful!

Bass: OP-X Pro II which I bought forever ago and still use in productions today. Great set of '80s presets and it sounds lovely. Cryptic-as-hell. I can never remember how to use the thing. Lots of more-than-2-state buttons labelled with obtuse three-letter-acronyms. No tooltips. 

Percussion: Rapture Pro doing the loud timbale sounds, a cowbell that runs through most of the song, and some congas that enter on verse 3, after the intro refrain.

Synths: A pair of OP-X Pro IIs playing the same 2-note harmonies during the intro, the intro refrain, and the outro choruses, but with different patches. One's warmer, the other's brighter. An Arturia Juno plays the stabby synth that enters at verse1 and continues through most of the song. Native Instruments FM8 doing the chimey 'Japan' riff. And finally, another Rapture Pro doing something sitar-y for the 'Egypt' riff. Not that sitars are a stereotypical 'Egyptian' instrument, but there you go.

Guitars: none. '80s Status: exceedingly.

Vocals: The lead vocal is single tracked, with some ProChannel stuff (comp, eq, tube) running into a VX-64 doing de-essing, a bit of doubling, and an 8th-triplet delay. A BREVERB follows, for some soggy hall-osity.

Backing Vocals: A single voice doubles the third line of each verse, an octave up. Three voice harmony occurs doing the choruses: one doubling the lead, one an octave up, and doing a parallel 6th (funky!) relative to the other two. A fourth voice comes in to double the "They gonna get you" bits during the a'capella chorus. No FX to speak of beyond ProChannel stuff (comp, tube, eq) on each, and a BREVERB on the bvox bus.

Melodyne Studio 4 beating the vocal into some semblance of keyness. No Ozone for me back then, so there's an FX Chain "A Bit Louder" doing a couple db of limiting on the master.

 

[Bajan Blue]

Hi John

Love this great job - rarely hear the Thompson Twins on here - I used to live next door to one of the backing keyboard girls - got pretty friendly? with her and saw Thompson Twins live a few times - was a long time ago but only good memories!!!

Thanks for posting really enjoyed this

Nigel

 

[PhonoBrainer]

This is one of my fav 80's songs so I will not let it slip off the page. Great job, so very listenable, and as usual, a stellar rundown of your weapons in your post.

Killer! thanks so much!

-Tom

 

p.s. Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain" ??? 

 

[John Bradley]

Thanks guys, glad you liked it!

FWIW, after posting it on Sunday it racked up a whopping 20 listens in the first 4 days, and then suddenly another 44 listens so far today. Inexplicable. Clearly I should post tracks on Thursdays!

20 minutes ago, emeraldsoul said:

p.s. Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain" ??? 

I have never heard that song (or even the name of the band) before, so unlikely.

Are you in the UK? I'm in the States and we definitely got a different subset of '80s pop pushed at us via movies and MTV. For example, I believe "Blue Monday" was a hit over there; I never heard it (nor did anybody I know) until I saw a YouTube video of Orkestra Obsolete doing a cover of the song on '30s instruments. And I think I only saw that because Sonic State mentioned it.

[garybrun]

Very nice John
Must say I also really appreciate your time taking to give a rundown of your process.
It helps in the listening and learning.

Thanks.

Gary

[John Bradley]

35 minutes ago, garybrun said:

Must say I also really appreciate your time taking to give a rundown of your process.
It helps in the listening and learning.

Thanks, glad you liked it.

I'm always interested in learning what particular collection of tools people used on their creations, given the myriad choices available. Least I can do to offer up same.

Also, I consider the 'liner notes' the equivalent of the back of the cereal box. Something to read while waiting for "the next bit" to roll around in the songs. Given that I'm shooting for near-identical covers as an engineering exercise, as opposed to doing my own personal interepretations, there shouldn't be anything terribly unexpected or attention-grabbing in any of my tracks. Certainly not the intention, at any rate!

[paulo]

I always liked this and other early TT, so I had to listen. If I had one crit the vocals sound a little robotic in places, but maybe that was deliberate? That and the missing backing vox was the only thing that stood out as "wrong" in an otherwise very decent straight cover. .