Starting the track with string chords
No Sleep’s foundation is the chord progression that runs throughout, starting with the strings in the intro. Ian explains: “The strings form the basis of this track, with these two chords looping. It’s just a Kontakt instrument with a few plugins. We generally use Kontakt for strings.”
The raw strings are processed with various plugins. “We’ve got the J37 tape emulation, to make them sound rougher. We’ve also got the iZotope Vinyl plugin – before that it’s got more top end; and with [Vinyl] on; with the Wear up here, it softens them. After that, we’ve got [Logic Pro’s] Direction Mixer. That brings the Spread in to 0.4, so it doesn’t get lost when summed to mono.” “It’s quite a wide sample,” says Tom. “When we’ve played our tunes in a club, if the setup is mono, some of the sounds get lost.”
“And strings tend to be wide because of how they’re recorded,” Ian adds, bypassing the Direction Mixer plugin. “You can hear that’s a lot wider, so it might get lost a bit. That’s how the track started.”