Shadow Child reworks a classic house track

Between his Shadow Child and Dave Spoon aliases, Simon Neale has released plenty of club-rattling house classics of his own. When we paid him a visit though, we got to see a different side of his production skills, watching him put his own stamp on a Jaydee’s ’90s classic Plastic Dreams.

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Simon starts with the distinctive, low-synth bell provided as a one-shot sample. He recreates the rhythm of the original version on an audio track in Logic, squashing the dynamics and warming things with Waves Kramer Tape. Delay and reverb are added via FabFilter Simplon and Logic’s Space Designer.

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With a Roland TR-808 sitting well within spitting distance, it would be a shame not to use it to create an updated take on the original version’s intro percussion. Simon records his sequenced 808 pattern onto an audio track in Logic. “It’s so effective in the original track; I thought it was important to have it as part of this version!” he enthuses.

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Although provided with a stem of the original organ bassline, Simon desires more control over the sound, so he creates a one-shot patch in EXS24 and recreates the original part in Logic’s grid editor. “I’ve used [this sort of sound] a lot in my early Shadow Child stuff and it’s a sound I don’t really reach for too much because it’s kind of been done to death, but that sound is what the record is”.

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To give a more contemporary feel to one of the original track’s percussion loops, Simon chops it up on an audio track in Logic, and adds a slight swing to it. Later in the track, the original version’s Amen break is brought in, albeit with the lows and mids filtered out so it doesn’t clash with the one-shot beats and bassline.