Hypnotic sequence with retro charm
No artist is currently as successful with the sound of the eighties as The Weeknd with the mega hits “Blinding Lights” and “Save Your Tears”. With his new single “Take My Breath” the Canadian musician celebrates his signature sound, which is characterized by danceable grooves, dazzling synths and catchy vocals. We take a closer look at the pulsing synth sequence from the hit.
Aflexible virtual-analog synthesizer like the emulation of the legendary Roland Jupiter-8 TAL J-8 [1] is ideally suited to recreate the driving sequence from “Take My Breath”. First we turn the source mix control in the default preset to -0.23 so that the signal from the first oscillator predominates. Set the octave of VCO-2 to 16 to use it as a sub-oscillator. Now it‘s time to transform the sawtooth sound, rich in overtones, into a snapping bass sound. To do this, move the Cutoff Freq control in the VCF section to 0.82 and Env Mod all the way up. For a more present sound, we select a slope of 12 dB and increase the resonance (Res) to 1.28.
Then adjust the two envelopes as shown in the picture and activate Key Follow for Env-1. The J-8‘s Unison function is the key to getting the fat, floating sound you want. Activate this by clicking on Unison under Assign Mode. Then increase Voices to 7 in the Unison section and set Detune to 1.43 and Spread to 10.00. If you turn up the VCO in the calibration section, the sound will become even more present, as intended. Now only a pinch of reverb is missing, for which we use the Valhalla Plate [2] plug-in. The sound plays a continuous sixteenth-note sequence in which the notes C2, G2, A # 2 and C3 are repeated over and over again.