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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / NickLong's music / Golden Summer

Golden Summer

By NickLong on July 4, 2026 10:10 pm


For this weeks Weekly Beats I thought I'd do a follow up to last weeks track.

Teto has escaped the evil AI that was controlling her dreams and has met up with her friend Solaria. Together they are enjoying a well earned snooze in the sunshine after a busy day of foraging and creating a new society from the ruins of their AI overlords.

Gear wise it's Bitwig, Synthesizer V for vocals, Sublab on Bass
Drums are from Samples From Mars with a tumba pattern I wrote using Bitwig drum machine for a bit of latin spice.
Piano is PianoTeq Kawai grand which I haven't used for a while, but I still love.

I didn't go all in on Baby Audio this week, but I made liberal use of Spaced Out, Crystalline and TAIP as well as Grainferno for the very wonkey instrument that follows the piano and two instances of Atoms crossfading for the main pad.
The vocals glitching out is Arturia Fragments.

Musically very simple, it's the chord progression from Purple Rain but in F (I VI V IV) using all add 9chords for maximum 80's with a turnaround every so often.

I'm quite pleased with the vocal part. It's two completely different vocal parts singing the same words which interlock nicely (they are both highlighting different chord tones), gives some kind of folky choral vibe and not a type of writing I've done before.

Lyrics
In the golden light of summer
We will dream and drift away

Yesterday 9:08 am

Dank Receptor

Ahhhh, lovely nostalgic summer vibes here. The opening gives me Boku No Natsuyasumi feelz.

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Yesterday 2:48 pm

Crash Overture

Lovely. Warm summer, good memories. Fun when the drums kick in. I adore this song.

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Yesterday 10:31 pm

AiDeRen

So polished, almost too clean (no).
That snare hits really hard.
You're becoming one of the highlights of WB of mine.
Looking forward to your next banger (no pressure).

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Today 4:27 pm

neon liminal

The drums definitely bring this track into its own, and give the piano some swing, I almost wonder id they should come earlier? They add so much alongside the granular effects towards the end, really a wonderful rhythm there heart

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Today 4:32 pm

NickLong

AiDeRen wrote:

So polished, almost too clean (no).
That snare hits really hard.
You're becoming one of the highlights of WB of mine.
Looking forward to your next banger (no pressure).

I was quite pleased with the snare on the loop

The trick is using shaperbox reverb automated to send on the snare hits only with a big spring reverb. It creates a kind of Phil Collins effect.

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Today 4:38 pm

NickLong

neon liminal wrote:

The drums definitely bring this track into its own, and give the piano some swing, I almost wonder id they should come earlier? They add so much alongside the granular effects towards the end, really a wonderful rhythm there heart


You might well be right.

I initially really hated the drums because like many times when I try and go a triphop direction and include piano it ended up sounding like a Moby B side and frankly no one needs to hear that in 2026.

I then changed the piano and a few other things and it worked a bit better, but it still has the arrangement where I'm keeping the drums to a minimum. The granular stuff was my automating the crap out of Arturia Fragments which is an under appreciate gem in FX collection.

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