Radio Waves
By NWSPR on March 27, 2022 10:30 pm
All music for Radio Waves is hand played on a single 1980 Yamaha CS5 except for the vocoder lines that came from a modern Korg (the KingKorg). This includes the drums which were created with white noise and lots of resonance filter. The idea was to highlight this vintage synth that was the first synthesizer I learned on back when I was 15 years old. I also wanted to get back in touch with the way electronic music pioneers of the 70s laid down tracks with minimal gear and sequencing. The advantage I have is using Logic X for the editing but because the CS5 is a monophonic instrument without a sequencer, I used the LFO to drive the VCA and Filters to create the pulsing bass, melodic lines and the hi-hats. Snares, kicks and pads were manually played and chords layered one line at a time. You can hear the errors and sloppiness but I just had today and couldn't completely refine. Most of the mix issues follow me with the most modern gear so I can't blame this 40-year old keyboard 
So take a journey back to the late 70s to see how kids made synth pop if they didn't have access to Linn Drums or Roland Sequencers that were emerging by early 80s. It's cheating to use my laptop which would be equal to a half million dollar facility in 1980 but the techniques are similar.
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
