Cher Can’t Toeside
By prophisee on January 11, 2026 11:31 pm
Collab with a friend. Sitting at home watching videos of privileged folks complaining about how people skateboard.
Great arrangement but I think I messed it up with the master. Automated intro to be louder but I overdid it and it slammed the low-mids of those initial pads into the mastering compressor. Wanted to do another cut but had to step out and ran out of time. Really enjoyed going for the 80’s pop vibe.
Feel free to roast so I can get better.
› wtf is this?
‹ wtf is this?
This is niche humor. The joke is that in downhill longboarding ideally you would heel-side slide to slow down for turns you take heel-side (facing down) and toe-side slide for toe-side turns (facing up) since you come out of the slide traveling the direction you need to turn. But, the toe-side slide is a much more challenging and risky move, and is not technically essential. You can just heelside slide way early on the straight and then turn all the way back around to take the turn.
› lyrics
‹ lyrics
Hey man, I don’t think he should be able to get the win. He got in our way while he was going around that corner.
Now listen everybody. It’s not about his racing technique. It’s about who he is as a person. I’d like to voice that song.
[CHORUS]
Would you believe he cant toeside at all?
He takes his lefts the same way he takes rights
He heelsides around them all
[VERSE]
What is he supposed to do?
Lean on his toes and push through, but he can’t do that
The wheels end up flat
We need time to buy more
But we need money for the store
But I’ve had time to think it through
toesides are something we don’t need to do
Well I know he’ll get through this
Cus I know he heelsides string
Don’t need toe sides anymore
[CHORUS]
Would you believe he cant toeside at all?
He takes his lefts the same way he takes rights
He heelsides around them all
› process
‹ process
Shared this with a buddy to compare notes. Curious if anyone does similar stuff or has tips.
1. Started with chatGPT, what did they use on the record? It said Nord clavia and oberheim as well as the 909 being typical for the era
- started with the stock Ableton 909 kit. Sounded pretty decent but using Believe as a reference the snare was way subtler.
- searched Ableton, few presets with “clavia” or “oberheim” in the title
- struggled to get the pocket right on the hats
2. Hopped on Splice.com worth it for forays into unfamiliar genres.
- Spent 15m auditioning drum samples from “synth pop essentials” and downloaded 15 kicks, snares, etc
- also stole a hi-hat loop and some fills. When I steal shit like that ready made I try to make it my own as much as possible. All of this stuff went through my own processing (if it makes it better) and eg I added delays, filter sweep on the fill that wasn’t there in the sample. Can even resample it.
- searched for synth presets using those same keywords. Clavia, oberheim, 80s, synth pop. Found some gems for Serum which I have. The bass I used was a brand new preset I found
3. I try a lot of new plugins and such so I have things I go to for certain vibes.
- The UA PolyMax synth was free with some bundle I bought and it has GREAT 80/prophet rich analog sounds. One of the ones I used is actually the preset for that synth that loads in my template “bright wide pad”
- Auditioned several others from the polymax presets and found some other gems that I layered in
- Again make my own, add flangers, a subtle tremolo, tweak ADSR etc
- I have a go to set of risers, impacts, crashes etc that I also used
4. Fuck around. Eg chorus feels flat so I grabbed some other perc loops to layer in really subtly from the synth pop pack like a Tamborine. I also volume automate the whole track to get quieter when the chorus drops
