1990s retro production, lounge, chill, Indian style 

Cubase arrangement, lounge chill music with an Indian sonic flavour

Here we go with another 90s style dance track it is a little more down tempo at 129bpm and has a chilled vibe more in the direction of lounge, chill out style music. Nice and summer-y feel track entitled “Clouds like Mountains”.

Here is the track to listen to :

 

 

I could imagine hanging out at the beach cafe with this kind of music. It is inspired by a track I have always enjoyed but of course with my own twist to the sound. I have very much been enjoying the relaxed and easier approach to making music that is somewhat less reliant on highly precise production engineering.

This makes it more easy to create music with a focus on emotion and feeling, fun and enjoyment. I am in the flow with this approach these days and at the moment have no plan to deviate, for now anyway.

90s studio set up

For this track I employed all my normal 90s project studio “analogifications” such as using Slate VCC, Fabfilter Pro-Q 4 EQ with my Mackie 8 bus preset of the period with a somewhat restricted set of controls. In addition, using various tools in order to generate some L/R channel differences which nicely enhances the stereo image.

 

Trusted, decent digital EQ, set with the 1990s in mind

 

I also used a new tool called Front DAW which I bought for very low price in a lucky short sale. In addition I put the Sontec 432 D2D plug in on the master output with very slight EQ. This introduces some subtle harmonic distortion which could be akin to the group busses or stereo master bus summing amplifiers on a project studio desk.

 

Warming and crunching up some channels in a very pleasant way

 

It was often suggested that some of these group bus or stereo bus summing amplifiers in project grade analogue mixing consoles did not have the highest amount of headroom available. As such there was distortion that crept in as many channels seeing too much of a good thing were summed and gave the upper mid range a little extra bite. And it is true that the upper mids in the 90s could go beyond slightly strident upper mids into full on harshness.

For this laid back style of music I do not want a nasty upper mid so kept things fairly smooth and not over cook the upper mids, though they are fairly forwards.

Synthesis choices

For this track I collected together what I felt were appropriate synths to make the track. It has an unashamedly Indian sound. Maybe it could be called Indian chill out lounge music. I had to try and find suitable ethnic Indian instruments namely the sitar and a bansuri (bamboo flute) and course some percussive tabla elements.

Good tail modulated reverb works wonders here on breathing life into what can sound like rather static samples. Multiple synths helped me with this 90’s approach and that includes Xpand!2 from Air Music tech. Other synths I used in this track are Sonic Academy ANA2.0 and Kick Drum 3.0, Lennardigital Sylenth1, Rob Papen Blue, U-He Bazille and a few rompler emulations to give that glassy 90’s sampled sound.

Drums came from various sources including Battery 2 for some basic Roland TR-909 type sounds.

U-He Bazille for some special effects and atmosphere

A basic TR-909 style dance kick which is suited to the 1990s

Squelch and bass

One synth that continually surprises me is ANA 2.0, it simply does a good job of things. It may not look quite as exciting and modern as some other synths but it has a very good fundamental sound and does duty on bass line, producing a very vibrant and thick result (very analogue sounding dare I say !).

ANA2 produced a good emulation of fat analogue filtered bass and high res squelch sound using a Moog style filter

It also does the high filter resonance, analogue, clicky and squelchy filtered sound in the track (using a Moog-esque type filter) These were both quite simple saw wave sounds with basic low pass filtering being applied using automation.

A classic and still very good – Sylenth 1

 

(Effects) return to the 1990s

The main effects processing was used including H-Delay and Lexicon PCM native reverb (which incidentally is now VST3 compatible) If interested you may wish to wait for it to go on sale as it is otherwise quite expensive. Await summer holiday pricing or Black Friday. The Lexicon PCM reverbs have always just sounded right to me.The Lexicon PCM native series are mainly based on the PCM96 unit, one of Lexicons latest rack mount hardware units. They always seem to fit the mix, especially so for any 90’s productions. I actually have 2 old Lexicon hardware units from the 90s, a Lexicon Alex and a Lexicon Reflex unit, one with PSU and one without, though they are both rather superceded by using the Lexicon PCM native reverb in software form. Much easier and likely sound better.

 

Recreation of 1990s basic studio effects, hiss and all

 

Though I find the native PCM reverb sounds great, we must imagine it was a rather well equipped 90s project studio owning a posh reverb or 2. Very simple overall just hall reverbs and delays, adding the “analog” knob for some extra hiss in H-Delay, just a little which of course would always have been present on a tracks made in the 90s on an analogue desk. Most likely the desk would have been quite quiet with a low noise floor, they usually suggest -86dB or so in manuals.

It would more often be the older analogue synths that hissed a bit. I recall the SH-101 and Juno 106 both hiss a little, especially the Juno’s on board chorus which sounded great. I have updated my GForce ImpOscar to V3 but it never managed to make a showing in this track.

Compressor free mixing and some sonic dirt

Of note I never used a single channel compressor for this track as there was no need to, all sources quickly sat well in the mix and I used EQ alone to adjust characters if need be. In the 90s you may of had one or two 19inch rack mount budget compressors and did not always use them.

I generally allow for some imperfections when aiming for the 90s sound, some noise build up (hiss to the tune of around-75dBFS, peak or average unknown) some channel inconsistency from crosstalk, EQ differences, a little saturation from Slate VCC (drive usually well in the lower 25pct of the controls throw).

 

Klanghelm SDRR for some L-R stereo channel crosstalk

Sparse stereo bus processing

 

This time I managed to spot a very interesting plug in from a newer developer for the bargain price of £4.00 ! And from what I hear, I like it. The plug in is United Plug ins Front DAW. It is a saturator at heart but with tolerance differences between instances. So far I have been running it at 2x Oversampling and my ancient music making PC (Intel i7 2600 from 2011) has been fine with it. It gives a nice ‘overloaded desk channel’ edge to the loudest parts of a sound (sounds lovely into a delay).

Although for some unknown reason some synths I were using were hammering my PCs CPU when they really should not have been, rompler type. (could be they are not VST3 and active all the time). Front DAW has 5 modes, a few desk emulations, tape and I favoured the BR for British console. I pushed the Mojo knob upwards and liked what I heard, a lot.

It simply made some of the sources a little more subtly dirty in a way that totally suited the sonics I was aiming for. I bypassed the plug in quickly to hear the differences and found myself trimming down the output to level match. Simple and effective and not much CPU usage either. The plug in is supposed to be slightly different with each instance providing that very subtle random behaviour that analogue inherently has.

I was reading about this plug in’s history and I am quite glad I came to it late as it seemed to have a few reported bugs, here and there, but seems to work very nicely now. As a bonus I like the GUI. Keep your eyes peeled for any sales. This one is going to get a lot of use I suspect in future tracks.

 

https://unitedplugins.com/FrontDAW/

 

I only used 4 of these Front DAW’s just on sources I felt benefitted (including bassline and ANA 2.0s analogue clicky squelch synth) from that extra bite as Slate VCC Brit 4K E console model was already on every channel with the drive setting at very low setting.

CPU was getting a bit of a hit for some unknown reason (I had no inclination to investigate as there were no drops outs) As such some parts, once written had to be bounced into audio and the MIDI and synths de-activated and muted to reduce the CPU load. I usually keep all the MIDI parts labelled on a “redundant MIDI” channel which is also muted at the bottom of my Cubase project. I try and leave this as late as possible in case there are changes which of course cause extra work.

 

Efficient track writing

The track took around 3 or 4 sessions, it is not the most musically complex piece I have made but it has a nice atmosphere and I chose the sounds to complement the clear Indian lounge/chill out with a touch of Indian trance flavour. Perfect for eating a few Masala Dosa’s in the garden maybe ? I did not over do the arrangement (maybe my ailling CPU assisted with that) and I never dragged the track out any longer than it need to be.

I started with kick and bass line, then sitar sounds with reverb and delay, added the rest of the drums, a low drone pad. Produced some melodic changes and additional layers and then added sound effects a breakdown and some reverse sounds to augment transitions.

A little quirky moment appeared when I saw the delay send level was 604, say no more.

Goa / 604 – a fortuitous send level

 

TOP TIP !

When you have finished your track, wait a day or 2 or 3 and review the final mix. I know it can be quite an enjoyable and exciting moment to release a new track. However, if you have time and patience for a cooling off and you can resist the release it is always a good idea to listen again to a bounced file away from the DAW of what you think is the final mix.

More often than not, for myself anyway, it is not quite finished. With this track I added a few more cymbal crashes, a slight level adjustment of 2 sounds (one up and one down by 1 to 2dB), and a double check if something slightly irritating could be tidied, it was not, just a combination of sounds interacting which is very much 90s imperfect so I left it.

There was not much to do, but I won’t look back in regret that these minor but significant “track flow” issues were resolved. You may not have had such detail luxury when running a “live desk mix” off to DAT back in 1999 (fading and filtering as you recorded) but you would have chosen your best mix if you recorded a few.

The home straight

Mastering for this track was intended to be a basic affair with just a few small EQ tweaks and a very slight limiting. I used the Sontec 432 plug in and also the Masalec MEA-2 by Relab.

 

Relab Masalec MEA-2 software. Classic, clean mastering eq. Merely one of many unique equalizers I use.

 

Limiting remained slight as there is simply no need to, it’s good to let all the transients remain intact. Short and longer term dynamics and movement makes music a little more interesting and engaging, especially when dance music can be more repetitive than other genres. Mastering is simply what a track sounds like it needs to shine, a veneer to present it as well as possible after listening in a ruthless environment that shows up all the details (good and not so good), sometimes that is very little and sometimes a little more.

There is a degree of emotional enhancement involved in mastering, to enhance the emotional content and expression in the music, that is not confined to mere technical processing, though it may use some. As I mastered the track I was mindful not to push it into a sonic territory away from the era it is meant to represent. I started to “de-cloudify”, you know hazy low mids, thick upper bass etc. but I reflected on this a little and felt it pushed it too far into sparkly sounding territory. I wanted to retain a warm, spacious and “drifty” sound and given the track name a little cloudiness does not go amiss. As such the chunky bottom end and low mids remain intact which balances nicely with the forward open hat that drives the top end.

The track was surprisingly quick to produce taking around 16 hours or so, all done at ease, another fun track with a different flavour done and dusted.
My sole income is derived from mastering and I master all types of music equally well.

For the blog articles I am documenting my free time musical endeavour and hope it is interesting and at times practically useful. I like to make DAW tracks as my MIDI composition and correction is rather better than my guitar playing. If you would like your tracks professionally mastered please get in contact with me. Rates on this link:

Pricing and payment | Mastering costs

 

Barry : safeandsound123@googlemail.com
Or 0044 (0)7810 271371