Why I Blend Modern Production With An 80's Sound

Neon Notes — Week [9]

I like to blend modern with retro.

I make sure everything is clipping, and I also make sure that the snare is so gated that it disappears completely.

And of course, I always remember to export at the lowest bit rate to give it that vintage sound.

April Fools! Now, on to the real post.

I touched on this briefly in a previous post, but there’s something about that 80s sound that keeps me coming back.

From the warm analog synths to the slight imperfections and warble, it just feels nostalgic.

But I never wanted to make music that could be mistaken for something that actually came out of the 80s. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I had in my head.

I wanted something more modern while keeping that love of the 80s.

Something that takes the feeling of the 80s and blends it with the clarity and punch of today’s pop music.

A lot of that starts with the vocals I choose. They have a definite modern sound, and I try to build a song around them with retro sounds that complement them.

Looking back, I don’t think I fully appreciated 80s music at the time. My taste has always been all over the place. But once I started making music again, it hit me all at once that those songs from the 80s were so unique and were much more than I first thought.

There are also a lot of newer artists recreating the 80s in their music, and they’re keeping it more faithful to the whole 80s aesthetic, which I love.

But the sound I’m going for sits somewhere between the 80s and now.

I want my songs to have a retro vibe, but with clarity and punch.

When I moved away from more instrumental synthwave style tracks, I immediately had an idea. I wanted less of the washed out drums and fuzz of the 80s sound, and more of the polished modern pop sound fused with the 80s.

From artists like The Weeknd or Dua Lipa, I wanted a modern, hard hitting pop sound with lots of retro elements like gated snares and synth sounds with some tape distortion.

That’s what keeps me coming back to this style.

It’s not just about recreating the sound. It’s about making it my sound

Now Creating

• More website redesigning
• Refining my sound (A definite shift in my sound)
• Lot's of new music coming soon!

Thanks for reading.
If you have thoughts about any of this, I’d love to hear them.

This post is part of my weekly Neon Notes series. New posts go live every Wednesday.