GET THAT SOUND: STRFKR

Keil Corcoran from hot new band STRFKR tells us about the killer sounds on their lead single from new album ‘Miracle Mile’...

“‘Leave It All Behind’ began as an eight-bar guitar/drum/synth loop Patrick wrote on his Akai MPC 2000XL. The main chords you can hear in the song were created using the MPC's note-repeat function. I also used the note-repeat function on an MPC 1000 to create the chords in 'Malmo'.

 I wrote the verse bassline in Ableton Live using a combination of Operator (for sub bass) and a Roland SH-09 through a MIDI/CV converter. Josh wrote the chorus section using various Roland synths, including a Juno 106 and a SH-1000.

“We neglected to record drums for this song when we went into the studio, so I ended up using the studio one-shots to build a Drum Rack in Ableton Live. I used Live's Random MIDI effect to cycle through multiple samples for each drum in order to make them sound more organic.

I layered these with samples from our Sequential Circuits Drumtraks and a Roland TR-808 for the kick. I used a V-Drum kit in my apartment to record the MIDI into Live.

“Josh recorded our vocals for the track using a vintage Electro-Voice RE16 mic through a Universal Audio Twin Finity 710 Mic Pre. This song made its way through four different DAWs before it was finished (Logic, Live, Acid, and Pro-Tools), and was pretty much the first song we ever collectively wrote as a group. Hopefully you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it!