Stefan Archer - Making “La Cascada”

Stefan Archer - Making “La Cascada”

19 December, 2009 | 2.46PM

• Written by: kaluchie
• Filed under: Music News : manuscript records, stefan archer

Stefan Archer - La Cascada - Pleasure Is All Mine EP - Manuscript Records

Get this release on Beatport.com

“EXCELLENT du bonheur en barre MERCIII pour les Great vibes.” - Laurent Garnier
“Dope deepness from a true house music aficionado.. excellent!” - Scope

I got quite a few people complimenting the atmosperic melodic synths in my track La Cascada.  I’ve made a few notes below about the techniques I used when putting the track together.  Hopefully someone will find them interesting, maybe even useful.  If you’ve got any questions about it, just ask :]

Tools of choice: Propellerheads Reason 4, Audacity, Cubase, various synths / instruments.

The main melodic synth in the track is made from a live sample of me playing a patch I’d created on my Novation K Station synth.  I like sampling in live playing.  It can often produce something unexpected and is a great way to spark inspiration when creating a new track.

I use Audacity to sample in live audio since it runs well alongside Reason on my current setup, allowing me to play along to a loop in Reason and record the new part as live audio into Audacity.

I imported the K Station riff into the NN19 sampler in Reason and added some reverb and delay.  The delay, set to 3 steps, is important since it helps to create a tempo synced element to the sound.  Once I had this sample set up in Reason, I triggered it live from my controller keyboard to come up with the part you hear in the finished track.  I ended up using a combination of the sample at its original pitch, an octave up, plus some occasional alternative pitches for variation.  I also layered some acoustic piano over the main melodic riff at certains points in the track.

I recorded a short spoken word sample of randomness.  I used this not only for the obviously vocal sounding part, but also as a kind of airy sound effect to help create the atmosphere I was seeking with this track.  The vocal is high pass filtered, then put through reverb and delay units in Reason.

The synth that comes to prominence in the main breakdown was created with Reason’s Maelstrom synth, with some tempo-synced delay to help it fit with the vibe of the track.

The core of the beats were programmed in ReDrum with various layers of percussion added by cutting up and layering in loops in Dr:Rex.  I also played in some live hand drums.

The bassline is made up of short samples from several different sources, including my Alesis Fusion and my trusty old Yamaha QY70.  Using sounds that have a similar quality but come from different sources, it creates a nice variety to the part.

I also recorded in a little bit of saxophone.  It’s a very simple riff but I like the character it brings to the track.  Again, I added delay to this sample to help it blend with the track.

I arranged and mixed La Cascada in Reason 4 before taking it into Cubase for some final processing.

I was lucky to get four fantastic remixes of La Cascada from experienced producers Hakan Lidbo, Justin Robertson, Pawel Kobak and Groovepatcher.  I love the individual direction each has taken with their remix. 

All four remixes plus my original mix are on the Pleasure Is All Mine EP from Manuscript Records, out now on Beatport.

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