Most of the 80s electronic music you hear sounds bad today. There are many reasons for this, and it’s not a simple question to answer. A lot of 80s music was a product of its time and technology, and as such, it’s going to sound dated. This is why when we hear old recordings from the 60s or 70s, they don’t sound contemporary either; the music itself may be timeless (or not), but stylistically it will always be associated with a certain period in time.
This doesn’t mean you have to make music that sounds like it was made in 2015. I’m sure many people still enjoy the sound of 80s electronic music today, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You’ll probably never make anything that sounds truly timeless, but that’s okay; the most important thing is to make something you love.
But if you want your music to sound as good as possible now and in the future, there are a few things you can do. Here are some tips and tricks for making your 80s electronic music sound better:
A lot of people have been asking me about how to make their songs sound better, so I thought I’d share some of my tips and tricks with you.
*Mixdown*
This is probably the most important part of your song. A good mix down will result in a song that sounds pleasant to listen to and can be enjoyed by anyone. It’s also how you make your 80s electronic music sound better.
The first thing you want to do is find a good compressor. I use the UAD 1176 and UAD LA-2A plugins but there are many other great compressors out there like FabFilter Pro-C, Slate Digital’s Virtual Mix Rack or Waves SSL Channel. Once you’ve found a compressor that works for you, apply it on every track individually (except drums) using a threshold of around -10 dB and a ratio between 1:2-1:3 depending on how dynamic your track is (the more dynamic, the lower ratio). Make sure the attack is fast enough so that it doesn’t squash your transients, but slow enough so that it doesn’t distort them either. If you’re using an LA-2A or Waves SSL Channel then set the release to “auto” or “auto fast”
80s Electronic Music
The 80s were a golden age for electronic music. The sounds that were coming out of synths, samplers and computers were incredible. They sounded unique and could only be made with the technology at the time. In this article we will go over some tips and tricks to bring that 80s sound into your productions today.
Mixing
These days mixing can really be a job in itself, but in the 80s mixing was much more straight forward. The mix was used as a tool to make each track sit within the mix, not as a creative tool. The only creative use of effects on tracks was to make them wider or narrower using chorus or phaser (which we will discuss below).
So the first tip is to get things sounding good on their own before worrying about how they fit into the mix. This means getting a good balance of EQ and compression on each track so that it sounds great by itself. You can always find ways to tweak these further if you need to later on when you are doing your final mix down. You can also add some light reverb or delay to each track just for monitoring if you wish, but don’t worry too much about making them sit in context with other tracks
Chances are, if you’re a child of the 80s (or even older), you’ve been hearing that same set of sounds in your head for years, now. Maybe it’s just me, but I swear I can hear those ’80s synths and samples in my dreams. The good news is, with a little bit of work, you can make your tracks sound like they were made in the 1980s. Here are some tips on how to recreate that decade’s electronic music sound today.
1. Use effects like reverb and delay
2. Use compression and eq
3. Use synth plug-ins
4. Consider using a hardware synth
Over the last few years, I’ve been working on a project, re-recording music from my past. I have about five albums’ worth of material that I wrote and recorded between 1986 and 1992, and since 2007 I’ve been re-recording it.
I’ve recently released my most recent effort, a full album called “On the Beach” which is available at CD Baby, iTunes, and other online retailers.
To make this work, I needed to make my electronic instruments sound better than they did when I originally recorded them. Back then, we had to use a lot of tricks to make our music sound good because we didn’t have the tools we have today. Here’s some tips if you’re using old synths to re-record your old music:
If you’ve got an old analog synth with patch cables that you’d like to use in your new recordings, try making a new patch cable for every connection—a short one. The original patch cables are probably wearing out by now (if they aren’t already broken) or getting noisy. They may be picking up hum and interference from nearby power cables or other signals in your studio. It’ll only cost you a couple of bucks to replace them all with new ones. You can also
The goal of this blog is to help those trying to make music on older equipment.
I myself have made quite a bit of music on a Casio CZ-101, which is a great little synth from the mid 80s.
If you want to hear my stuff, you can go to MySpace and search for “Casio CZ-101”.
It’s not that hard to find. I’m the only one there.
This synth has a sound that’s very distinct from other synths. It’s got its own charm, but it also has its own limitations.
If you’ve got an old synth and are trying to make some music with it, the possibilities may seem overwhelming at first.
You might feel like you’re going in circles and getting nowhere fast. The trouble is not just with the synth itself, but also with your understanding of it.
You may not know where to start and what sounds good together. You may not know what kinds of sounds are possible on your machine and what kinds aren’t.
You’re probably wondering if there’s even any point in trying to get good sounds out of the thing. After all, it’s old technology and will never sound as good as modern synths or samplers…
We’ve all heard it. It’s in the synth line of your favorite 80s song. It’s in the background of that movie you loved from the 80s. It’s that eighties sound, and we love it! But how do you make your own eighties music?
Well, let me tell you. First, start with a song that is already well-known and has an iconic sound to it. I’m going to use “Take On Me” by A-ha as my example today. This song has a lot of what is called “musicality” in it, which means that it sounds very musical when played on a keyboard or guitar or any other instrument for that matter.
It’s a great song to learn from because there are so many different parts to listen for and pick out as you play along with this classic hit. For example:
The intro begins with a simple melody played on piano and then builds up into more complex chords before resolving back down into simpler ones again at the end of each phrase. This is typical of many songs from this era where they had less sophisticated arrangements than today.*