PlainChant (Cover Song - Plainsong - The Cure - French Version)
Made in Reaper!
Listen to the cover song here:
https://soundcloud.com/consciousgroo...french-version
A Plainsong (Latin: cantus planus – French Plain-Chant) is a body of chants used in the Church liturgies originating in the Medieval age (I think?) and a nice song written by The Cure and released in the 80s on the album called Disintegration.
I chose to record and produce this cover song because: 1) I wanted to learn how to program and 'dial in' that lush 80s synthesizer string sound, and 2) I enjoy translating English songs from the 80s in French *for all my homies in Quebec. Oue!
My research revealed that The Cure most likely used a SOLINA ARP String Ensemble synth. I think they also layered some samples? In any case, I used this free VST:
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=792
Here is a picture of the real ARP SOLINA:
There are many many layers of the ARP Solina, including a BlockC chord throughout the entire song. There is also another synth line that dubs the cello (one octave higher).
The lead electric guitar was fed into Free Amp 3, a free multi guitar amp-sim, created by Guitar synth.
http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=580 Crank the Chorus to the max, a touch of Flanger and stereo delay and voila -> a pretty good emulation of Robert Smith's guitar.
The low end is a cello (free vst - cellofan), dubbed by a grainy synth bass, and a bass.
What else? Oh ya, I decided to add an acoustic guitar and change up the intro of the song. The reason for this modification is, well, because I wanted to make my cover song special, and because I want to play this song by the campfire (i.e. I needed to figure out a guitar strumming). I think is sound pretty nice with an acoustic guitar.
I tried to mix and master my cover song to sound like Plainsong, but in the end I thought the original was too muddy (or should I say overly lush?). I preferred to open up to sound and expand the stereo field.
I hope you enjoy listening as much I as did recording and producing Plainchant