Paramore Backing Tracks

[Nick Thorpe]

Hey JMJ,

Berklee College of Music has an ensemble of students performing a selection of Paramore's music this semester. As the bassist in this group, I've also taken responsibility for putting together the backing tracks we use for some of the later material that features more synths. Some of the parts are pretty straight forward and I can emulate it close enough, but some sounds are way over my head since I'm not very experienced with sound design or emulation. Particularly "Pool" and "Hard Times" from the latest album and "Part II" from the self-titled sound pretty out of reach. I was wondering if you could provide any insight as to some of the sounds on those songs, especially any direction towards recreating that intro to Pool.

Thanks very much, I hope to hear back soon!

-Nick

 

[jmjbassplayer]

Howdy,

I don't remember the specifics of how we did most of the synths...I tend to jump around and experiment quite a bit, and so my memory fails me in most circumstances of how we did what. It goes that way for most of my album projects...only about 10% of the time will I remember exactly what was used and how I programmed it. The only way I would be able to get details on this stuff would be to get the hard drive from the vault, crack open PT sessions, and spend hours of my time doing musical forensics, which I'm sure you can understand I'm not going to do. The intro to Pool was loops based on calimbas and other eastern/african instruments like that. Hard times is various sounds on Minimoog, Juno, MS20, and Arp Solina. I don't remember what the arpeggio in the bridge was made from, but it's not super complex so anyone decent with synths could emulate that. I have a memory that I did a bunch of programming using a Prophet 12 on the song Part II. Good luck with your project.

J

 

[Nick Thorpe]

Thanks for your reply JMJ! I appreciate the input.