Beach House are a quintessential dream-pop band, they hail from Baltimore and a big part of their sound is their layering of keyboards, mostly vintage organs and string synths. The duo don't seem too fussy about the gear they use, instead relying on old, cheap organs for their beats. A Pitchfork article described their practice space: … Continue reading Beach House Keyboard Sounds

Pond recently released their seventh studio album The Weather and it's fantastic, after my Sweep Me Off My Feet tutorial I've had a couple of requests for the synths in 'Paint Me Silver'. What a lot of people don't know is that the main hook is based on a Todd Rundgren & Utopia song called Cosmic Convoy. … Continue reading Pond – Paint Me Silver Synths

Division was the first song to be released off the 2016 album Epoch. Featuring grinding guitars and post-rock-esque breaks, it has been the set closer for most of Tycho's Epoch tour shows. I'll demonstrate how to create a synth lead like the one used throughout the song on a Korg Minilogue, Native Instruments Monark, and in … Continue reading Tycho – Division Synth Sound

Welcome to another synth tutorial for Mac DeMarco synths, if you haven't already then check out part one, a tutorial on the synths in 'Chamber of Reflection'. In that article I looked at a Roland Juno sound and an organ sound and processed them with some tape emulation plugins to create Mac's signature woozy sound. In this … Continue reading Mac DeMarco Synths Pt.2

'Chamber of Reflection' really stands out on 'Salad Days' as the only song with none of Mac's signature chorused-guitar playing, instead using layers of dreamy sounding, swirling synths. Interestingly the hook of this song is lifted from a 1975 Shigeo Sekito song called "The Word II". A lot of sites and comments erroneously refer to … Continue reading Mac DeMarco – Chamber of Reflection Synth Tutorial

Welcome back to more Tame Impala synths. In this part I'll mostly tackle the synths sounds found on 'Lonerism'. I've already looked at 'Mind Mischief' and 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' in previous parts, so if you haven't already then check them out. I'll also look at the elusive Roland JV-1080 that was used to … Continue reading Tame Impala Synths Pt.3

Tycho started out as something of a solo project for bandleader Scott Hansen, and has since evolved into an ambient rock band whose signature sound consists of swirling pads, dreamy synth leads, and muted electric guitars, usually backed by live drums and bass guitar, all washed out with a saturated wall of reverb. I'm going to talk about the synth … Continue reading Tycho – Awake Synth Sound

'Sweep Me Off My Feet' by Australian psychedelic band Pond is a space-y synthpop-esque song from upcoming album 'This Weather'. It features heavily layered synths to underscore frontman Nick Allbrook's fantastic vocal performance. Synth Bass The song starts with a thick sounding deep synth bass, I tried a couple of synths and the Prophet was the one … Continue reading Pond – Sweep Me Off My Feet Synths