How Paul McCartney Created Wonderful Christmastime
Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime is a holiday track that divides opinions—it’s either a nostalgic festive staple or a polarising earworm. Recorded during the summer of 1979 for his McCartney II sessions, the song captures McCartney’s whimsical, experimental side, blending a minimalist synth-driven production with a playful festive charm. Every note, layer, and vocal overdub was performed by McCartney himself, making it a quintessential solo effort.
The track’s defining sound is believed to come from the Yamaha CS-80, a massive and notoriously expensive synthesizer famed for its use in Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack. The CS-80 has a distinct 2-pole filter, unlike the more common 4-pole filters found in most synths, giving it a unique tonal quality. The sound can be recreated by starting with one of the CS-80’s presets and adding LFO modulation to the filter to achieve the rhythmic effect heard in the track.
I’ve recreated the synth patch using Arturia CS-80 V4, a software emulation of the original instrument. This article is an updated version of my original “Christmas Synth Sounds” article. This updated version includes a new preset for the latest version of Arturia CS-80 V.
Firstly, here’s my full remake of Wonderful Christmastime, created without using any samples from the original track:
Background
Wonderful Christmastime was recorded entirely by Paul McCartney during the summer of 1979 as part of the McCartney II sessions. These sessions, conducted at McCartney’s properties in Sussex and Scotland, followed his earlier solo ethos of recording alone without a full production crew. His approach involved bypassing a traditional recording console, plugging microphones directly into a Studer A80 16-track tape machine, and working whenever inspiration struck.
The McCartney II sessions yielded around 20 songs, ranging from eccentric synthpop to ambient experiments. The album itself was a departure from McCartney’s typical rock and pop sensibilities, embracing an eccentric, new wave-inspired sound heavy on synthesizers. Among these recordings, Wonderful Christmastime was earmarked for release in November 1979 as a standalone holiday single.
Although Wings was still active at the time, with the band appearing in the song’s promotional video, the recording itself was entirely McCartney’s work. One of the song’s standout features is its playful “choir of children” effect, achieved by layering McCartney’s vocals.
CS-80 Synth Patch
To set this up using Arturia CS-80 V4, begin by selecting the Bass preset in the second row of tone selector buttons. Next, move the Mix lever all the way to the ‘II’ position, which isolates the lower layer and ensures you only hear the Bass preset. Here’s what the Bass preset sounds like on its own, without any modulation:
The rhythmic movement in the track’s synth comes from the CS-80’s Sub Oscillator section, which functions as an LFO capable of modulating various parameters. To recreate this, set the Function lever in the Sub Oscillator section to Saw Down (reverse sawtooth). This wave shape gives the modulation its distinct downward pluck effect.
Next, sync the Speed to your DAW at 1/8th-note intervals for a tempo-locked rhythmic pattern. The VCF lever (which controls the depth of the filter modulation) should be set to approximately 0.900. Note that the CS-80’s global controls require you to move the lever downward to raise the value.
Paul McCartney, of course, didn’t have the luxury of modern DAW sync when he recorded Wonderful Christmastime. Instead, he would have had to manually set the LFO to a free-running speed and play in perfect time with its modulation. This would have required precise timing, but McCartney made it work effortlessly.
The CS-80 features global filter and resonance controls that affect the overall tone of the patch. For Wonderful Christmastime, I set the Brilliance lever to -0.450 and the Resonance to 0.432. This increased resonance makes it sound ‘juicier’.
To ensure the chords ring out after releasing the keys, the VCA release time for Layer II needs to be increased. This is controlled by the yellow fader on the right-hand side of the interface. Raise the fader to around 1.32 seconds to allow the sound to fade out slower. This means the keys don’t need to be held down for as long, which makes it easier to play on keyboard.
The increased filter resonance makes the low-end sound a little boxier than the original, so I added an EQ cut around 360Hz in the mix. For reverb, I used Soundtoys Little Plate as a send/return for all tracks in the remake. The original track has a dry sound, so you don’t want to use too much reverb or use a large hall reverb that could muddy the mix.
Strings
The string part in Wonderful Christmastime may have been played on the Sequential Prophet-5, which is seen in the song’s music video, or possibly the Roland Jupiter-4, seen in his studio at the time. For my recreation, I used Arturia Prophet-5 V, which is also included in the Arturia V Collection.
To create the sound, Oscillator A’s pitch is lightly modulated by the LFO for a subtle chorusing effect, while Oscillator B uses a pulse wave also modulated by the LFO to add richness. The VCA envelope has a soft attack and release, allowing the notes to fade in and out smoothly, giving the strings a flowing, natural feel.
Downloads & Related
Thanks for reading and happy holidays! The TAL U-NO-LX and Arturia CS-80 V and Prophet-5 V presets used in the Wonderful Christmastime remake can be downloaded below.
Download the Presets
Download the synth presets created for this article here. You’ll need the newer versions of Arturia CS-80 V and Prophet-5, released in V Collection 9.
Get the Ableton Project
Get the Ableton Live Project for this remake on the Projects Store. All projects have frozen tracks in case of missing plugins and all downloads include multitrack stems and MIDI files for use in other DAWs.
Read Me Next
For more vintage Yamaha CS-80 goodness, check out my article covering Vangelis’ use of the CS-80 on the iconic Blade Runner soundtrack.
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