Two new synthwave releases on the menu today, both with a great song but while one of them are next to flawlessly mixed, I have some serious remarks on the second track.
So it’s time to get slightly technical on Synthwave Saturday!
NeverMann – Jody
There’s good finds, there’s great finds… And then there’s finds like these. Without getting too technical on everyones asses, but I really have nothing to remark on this production. It sounds spot on, so much so that I don’t want to dig deeper to try to find something minor.
Not only in regards to the mix and instrumentation, but artistically the arrangement itself as well as the melody is just totally spot on.
And that vocalist? Well, in the context of synthwave it just can’t get much better than this as far as I am concerned. This is late 80s all over again.
Dream Shore – Another Time
Here’, on the other hand, they’ve been far too heavy on the compression. And that’s a shame cause it throws the track “out of character”, figeratively speaking. We just simply didn’t do it like this back then (and tbh I wish we didn’t today either).
The vocals are also totally drowning in the mix, like as if only the wet signal of a reverb plugin are let through.
So why did I pick it up, then? Because behind the mix I believe we have a gem of a track. The arrangement, the melody, the properly reverbed snare (yeah it’s perhaps a cliche, but it’s bloody everywhere in the 80s productions so it just needs to be there 😀 ), the overall vibe of the track is right where we want it.
If produced differently this track could have made me believe to have been featured on one of the soundtracks for the 80s tv series Miami Vice. It has that same atmosphere. And that’s what pulled it over to the “approved” side of my filtering.
So a pat on the back for the original material here, but a little spankin’ for the mix! That’s my message. 😀
Both of these are found on our Spotify playlist “More Eighties Then The 80s itself”, where they sits proud alongside other vocal based synthwave tracks. We dare say it’s evolved into one of the better synthwave lists out there, qualitatively speaking. Yup.