The Making of “Thing EP”
BlackAD is a mysterious noir-synth pop producer from Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow. After years of experience as a musician in the local music scene, he has finally released his first solo EP as BlackAD.
This is after a feature on the Tonic Note Records “Breathing Space” compilation in 2020.
In this article, you’ll find out how he made the EP, his inspirations, and hopefully plenty of useful ideas to use in your own music.
Click here to listen to the EP
https://tonicnoterecords.bandcamp.com/album/thing-ep
Cover art for THING EP
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Inspirations
“I’m a fan of early synthpop, from the late 70s / early 80s, like early Mute Records artists such as The Normal, early Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget. The sounds were gritty, homemade, a bit out of tune and not always played in time - but the music was raw, honest and authentic.
Mute founder Daniel Miller actually argues this music was “more punk than punk”, because you needed to learn chords on a guitar to make punk music - with a synth, you only need to press a finger down on one key at a time to achieve the same thing.
The post-punk era was a time when synths and basic recording equipment finally became affordable to everyday people. You finally didn’t need to sell your car or take out a second mortgage to get a Moog Prodigy.
The Equipment
Inspired by those artists, I made the EP using two old-school analog monophonic synths played by hand (no sequencing), and the drum machines around at the time - Roland’s CR-78 and 808. And I used the monosynths to make drum sounds too.
There was some compromise involved - I had to use 808 and CR-78 samples, as ironically the price of the original units is now well beyond affordable for most people.
Recording Process
For the same reason, I had to ditch the idea of recording on a reel-to-reel tape machine and go with a DAW instead. But I made the recordings the way it was done back then - playing each part in live without using digital editing, and only using eight-or-so tracks per song.
For mixing and mastering I stuck to the effects available to musicians of the time - reverb, overdrive, panning and basic EQ.
Creative Process
I tend to write music in my head, while I’m out walking, sitting on the train, in the shower, or when I’m falling asleep. Then it’s a race against time to get recording before I forget them !
I also find the best songs are the ones which come quickly - if I find myself spending a long time working on a bit of music, it generally gets ditched.”
Thank’s to BlackAD for letting us in on his creative process.