My writing process with most artists (including Frank) is very artist specific i.e. He’s done his own breakdown of the guitars in Pyramids, which you can watch here as well as featured in the article below.īefore I start breaking down each sound, here’s the final remake: The remake is also a collaboration with guitarist/producer Seán Murray, who recorded and mixed the outro guitar solo originally played by John Mayer, as well the the guitar swells in the bridge. I recreated most of the sounds using plugins from the Arturia V Collection and the presets made for the remake are available as a free download at the end of this article. In this article I’ll look at each of the individual sounds that makes up Pyramids and either look at where the sound originally came from or how to emulate the original hardware synth sounds using software plugins. The pad on side 2 is an Oberheim OB-8… Hmm, oh yeah, the arpeggiator thing is done on the Arturia CS-80“ Bass was live, high pad sounding thing during the transition from side 1 to side 2 was ebow on my Strat. I created the main chop with some analog bell type sound off an original Juno-106 and some choir sounds from the Mtron. “I use all of the Arturia analog remakes… On that particular song the lead synth was actually from Omnisphere (played live the chain I described previously). On the production of Pyramids, Malay wrote: He also says he sends his tracks from his audio interface through a stereo pair of Neve 1073’s, because “ any software based stuff has to leave the computer and hit some kind of circuit board”, ostensibly to add analog warmth. Software plugins used on channel Orange include the Arturia Collection, Native Instruments Battery and GForce M-Tron. In a Gearslutz forum post Malay wrote that the main synths and keyboards used on channel Orange were a Roland Juno-106, a Wurlitzer, a B3 organ and a Rhodes. Pyramids was written by Frank Ocean and Malay, with production credits shared by the two in addition to Om’Mas Keith. To top it all off, the outro of Pyramids features an extended guitar solo performed by an uncredited John Mayer. The song is structured around two distinct sections which I’ll refer to as Side A and Side B, as well as a transition section that joins the two. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes, Pyramids features a wide range of sounds, including epic Mellotron choirs, funky synthbass lines and warm pads over trap beats. Pyramids is regarded by many as one of the standout tracks of Frank Ocean’s 2012 debut album, channel ORANGE.

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