Espen Kraft

Do you want to make old school synth pop using old gear and techniques, while at the same time wondering how to do this? This tutorial is for you then. I go through what it takes and I'll even perform the work-in-progress live.

These patches are created by me and some of the sounds is taken directly from my album "Those Days" which is a tribute to the glorious 80s synth-pop and synthesizer sounds used in tv/movies at the time. I use the 8P extensivly on that album.

Do you want to make old school Italo Disco/ Synth pop using old gear and techniques, while at the same time wondering how to do this? This tutorial is for you then. I go through what it takes and I'll even perform the work-in-progress live.

Today I give you a walkthrough of one of the more obscure, but never the less, great analog synths of the mid 80s. The Elka 22 analog synthesizer and its module sibling, the EM 22. With its 6 CEM3396 chips inside it has much of thr same sound as the Oberheim Matrix 6 and 1000, but not the extensive routing capabilities of those. Instead it has a gorgeous analog chorus onboard and some interesting flexible DCO oscillator routings/sync-options that set it apart from many og the more famous Roland and Korg synths from the same time.

In this tutorial/workflow I show you how I usually sample drums from audio files into the Akai S1000 sampler for a live session/gig. I show you how I build the program, define keygroups and set the samples up to be triggered off my Roland TR-626 or a MIDI keyboard.

In this episode of my ongoing focus on 80s synth-pop, I show an example of how chords and melodic structure was done in the 80s synth-pop tradition to add tension, depth and elegance to a composition. I strongly suggest you check out the finished track before watching the tutorial to get a feeling of the actual song I use to demonstrate.