Uploaded July 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
It's time to go back and visit the Synthwave genre again!
This track will be part of the upcoming Synthisphere album, in which each track is created only using one synthesizer for each of the instrument parts, with the exception of drums. This track was based on Arturia's modeling of the classic Oberheim OB-Xa synth, the weirdly renamed "OP-Xa".
Process Notes:
This is the first non-ambient track I have created using Bitwig, so it's a little more basic in its construction than the template I had setup in Ableton Live but it is the foundation for more Synthwave to come!
I built on my previous uses of the Note Grid and build a device that acted as a kind of arpeggiator - a single MIDI note came in, and a MIDI pattern came out. The (as yet unnamed) Note Grid device has a rhythm generator, lightly randomizes the note velocity, and randomly adds 1-3 different note sequences together to modify the melody in a musical way.
Another experiment here that worked well was using Bitwig's Note Repeat device in Euclidean mode that I automated during the different sections to bring up and down the intensity of the kick, snare, and hats.
Music created in Bitwig, using:
- Arturia's OP-Xa
- Arturia's FX bundle (compressors)
- Valhalla Vintage Verb
- Eventide's Blackhole
- Native Instrument's Rise & Hit
- XLN's RC-20
- Loopcloud (for a tambourine and a tom loop)
Video created with:
- DaVinci Resolve 18 (it just came out the day I started work on the video clip, so the timing worked well)
- Canva (this was a new one - but I laid out the cover in Canva and I liked it enough to keep most of the elements into the video too)
- Affinity Photo for the Artifonica device/logo and other photo touching up
- Magic Animate, by @MrAlexTech
Keywords:
Synthwave, Synth-wave, Vaporwave, Retrowave, 80s, 1980s, Stranger Things, synth-pop, retro, upbeat, vintage synthesizers, cheesy, lasers
It's time to go back and visit the Synthwave genre again!
This track will be part of the upcoming Synthisphere album, in which each track is created only using one synthesizer for each of the instrument parts, with the exception of drums. This track was based on Arturia's modeling of the classic Oberheim OB-Xa synth, the weirdly renamed "OP-Xa".
Process Notes:
This is the first non-ambient track I have created using Bitwig, so it's a little more basic in its construction than the template I had setup in Ableton Live but it is the foundation for more Synthwave to come!
I built on my previous uses of the Note Grid and build a device that acted as a kind of arpeggiator - a single MIDI note came in, and a MIDI pattern came out. The (as yet unnamed) Note Grid device has a rhythm generator, lightly randomizes the note velocity, and randomly adds 1-3 different note sequences together to modify the melody in a musical way.
Another experiment here that worked well was using Bitwig's Note Repeat device in Euclidean mode that I automated during the different sections to bring up and down the intensity of the kick, snare, and hats.
Music created in Bitwig, using:
- Arturia's OP-Xa
- Arturia's FX bundle (compressors)
- Valhalla Vintage Verb
- Eventide's Blackhole
- Native Instrument's Rise & Hit
- XLN's RC-20
- Loopcloud (for a tambourine and a tom loop)
Video created with:
- DaVinci Resolve 18 (it just came out the day I started work on the video clip, so the timing worked well)
- Canva (this was a new one - but I laid out the cover in Canva and I liked it enough to keep most of the elements into the video too)
- Affinity Photo for the Artifonica device/logo and other photo touching up
- Magic Animate, by @MrAlexTech
Keywords:
Synthwave, Synth-wave, Vaporwave, Retrowave, 80s, 1980s, Stranger Things, synth-pop, retro, upbeat, vintage synthesizers, cheesy, lasers
