Background

Some time ago I picked up a readers digest box set titled “international hits” from a charity shop for a £1. It contains 9 records of utter shit middle of the road, lounge and easy listening crap. I guess the idea behind it is that each record is in a style from around the world. It’s god awful.

So some time passed and then I got an idea one day to try and make something listenable from this giant paperweight. The project was born. I set some rules about how I could do this.

The Rules

They are simple and aimed at limiting myself, in theory pushing me to be more creative with what I got.

1. Samples to be used only from the records in the boxset.

2. Drum breaks are allowed to be used from other records, seeing as there are none on the boxset ones.

3. Synths can be used to make basslines and sounds but no melodys or main parts of the song can be instrument based, only samples from the boxset.

4. There are equipment limitations mainly that only analog equipment can be used, apart from mastering in the computer.


The Equipment

Seeing as I could only use analog equipment and was working with samples this is what I used. Most is in the photo above.

MPC 2000XL

Sansui WS-X1 (6-track cassette recorder, 2-track mixdown deck and mixer)

Sansui MD-R7 (tape sync box)

Deltalab effectron II (delay)

Electro Harmonix memmory man (delay)

Yammaha MG 16/4 (mixer)

Roland Alpha Juno 2 (synth)

DIY built synth

Technics 1210′s

Patchbay

Vestex PMC 05 pro sl (mixer with built in sampler which got used)

Cables

Mic

Everything is recorded to the sansui 6 track on cassette and mixed on it too. It has two tape decks one is 6 track one is 2 track. Idea being you mixdown to the 2 track from the 6 track. The MPC is recorded Live in one take with no overdubs. In fact not much overdubing being done at all as can only use 6-tracks