A haunting love story with a twist: Radio Static tells the tale of desperately trying to get in touch with a long lost loved one over an old haunted ham radio.
Radio static features the emotional vocals of exceptional synthwave talent Patrick Russell, real recordings of vintage 80s hardware synthesizers like the Yamaha DX7, original Simmons drums and luscious rock guitars.
Find out how it was made in this blog article.
Ever since Patrick emerged in the Synthwave scene around 2020, I was stunned by his amazing vocals. I couldn't be happier, when Patrick agreed to work on the first song of my sophomore album, which eventually also concluded in him singing the album's final song. Patrick's work is definitely worth checking out and having him open and close my album was a great honor!
The Yamaha DX7 Synthesizer is the pinnacle of FM synthesis. Not necessarily in form and function but popularity. Over 200.000 units have been sold between 1983 and 1989, making it one of the best-selling synthesizers in history. I got mine around 2003 for $60 on ebay and had to do a lot of cleaning and repairs to get it up and running, and it's been a staple in all my productions ever since.
Interestingly enough, the DX7 does not sound super spectacular on its own, but with some added external effects, it really comes to life and instantly sweeps you into that 80s goodness.
For Radio Static I was using the basic Harp 2 factory patch playing a repetitive but quite dynamic riff.
With added effects like the Roland Juno 60 Chorus, Lexicon reverb, delay and the Strymon BigSky Shimmer the same sound suddenly becomes alive creating quite and intriguing atmosphere which is the base of the entire song.
The title says it all and it really needs no elaborate explanation. The passing of time and a beating heart have always been a wonderful motive to express emotions and suspense. The drums revolve around this simple pattern. Rushing the second 808 double-kick by an eight note breaks up the rhythm and emphasizes the one, making the wait for the striking snare in the second bar even more desperate.
A slight eight note echo on the kick hammers it in even more.
Punching like none other with a true 80s classic: The Simmons SDS-V. This electronic drum module, introduced in 1981 electronically models the sound of a snare with a sine oscillator, a noise and click generator and various filter and envelopes and though it sounds nothing like a real acoustic drum, the otherworldly and pregnant sound of the Simmons drums have quickly become a staple in the 80s and are still highly sought after units today, that could easily set you back a couple of thousand dollars.
Fortunately I got this complete Simmons drum set on eBay for just about $400 a couple of years ago and I'm cherishing it ever since!
Guitars were performed by the insanely gifted guitar aficionado Michi Breitschopf who I've been working with many times before on other projects. A big part of the fun in working with Michael is the fact that he knows exactly what's in my mind for a particular part of the song, without me even having to say a thing.
Like most power ballads we wanted to use a typical 80s rack tone for this one. Although the recordings were done using a Kemper Profiler, the original profile was created using legit gear of the decade. The Ibanez Tube Screamer, an under-cranked Marshall JMP 2203 all-valve amp and the VOX AC50 cabinet. Of course the sound was rounded off with the famous Dytronics Tri-Stereo Chorus, some creamy goodness from my Yamaha SPX90 and lots of Lexicon PCM70 reverb.
To support the typical Synthwave rolling bass, I have chorused fretless bass in most of the songs of this album. A practice that originated most prominently with Firelady and gives all album songs a coherent arrangement. The recorded bass was processed for additional warmth with a Distressor and run through the Juno 6's chorus setting I. For some reason I can never get enough of that sound.
It was always clear to me that I will have to build the radio for real, which of course also called for a cute music video. I did a lot of research on ham radios from the 70s and 80s and settled on a design with a huge round center dial and scale. The main chassis was made from a wooden base plate and hand cut forex board, which is quite pleasant and easy to work with. For the insides which I wanted to show in the video, I dismantled an old tube radio and wired the heating elements which are essentially very ineffective low voltage light bulbs.
The old radio tower you see in the video is actually right in my neighborhood and quite honestly what inspired the song in the first place, as it has always fascinated me, ever since childhood. Weeks prior to the interior shots we managed to capture a perfect sunset with a drone and proper permits, which even in good old bureaucratic Germany were surprisingly easy to get. Funny enough, only ever after we finished filming my dad told me, he had once worked there as a technician decades ago.
Filming the Radio Static interior began in the middle of the pandemic lockdown. To resemble the small radio room I set everything up on my dining table, creating fake walls from cardboard with dark low-key lighting and a bit of haze from a small fog machine.
Using the GH5 on a small slider and a very fast lens I could easily achieve a great deal of depth-of-field to mask the backgrounds and draw the viewer onto the details in focus. Of course Nini was on board as well. It took roughtly three days to get all the shots, especially filming myself while still operating a camera on a slider was not as simple as I had expected. But in the end it turned out great and looked simply gorgeous.
