A-ha - Take on me (Tutorial)

 A-ha - Take on me (Tutorial)

In this blog we are looking on how to recreate the retro song Take On Me by Aha on Logic Pro X. As you can see the word retro i used the stock inbuilt plugins of Logic such as ES2 and Retro Synth. I will be also attaching a template of the project below (only applicable for Logic Pro users).

Here is the detailed Tutorial;

Tempo - 166
Scale - B minor

1. KICK, SNARE & TOM

These three are the main elements of the song as these three gives the bouncy groove which goes through out the track. For this I used the sample packs from KSHMR Vol 3 and assigned it to the Drum Machine in Logic Pro. I assigned the elements to my Midi Keyboard's drum pad, and recorded it. Given below is the pattern I used.


2. BASS

Recording the bass portion was one of the most satisfying thing i've ever done to be honest. The sound generating from the classic retro plugins just pierced through my soul. Here I used the Eighties Bass from Logic Pro itself. I also layered it with a simple Acoustic bass from Nexus 3 so both together it will sound great. Here is the pattern I created.





3. PADS

While recreating the pads section, it doesn't really matter which plugin you use but should always use something swell type and mix it with some ambient pads. Layering both will give us a great output. I used the apollo clouds pads from Nexus 3 and layered it with beauty pad(swell type) from electronic synth plugin. Here is the pattern.




4. SYNTH

At last but not the least the melody which we all remember even after 30 years is all because of the tone and style of it. Try to select a synth which has some high frequency in it and mix it with some pulse synth tones. For this I used the Emotive Pulse (high frequency) and layered it with Micro Pulse (pulse synth). Both are from the stock plugin ES2. Pattern is given below.



Well there are several ways to recreate this track but i assure you these are the most easiest one. Now grab your midi keyboard, load your plugins and start practising.

Here is a Logic Pro Template for you:

Clock on the Logic Pro logo for the template.







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