Italo Disco done the old school way in 2018

Published on Jun 8, 2018 Espen Kraft

"Italo Disco made the old school way in 2018. Using a plethoria of 80s samplers, synths and drum machines it's possible to make that kind of raw unpolished sound that infused the synth-pop scene back in the early to mid 80s where the term Italo Disco wasn't used, but the octave bass sounded different from much else of the synth-pop.
I've taken inspiration from all the great artists/producers of the time and used some of the same gear.

Thanks to Caroline Johansen for additional vocals, you're a great sport!

Track available on all streaming media:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3dIJbQ...
https://soundcloud.com/espenkraft

The chords and sections that make up the track is explained in detail after the performance of the track so don't turn it off too soon!

The performance is held together by Roland MC50 sequencer that plays the Emax II Liquid Stack guitars while I play other parts. Half of the track is me playing the Emax live.
Bass is off the Roland S-10 sampler played live as is the Korg DW-8000s fairlight pad/strings.
The Yamaha TX802 is also played live over MIDI on the MiniNova.
Additional pads/strings and Fairlight flute is from the Roland Juno 2 and the Yamaha DX7, sequenced.
The simple but effective drums comes off the Akai S1000.

Strymon BlueSky and TC flashback handles reverb and delays.

Everything is going into a couple of Yamaha 01W digital mixers (a Behringer analog mixer does some of the synths) and piped optically into the Audient ID14 soundcard and into the DAW for recording.

Listen to more of my music on: http://www.espenkraft.com
My tracks pay homage to all synth-pop acts of the 80'ies like Howard Jones, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, OMD, Euryhmics, Duran Duran, Giorgio Moroder, Jean Michel Jarre, Jan Hammer, Alphaville, A-ha and many more."