The band I’m in is gearing up to learn “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. I won’ t lie, I’m struggling to put together the right layers to get an authentic sound for the opening. Usually I can put together something close but on this song there’s so much delay in the mix it’s tough to piece it together.

I know there are those of you that are way better at this then I am. Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

You can hear it here:

http://youtu.be/ktdQiODWt84

You certainly have all the L,R DELAYS to make that effect happen… What is it you are stuck on?

It’s really less a technical question than it is a sound-creation question.

I’m hearing kind’ve a synth string layered with another synth (that I can’t quite catch) and I want to replicate the layered guitar with it all. All seem to have slight variations of delay when played simutaneously but everything is so heavily produced in the recording that it makes it a little hard to pinpoint what I’m hearing.

Basically I’m looking for ideas, or opinions, of how some others on the forum might tackle this if their band wanted to play this song. In other words; What would you do if you were me? :)

I could possibly be overthinking this, too. I don’t expect to get it exactly right but if I could get close enough for it to be recognizable I’d be happy.

I apologize if I’m being confusing.

Like all Nile Rodgers riffs, the voicing of the chords is VERY specific or you won’t get the same flavour at all.

For the sound itself, If you have some high up ‘neck’ type guitar samples and you layer those with a horn section, I reckon you’d be pretty close.  You may even get away with a synth brass underneath the guitar, too.

I struggle to hear any strings as such, but having seen Nile do this song live, he has a real horn section and has keyboard players double up with horn section samples as well.

The only question then is in the delays, which do sound varied and have rather an unusual watery/modulating quality, but are nevertheless strictly in time.

There probably won’t be much point in doing it unless your band are playing to a click or something that will keep them strictly in time for the delays. 

If that isn’t the case, then you will be making a totally different musical statement with that riff out of time.

The delay timing was something I did think about, too, and that would be an issue. Our drummer doesn’t use a click track.

I think the key here is that I’m not going to be able to duplicate the recording the way I intended. There’s simply too much production going on. I believe the bulk of the sound is coming from the delay effects. I’m just going to shoot for a “dumbed-down” version where the end result is still recognizable to the crowd. I think I can pull this off.

Hey I appreciate your response and if I can, I’ll post a recording of the band playing it to show how I ended up doing it.

Thanks!

No worries,

Check out this rather lame phone footage of Nile’s band doing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gOH4qY_NpE

Whilst it might not be the best video around, you can clearly hear the minimal approach to it they take and to my ears, he has a very backed off delay that isn’t quite doing the same complex thing as the record...but it works.

If it works for Nile who produced the track anyway, then I’m sure that minimal approach could work for you.

The horns stick around for the pre-verse section and then drop out of those chords to just leave the guitar which is (as I suggested) played very high up on the neck (which is critical to the flavour of the song)

I like the idea of having some, backed-off delay to still have it in there.

Thanks for posting the video! I’ll check it out.