Analyzing "Word Up" - How to get THAT sound | 80s Drum Sound Design Tricks | Drum Patterns Explained 

Thanks so much to everyone who pointed us towards Sammy Merendino, who programmed all of the drums on Cameo's "Word Up!" album (and "Single Life" and most of "Machismo" as well). We got in contact with him and he was kind enough to answer our question in detail. Here's what he had to say: "To clarify, there was NO gated reverb on any of those sounds, although your version is really close. Larry forbade any reverb when we were tracking. He wanted the samples bone dry and in your face. The snare drum was Larry clapping his hands in the 11th floor stairwell into an AMS, triggered from the sample we put on tape. The bass drum was a linn9000 stock kick paired with a distorted bass drum sample I made at media sound when I first received the 9000 sampling card. Hope this helps! Also the small white noise sounds were from a Simmons SDS7."

Of course, the real icing on the cake was Larry Blackmon’s shiny red codpiece. It’s essential to the groove.

Things like that unique “snare” sound, which is immediately recognizable, make for memorable music!

I love how a spoonful of funk is the only thing that stops this beat from sounding like it wouldn't be out of place on an early Nine Inch Nails record This beat SLAPS!

One of the best tracks of 1986, a year already filled to the brim with great tunes!

As a child, I simply enjoyed the song. As an adult, I absolutely appreciate the detail put into these classics. What a time to be alive.

That was worth the cost of subscribing.

I am dating myself but I remember this one from the beginning. We used to roller-skate when I was young and we had two indoor locations to do so....even in my small town. Anyway, yes. *Word Up .....and we would put our "hands in the air like we just don't care." These roller-skating "rinks" were were I would first meet girls and dance with skates on! lol I was born 1970 and maybe these past days of youth and this music I recall is why I'm here now .... I wish to replicate and yet re-imagine what I knew but now to learn so much more in the process of remaining young.... ? ! haha! Or not so but one thing I continue to experience and realize :.....nostalgia is a powerful feeling, yes?! Again, thank you CaptainPikant.... and I thank your interns and all for a very approachable way of instruction. So much a pleasure for me. /cheers to all

After filming we realized that the bass drum sound design can be tricky to hear, especially the individual EQ changes, so if you have trouble hearing the differences you could consider listening to the segment on mixing headphones or loudspeakers with a good bass response. Some of these sound design changes are pretty minute, but they add up as you can hear in the before/after segment :)

I remember reading on gearspace a while back that the clap sound was actually someone in the studio building clapping on the other side of a large hallway. That specific "custom" sample (or a soundalike) was later used in a large amount of drum machine

The vector gives an insight into just how much effort goes into the sound design for these videos. Thanks Cap'n and the lady with the beautiful hands!

Your content is so entertaining and yet educational at the same time. I am still blown away by your production quality. Great one 👍

At the end when you started adding more to it i realized how much this sounds like Skinny Puppy. It's very mid 80s industrial.

I dont know what is more impressive: Youre music or video edition skills :)

Yes, what a great end of a workweek! Vielen Dank!

Great job covering all the what’s, how’s and why’s in such a short time! Keep’em coming!

I saw this played live in 1987...it was my first concert ever....😂. It was actually played as an encore, though it was THE worldwide hit by then. God knows how this song and it's BEAT changed everything in terms of the perception of black music over here in Europe. Prince kicked in the door, but this song actually conquered ANY Dancefloor, no matter what! After all these years i could pull up this thing from my 80/90s gear, just by ear. Lol. Great analysis, but of course i would do the thing in a more "traditional", non DAW setting using my DMX, some Kawai and Akai Sounds plus Basic Alesis Effects to get there...cuz that's what i have...lol. The additional claps and stuff, that sounds like rim sticks, that was interesting, i always wondered how they did that...

Consistently great videos and lessons! Thanks y'all!

Sick. Great practical use of HP filtering!

Love the quirky production on this channel. Go Beat Bunny!

Amazing amazing amazing video. I love the way you break this beat down. It's so helpful to see each of the patterns by themselves as it gives new producers a lot of ideas to pull from. Cheers

this is so spot on! Amazing as always !

Just brilliant. I've tried to recreate this previously without success but now know how. Many thanks.

Nice thing about this is having the knowledge to apply this to any project you want to make.

The sickest of your videos I've seen so far! I was banging my head so hard during the end jam🤘

Great!! Finally subscribed! I have loved the song right since it came out.

This channel must be a good outlet to help provide you with some sanity. You are doing good work for your pops.

What a great video. Enjoyed that very much. Thank you!

Enjoyed this very much ❤ what a drum groove

Aye! Perfect. Lovely. I have never forgotten the song

awesome video captain

OOOOOOOOOUCH!!!!!!!! THAT PANNING!!!!!!!🎉🎉🎉

Thanks for this sweet breakdown! The trickiest part of this rad jam is getting the hair right.

Excellent video, lots of really good information. Thanks.

I've never heard this song in my life, but it's very entertaining to learn about it. The beat is also very catchy.

What a great channel is this, I really enjoyed this. Happy to come across your channel, This was f, ing dope!

Thats great content. Very interesting

Production value through the roof. Word Up!

Another perfect video, thanks!

Excellent content, thank you

Perfectly nailed 💯

Surgically precise.

Fantastic!

This is awesome, thank you

This is AMAZING! Thank you! 🐇🐇🐇

Amazing! Thank you 🥲

Real engineering skill and talent in this

gooood content! Thats what YT is for. Follow you from now on.

Really cool !

I ❤ it this is so musically 🎶 educational .

word up. Indeed. GOLD. Cheers cap/intern.🎯

Absolute FIRE

Nice. Instant like. ❤

best content creator hands down 💚

Awesome, thank you so much!!!

Oof! Sounds fantastic! I remember many years ago there was forum talk that the original snare sound on the track came from a Yamaha RX-5 (original ROM set cartridge), though tweaked within the machine with its extensive parameter editing capabilities. I have an RX-5 and couldn't get the exact tone (but got pretty close) Another notable use of the RX-5 snare was "Beat Dis" by Bomb The Bass.

Nice! Thx

Great video - dope! That clap is likely an EPROM of a Simmons SDS clap blown into the Linndrum, as Larry Blackmon was a huge champion of Simmons kits.

your branding and skills on the beats is nuts man. are you a Cyborg?

I really love the sound design section on this one! I feel like sound design on drum machines is an often overlooked topic, but it can really spice up your songs if you pay attention to it :D

I almost lost my mind when I first heard the song over the radio. My older brother got the album, and then I played this song to death, along with the rest of it. Really interesting to see you break it down like you did; now, hearing all those little elements, I'm not surprised that I, and a lot of other people fell in love with this tune. Even without the chords, melody and other elements it's just so catchy.

Ohhh thank you for these layering tips! I’ve been stuck working on a track where the rhythm is sourced from samples of other mechanical devices like tape decks and hard drives - but they always sounded so thin. Which I kind of knew they would and planned to lean-into, but it was just a bit stronger than I wanted even with strong shaping. Turns out I should just layer 2-4 of them synced! Thank you again!

Wonderful! Yeah the source of that snare/clap, such an iconic sound, can't imagine there isn't a magazine article about it somewhere. Probably some old print magazine though.

Awesome

Thank you for this - really awesome! Need to find a way to capture the essence of the vocal track - there's nothing quite like it when paired with the music... I learned so much from this video alone!! Cheers!

I never knew Cameo covered this Korn classic.

Thank you for making this! I run Reaper on Linux and decided to check out Tal Drum. To my delight there is a reason for Linux. I plan on downloading a demo to try out. I normally prefer hardware drum sound sources. But a sample player plugin would give me a ton of options. I am thinking it might be fun for vocal samples to throw into a dance track.

You are a drum 🥁 genius 😅

Had me at 1:00 (I could already hear the whistles 😊)

You really really nailed that 80s sound with the drums!!! Did you use sidechaining in the final jam?

i wish you had a donate button. you're insane

According to Discogs Lists, the Yamaha RX-5 has been used on the following songs: "Word Up! Cameo

Didn't even realize you could do that conditional thing on the Oxi. Cool.

I'm not a musician, just classical music education, but your videos never fail to amaze me. Very high quality! Maybe someday I'll get my master keyboard out and do something. Keep it up.

by the content of your videos, you appear to have perfect pitch.

Muito bom ! 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

In some sections of the original, the snare also gets doubled with itself for a weird comb filter effect that makes it stand out even more.

🔥🔥🔥

Read in an interview it was a mix of linndrum samples and most importantly a Yamaha Rx5

The clap sound in Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives me Crazy" has a lot in common with that clap here. Maybe the same original sample/Linn?

Fun thx

This makes me want to to see you tackle "I Want Your Hands On Me" by Sinéad O'Connor

I own a real LinnDrum, bone stock, and I'll be giving this a try using your tips! UPDATE: I made a short about it :) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mwZARXrnEPw.html You can't tune the kick on the Linn and of course it won't be preprocessed like so many sample packs, so I imagine it might be a trick of the ear with heavy EQ, compression and the bassline running underneath. Whilst I do have vintage verb in my plugin collection, I also have GLOW and Pulse from wave alchemy, which are recreations of the RMX16 and PCM-60 so maybe there will be some secret sauce in there as well in those period correct effects. Likewise I have the amazing VSDS-X from Aly James for the Simmons portions. For the clap, I imagine it's literally noise. I've read posts from old producers who state that layering noise via a trigger out on the Linn or other machines was very common; might even be the simmons because it generated noise that you could filter that would've retained the snap at the start. Since the Linn also didn't have any automation, the tambourine is probably a digital delay or some kind which ping pongs into the other speaker.

I remember this song well, but have not heard it on the radio in forever. It seems history forgot about it, but it's not a bad song at all.

Ik heb ooit een Linn drum gehad maar nooit veel gebruikt . De Simmons drums klonken interessanter naar mijn mening.

Ooh! Do jam on it!

I actually stopped high- and low pass filtering everything by default. Yes, sometimes it muddies your mix. But sometimes those little peaks make the whole sound more immersive. It mostly depends on the kind of effects you run it through but IF it's an issue, for example when you distort it, you'll immediately recognize it. But that goes both ways: sometimes it sounds awesome. If you cut it out by default, you'll always miss those opportunities. Also it may just thin out your mix

I could do this whole thing on Acid Pro with some Waves Plug In's much easier :P . However this is super authentic and fun sound design demo bro. As an opposite man I reckon Combining the Buses at end though your loop would still need additional channels for Master Kick n snare then to merge with the orignal, so to stay right and true. I find it strange to see compression and frequency cut offs on, singular sample sounds, which are being triggered by midi. But I suppose for just a drum track you nailed it! Totally has that 80's sound to it volume wise. Here is what I believe the snare actually is.. We Will Rock You - YW... Very common sample to play with back then as there are varying human offset in group tandem as well as a pretty snappy tight one or two. Add a 909/808 snare to that with a regular clap and a fast snappy wood glock

Very interesting to see the sound design stuff.. Cool video. On a side note how is the oxi compared to the hapax for sequencing?

adding that bit of reverb to the end of the bass drum makes it sound like a basketball hitting a gym floor 🏀

I had completely forgotten about Cameo until this video

Depeche Mode - Strange Love and also the Blind Remix of Strangelove by Rico Conning pays homage to Word Up.

Excellent presentation : when I was younger : I was obsessed with this beat would you consider Billy Ocean's - Loverboy drum breakdown? thank you for sharing Cheers 🥂

The Kawai R-50e has sounds that are so close to the ones on Word Up that I wonder if that's the machine they used rather than a LinnDrum, or perhaps its bigger brother the R-100 that could use the same EPROM for the electronic drum set. The R-50e has to be the most 80s sounding digital drum machine in existence - it even has a gate parameter for the sounds!

I have an RX-5 kit with a similar clap sound

Its probably from a linn but processed through a nonlinear reverb and heavy boost around 1khz. That's at least what they did to the "she drives me crazy" snare wich sounds the same. Love that signature sound.

I'd love to see you break down "Wow" by Beck

The painted fingernails matching the video background is 💅🤌

Only listening this video I just figured out the drum loop from "Word Up" reminds me "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals. I compared the two and I'm quite surprised "She Drives Me Crazy" does not have the sample from "Word Up". But they both sound very similar though.

I have the authentic drum sounds on a floppy for my Linn 9000