I have to congratulate Doctor Mix on being the first person on the internet, or maybe in history, after Maurizio Lobina who wrote Blue, to realize that the last two notes in the chorus bassline are A and D#. I've watched countless tutorials on "how to play Blue", and every single person played it wrong, and a lot of them were musicians. Shocking really, how sloppily people listen to music. So great job Doctor Mix!
Strange, I've always seen people playing it as A and then Eb (I'm just using E flat because it descends from A) but the actual stems curiously get the intro bassline wrong. If you listen to the OG song, you can hear the bass synth progression as G, F, Eb, C (x3) and then G, F, Eb sustained. But the stems, some of which had to be remade because E65 didn't have access to all the original tracks, get this wrong and instead have the intro's bassline ending as A and then Eb.
The stems were pulled from the video game "Guitar Hero" and also exist for Eiffel 65's Move Your Body, you could find them on the web for a long time. If I'm not mistaking, Jeffrey Jey (the singer of Eiffel 65) reworked the songs for the game. I think he did work with some of the original stems from 1998/1999 (like kick, bass and groove samples), but some parts of the tracks had to be recreated or made from scratch, e.g. in Move Your Body, you notice different crash sounds or the cutoff filter on the kick and bass in the second verse is not the same as in the original recording. The same for Blue, when you put the stems together it sounds different from the official 1999 Ice Pop Instrumental Mix - the piano is entirely different and also has a different reverb/delay processing. Also the little "intro percussion beat" is not the same as in the original recording, just to name a few differences.
You write well. These comments are real. I would add that, the Guitar Hero version includes the almost raw tracks. There are no bus compressors and a lot of effects, understandably, because the tracks have to be handled separately in the game. That's why it sounds different. But the recordings themselves are the originals, just processed differently.
@@jeffryjay86 The piano and the percussive loop are completely different. The waveforms don't even line up, and given what Ponte said on TikTok (that they had pulled numerous samples from sampling vinyls and sample pack CDs) the group no longer had access to the original samples, and it would seem they also didn't have access to the original stems, or at the very least a few of the stems were corrupted and resulted in having to use different keys and verse percussion
Usually Guitar Hero stems don't go down to this level. Its just drums, bass, guitar, vocals and extras I believe. Its usually common to find the stems for dance/pop songs though as they often hand them off to DJs to make remixes with.
@@jacobfife7273 Can't believe I missed this, but it was Rockband, not Guitar Hero that featured the stems. It was actually noteworthy because Blue was the first song in Rockband to make use of thr keyboard
Great work, Claudio! The universe is crazy... I recently had a long conversation with our 6 year old, about this very song! He is learning the keyboard, and the first thing he did this morning was grab his Casio to play. I showed him this video, and he had it on in the background, while practicing. It wasn't long before he was completely immersed! I think you just connected the dots, while he was looking at your session. He disregards my sessions, for the most part, but I think he gets it now. He only thought about waves as vocal tracks, and didn't realize there were other elements involved...like everything else. He is beginning to understand. Thank you! ❤️🔥🙏🐧
This is why I love your channel! You give us insight into the fun process of music production while playing awesome music. Thanks for another amazing video!
I was listening to this song all day and tried to deconstruct it in my head and then I saw this video... Mind blowing! Genius work here Dr. Mix! Keep it up!
Wow, I am really impressed by the work you are doing on your RU-vid channel to reconstruct electronic music songs like Blue. Your attention to detail and your passion for the music really shines through in your videos, and it's clear that you put a lot of time and effort into every one of your reconstructions. Keep up the great work!
I'm so happy that 90s euro and italian dance is making a comeback. I was afraid it was just a passing event of the last few months and instead it wasn't. and this interesting deconstruction is the confirmation.
Cool, I'm an artist but visual, and making music is for me magic. But when you make such deconstructions I always enjoy seeing all the process and tools involved into it. Keep it up!
Awesome work!! Very enjoyable to watch the break-down. That Hi-Hat though...the original sounds like a partially open hi-hat (aka "sizzle" where still barely touching it's counterpart), and then moving to fully closed (or vice versa) thus the Titch-shusss. Which is not a hi-hat state many (even among the best) samplers capture, but something many pop/rock drummers do.
@@anthroism26mc Meh, I think it's okay. It doesn't shit all over the original melodies with generic modern "EDM" sounds and the vocals are at least technically on the ball. It's nowhere *near* as bad as "Sugar".
16:50 The Bass patch seems correct, but sometimes when converting to Kontakt format the Lowpass-Filter will be turned on in the converted Kontakt preset. Also sometimes it features a much longer release. You can / should change that in the exported preset manually. (That's how I do it with my old sampler presets.) 🤓😉
Fun fact: extreme samples converter, chicken systens translator, cdxtract and ni kontakt 5's internal converter gets not the same sond results and who knows how it must sounds..
Claudio, the genre is ItaloDance (from 1997/8 to 2008/10 more or less), it started as natural prosecution of mediterranean progessive mixed with elements from 90's eurodance, (hard)trance, house, eurodance.... obviusly the most important producer has been Gigi D'Agostino, followed by Molella,Fargetta, Prezioso, G.Ponte, Mario Più and many others...
@UCLdm9eTXhuWcXxhbsxRqxmA actually not. They were from Piemonte, as Gigi D'Agostino, Mauro Picotto... The most of that music were produced in Lombardia (Bxr,media records,time record...just to mention some labels)...
@Doctor Mix, if you're interested, I believe I have the original harmonizer that Eiffel 65 themselves used to make Blue. My model is the Digitech Vocalist MV-5, and the vocal effect it gives sounds almost exactly like Eiffel 65
for a 1999 dance track I'm surprised they picked that bass sound, I remember thinking back then when it came out, that the bass sounded really outdated some how lol.
I agree, even then it sounded like a cheesy bassline.. But it worked!!! This is something i learned over the years.. when producing we get wayyyyyyy to hung up on what is "right and wrong", when music, being art is so subjective. And think of the killer tracks that were abandoned because the producer was too picky and spent enough time on something they thought wasn't working out when they could have been chart toppers like Blue.
It wasn't just that. The beat sounded like it came out of 1993, it was a good song none the less. I think it was basically the high end melody that kind of modernised the track to the era.
@@nunyabusiness69 *EDIT - Confirmed by Eiffel 65 they started with the melody* - I don't think the budget was a problem. They had the hardware to make a much better (modern) bassline, they just ran with it. My opinion is they came up with the piano melody first, thought it would be a hit and built the track around it. The random bassline was used from the beginning to help them create the track and by the time it was finished it just worked and they never changed it... getting the track out for release was the most important next step. I'd love to ask the producer if this was more or less the series of events. The vocals arguably was the least important part of the track, given its mostly fun gibberish. It's like they put out an instrumental demo and the label(s) said it needs a vocal track. So in limited time they came up with nonsense and called it a day lol. Even the nonsense vocal worked.
Impressive stuff! The M1 piano sounds pretty good to me on this track, at the time when this track was released it was still the popular piano sound in dance music. Even if it wasn’t used, they could have and it fits the track well. This is one of those memorable tracks of the late 90’s that are just etched in my brain.
When he actually went away from the digital range of instruments and into his actual physical CD collection JUST to find the kick at 4:51 and it's just the first of the deconstruction already, you know it's going to be a well-researched special journey.
That last bit of reverb on lead synth *chefs kiss* I literally said, “oh man you nailed it” and then you proceeded to say the same and dance lol hilarious
Love your deconstructs, Doctor Mix, or reverse engin33red tracks! Big fan of your channel! I see a lot of myself in you. Or I see alot of you in myself... IDK... I've been doing the same thing since I was 6 years old, trying to recreacte the songs that I really liked and try to let them sound as close as possibly, with the gear I got back then... (born in '71) I was always looking out for the next big thing that Roland put out, (troughout my life, till this day). And then in 1986, I bought my first Roland MC-500, combined with my Roland-D10... The first multitimbral synth, a synth that could put out 16 channels of MIDI at once... My brain exploded... I did mimic loads of songs, as it was a hobby of mine, but then I went to film school in 1989, and there I started playing piano for my friends at first, but also for student related events, people started to notice that I got some kind of talent... I was not aware, nobody told me about that, but I was only doing what I always loved of doing : Making a whole lot of music, that is playing actually around in my brain, that I can hear it in my head, before I have made it on my synths or DAW.. In 1993, after filmschool, I started as a sound tech to capture news, but also documentaries. In the filmschool, they called me 'MIX', cause, that was the way in the fraternity one would be called. The first 2 letters, added by an 'X'... And so, MIX was my name, even my parents started calling me by that name, rather than Miguel... And rightfully so, cause, no one can pronounce my name correctly anyway... In 1996, I've had it with being a boom sound recordist, my back was hurting too much, so I chose to build my first studio in my own home, my initial dream. I was just married and my wife supported my views of pursuing my audio dreams... But then, it exploded, I started adding studio rooms to my house, till 2008. I was composing music onto TV-series, doing audio postproduction, sound design and mixing/mastering, until I needed a freelance sound engineer to help me out, cause I couldn't do it alone anymore... I was burning up... In 2012, my wife wanted to divorce me, cause I was too busy working in my studios and not being as much in her life and my two sons... I have to be honest, she did have a point, I was almost only busy with my music and audio postproduction for TV series... So, I don't blame her for that... Regrettably so, did loose the house, where I did built my 3 studios in, and as a reslut, I lost all of my studios... After that, I started designing studios, with all the knowledge I gained, for other clients. I designed their studios, first in 3D software, so I could show them, before it was built, as an sound architect. Then, I did al the building myself, cause I love building with wood. I have built 16 audio studios with my own hands. Also the audio and IP calbing, I did myself... Now, after all those years of sorrow, I do still have all of my remainging gear, (not my own acoustic buids), I keep up with the new tech, I have my trusty NI Komplete 88, 1the NI Komplete 14 Library and many other libraries (LASS, SpitFire, etc...)that work with Kontakt, and the computers that I've built myself. As for now, I'm teaching Audio engineering in Belgium, in high school. But, those are not the students I really want... They are really not motivated... I would love to teacht students that really are!! So, this whole text, I'm sending you, is to help me doing so. I share your channel, everytime I've got, and whenever I can. Cause, you can bring students a way of looking at sound design, sound sytnherse, and music creation from their own point of view. I'm sorry, Dr MIX, that my response is so long... This is not a CV... I just wanted to share my lifestory, as a fellow musician, doing almost the same thing as you, but not so spectacular as you have done... My dream would be to, firstly, ever to be invited to your studio... Secondly, to play on the keys along with you! Cause I know I can... And then agian, I probably would be bested by you... You'ld probably destroy me, from the first note playes... But, anyway, Many greetings, A happy New Year (2023)!!! MIX
I felt the entire time as if the original track had a LP filter on the master, lol. Especially the drums, every sample sounds muffled. Yours were bright, and you fixed that perfectly but you have the luxury of having very good quality and clear samples, and synthesis, while Eiffel 65 used very low grade quality samples. Maybe LP filters added would give some kind of quality loss. And perhaps bounce it in a lower bitrate file. However, you kept the vibe of the track perfectly. This is how the track would sound like if it was produced in 2023. (2022 when you made it) Also you are using a professional DAW, they used trackers, also more modern haha. Good job, enjoyed the video! PS: Little addition, I think the lead haves a phaser on it.
Fantastic re-creation of a classic dance song from my youth! How you got to those kick and snare samples by mixing many samples together just blew my mind! I think those multitracks that you found online are also a re-creation/remake by a small team of music game charters if memory serves me correctly (or at least some parts were re-created with Eiffel 65's input). If you listen to the original intro, the bass synth; one of the notes is wrong at "like him" and "nobody" on those online multitracks ;)
Amazing! In addition to all these goodies, there is a multitrack! Mix, you're a super soundman! thank you for your creativity. (translated from Russian using Google)
That's one of my favorite synthesizer sounds of all time. Watching you build it from the ground up was awesome. I request you deconstruct Gigi Agostino La Amour Tu Jore (Tanzen Vision), or rhythm is a dancer by snap next. Actually I have a ton of 90s dance hits I would love to see you deconstruct too. 🙂
Great video...very fun. As for the sounds, my Roland JV-35 has base and drum sounds very, very, VERY close to the ones used here. The picked bass with the filter closed down a bit sounds just like the S-70 samples. The piano samples are also darn close.
Be sure to check out the video by Vice if you haven't already, was posted a few years ago. I remember when this song came out. Every radio station played it like 500 times a day, and I still love it.
This channel is just amazing! It is really sooo interesting to watch,how quick and precise Mr.Dr.Mix is recreating every single instrument and the whole mixes. This mix sounds incredibly close to original. Maybe few details i would add,as i hear it: the Hi-Hat to my taste sounds still a bit too clean. I think,if to add just any kind of tape emulation with old "bad" tape,- the Hi-Hat would give even more glue. And for the whole mix i imagine - to "salt" a bit with just a liiiitle bit of tube or tape distortion. But that's just me,and please,don't get me wrong,cause this mix of Dr.Mix,- the whole work,that You've done,and the mood,this positive energy,teaching analise what you hear,and recreate,- You just give all of us,- all i can say,- just THANK YOU for Your great videos and the inspiring joy making music!:)
The lofi-ness of the hihat is probably coming from the sampler Eiffel 65 used. Back in the day, it was probably an EMU SP1200, so the low samplerate and bit depth would have added some digital distortion to the signal
First of all: once again u did a real good job in reconstructing a song. Thumbs up. Very detailed work and showing features n efx. But in the end, i was a little bit disapointed, cause you did not sing the vocals in autotune.😉✌🏻.go on bro.
