In Summary

Following the record production innovations that came in the 1960s and 1970s, the 80’s is arguably the place where technology was finally able to match the creative instincts of musicians and engineers. Here we list some of the era’s hallmark sounds and how to get them.

Going Deeper

It’s been said that the restrictions of technology can actually help creatives to innovate, but some sounds were simply unachievable before the advent of several studio hardware classics. Through experimentation, techniques were developed using this gear to realise some of recorded music’s most memorable sounds in the hands of the era’s finest record-making minds.

Musically, a great song will always translate regardless of the prism of any decade’s production values. However it is often the way in which a song is first presented to the world that makes the biggest impression on people’s collective memory, and the 1980’s aesthetic is perhaps one of the most distinctive compared to those before or since.

Some of its trademarks can be summed up in a number of ways. Firstly, the never-before-heard metronomy that came courtesy of MIDI parts and sequencing that ensured laser-guided arrangements. Secondly, the advances in recording technology ensured recordings and mixes that were cleaner and punchier than ever before. Coupled with digital innovations that could conjure spaces not heard in nature, or digital modulation to blur and thicken everyday sounds, 80s songs enjoyed renderings that were altogether different.

As the perfect place in history where new tech mingled with big hair and big ideas, here we list our favourite iconic sounds from the 1980s, and how to get them for any era.

Cannon Shot Snares

There are many markers that point to the Eighties Drum Sound, however the epitome has to be the huge, over-verbed snare explosions that were anything but readily available at the time. There was the reverb itself, but try using that sound on any snare and the result could be more akin to dropping your wallet down a mineshaft than to 80’s backbeat splendour.

Get The Sound

The reverb needs to shadow the right sound, which can be a machine sound, or an acoustic drum with a low-to-medium snare drum tuning. With just a slight note tuned-in that can be controlled with damping, snare wire tension is also lower to medium. Experimentation can find what is right for the song and the drum, but with the odd exception the watch-words are Fat and Low.

Many cite algorithmic gated reverb as an equal ingredient, and while the Lexicon and Yamaha boxes of the time (and their software descendants) have all been used, for many, some of the non-linear gated sounds from the AMS RMX16 provide the quintessence of 1980s cannon shot reverb for snare. Earlier in 2023 we checked out LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional’s homage to the RMX16 sound.

Impossible Playing

By the 80s, sampling technology had become available that allowed the storage and playback of short digitised sounds for music production. Machines such as the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier allowed sounds to be mapped across a keyboard to be played back at defined pitches. Following a mercifully small number of records and children’s TV programmes that made music using things such as cars or dogs barking, the tech also found a home in serious record production.

Allowing seemingly bionic feats of stuttering vocal phrases, drum loops, and other rapid-fire sounds, these machines injected the sound of impossible playing into the musical landscape.

Get The Sound

The DAW now makes sounds like these instantly achievable, either through virtual instruments or even simple edits. Below, At 12:37 Trevor Horn delves into Pro Tools to describe how he layered sounds from the Synclavier and Fairlight CMI to achieve Owner Of A Lonely Heart’s highly distinctive sampled textures.

Chorus On Guitar (And More)

Modulation effects came into their own during this era, and of the different flavours, chorus is the one that features heavily on many productions. Thanks to the by-then widely available effects pedals for guitar, the chorus sound informed million-selling studio guitar sounds as well. The saccharin blurred edges of chorus weren’t just restricted to guitar, with saxes (during the mandatory solo), synths, and much more getting a drenching.

Get The Sound

In the middle of 2023 Julian rounded up seven modulation effects including this 80s staple. The sound is perhaps the closest thing on this list to being “Just add X”, with chorus’ simple parallel presence as easy as calling up an audio plugin. For the more hardware minded, guitar chorus pedals are just as easy to bake into recordings, although taking a DI upstream of it for safely is always a good idea.

No Guitars At All

Thanks to musical trends and the synth tradition gaining ground in the previous decade, some productions from the 80’s jettisoned Rock ’n’ Roll’s biggest partner in crime altogether. Having enjoyed its time in the sun for the previous forty years or so, by the 1980s the guitar was playing a supporting role to the all-conquering synth sounds that ruled the airwaves. Stylistically, the guitar had to wait a while for its triumphant return, but not before the synth classics had reminded us that they could more than carry a great song.

Get The Sound

Simply leaving the guitar in the car is only half the story when crafting the next 80’s inspired classic. That space in the arrangement usually calls for synth textures that both support the song yet contrast enough with each other for clarity. The classic combo of pad, arpeggiated counter melody, and octave doubles with the bass can make a guitar redundant if only in the musical sense.

Groovy Sequenced Basses

Going back to super-human playing courtesy of MIDI, a true 80’s staple is the sequenced bass part. With synths pressed into service on bass duties, highly rhythmic metromonic parts could be fired out of a hardware sequencer (yes MIDI arrived in the studio before computers did) to get the party started. This had other potential, such as for layering sounds or octaves into the kind of staccato, machine gun-like grooves that are as 80s as leg warmers and crimped hair.

Get The Sound

Achieving sequenced parts in the 21st century is a breeze with the studio tool that changed it all: the DAW. Armed with a controller keyboard (or even just a mouse for the Bass Picassos out there) virtually anyone with an idea who knows where the Quantize button is can get the sound. For the synth itself, there were dedicated bass-makers, however any instrument can be used for bass. Single oscillator sounds are often ditched for two VCOs handling the fundamental plus a harmonic or octave, with saws, squarewaves, and PWM all pushing their way through the shoulder pads and dry ice…

The DX7 Piano

Depending on the vintage of the listener, the DX7 electric piano sound can represent anything from watching kids’ TV, through going to school discos (the end bit where you get to dance with your Crush Of The Month) or even The Big Day itself. The smoochie ballad archetype would be nothing without the crystalline tones of Yamaha’s DX7 electric piano sound, that was guaranteed to send a shiver up your spine whether you loved it or not. Like so many classic keyboard sounds, the DX7 electric piano sounds a lot more like itself than the thing that inspired it.

Get The Sound

The virtual instrument is the way to go here, although the real thing is still an affordable classic thanks to Yamaha’s huge production run that makes the DX7 easier to find than other synths. In the box, the FM-curious could check out Arturia’s DX7 V to scratch the itch, as well as the excellent, free dexed FM Plugin Synth.

Machine Drums

With the first drum machines came the kind of bleak, robotic parts that perfectly suited electronic pioneers such as Kraftwerk, as well as the hard-edged grooves of early Hip Hop. The most famous sounds were arguably those from the sample-driven Linn and Oberheim machines, used on records by 80’s mega stars such as Madonna, Prince, Queen, Michael Jackson, and countless others. The sounds from later synth-driven machines rediscovered music’s oldest sine-shaped building block to shake foundations and blow smoke rings with club systems everywhere. Below, Prince gets extra-80’s points for gated reverb… On kick.

Get The Sound

In the video, we take Toontrack’s Hitmaker SDX for a spin. While getting the sounds at source can be the most rewarding way to Machine Nirvana, this collection of classic sounds is a direct portal to a tonne of instantly recognisable electronic drum sounds.

Getting machine-like sounds is entirely possible with acoustic drums, or anything that can be hit using a MIDI-speaking drum gate such as Sonnox’s magic Oxford Drum Gate. Resting a tom on top of a snare drum (you read that right) actually can give that layered 80’s tom-snare surprisingly well for some Miami Vice style “DUMPH”. White jackets and RayBans strictly optional.

Mechanised Vocals With Harmoniser

With nothing off-limits when it comes to experimentation in the studio, the Harmoniser from Eventide was the studio toy that kept on giving. Beginning its journey in the previous decade, its time and pitch-bending tricks could produce a whole range of chorusing, doubling, and pitch effects on cue. Its doubling chops quickly found their way onto vocals, which lent anything from a subtle sheen to machine-like dupes when the return was pushed. Treading a line between the two, the vocal below tops an 80s production tour-de-force.

Get The Sound

Modulated delay is half the story, but the glitchy re-clocked sounds of the Harmoniser are perhaps best had by using one. With original units’ prices in the thousands, using an audio plugin will be a no-brainer for most engineers. The DAW is the perfect place to host the DSP from vintage digital gear, with emulation of its convertors also a big a part of the sound. Experimenting with things like delay time (to avoid audible doubling above 15ms or so), mix amount, and modulation depth and rate (usually tuning one to oppose to the other) will mean the difference between Simon Le Bon and R2-D2…

Good Enough For Now?

For all the cutting edge emerging acts of the era, there was an almost equal number from previous eras finding themselves with new toys to play with. While some heritage acts were free to waft away the hairspray and pointy clothes to record As Normal, other established acts used the new studio landscape to their advantage. Notable records from prog rockers such as Yes and Genesis, to funk, soul, and pop outings from Stevie Wonder to James Brown all rolled up their sleeves to flash their gizmos in productions for new audiences.

As styles and genres continue to evolve and converge at the same time, a whole new generation of artists are free to pick at the historical buffet of music production. These new pioneers of sound not only have the innovations of the 80’s to power their productions, but also emerging technologies that promise to be just as astonishing as those made on the day Prince told the drummer to go and take a break for a while…

What are your favourite sounds that define the 1980s for you? Were you there at the time, or are you making new music that takes the best of all eras? Let us know in the comments.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.

Main photo by Lidia B on Pixabay

Snare drum photo by Brad on Unsplash

Fairlight CMI Series IIx Photo by Peter Wielk licensed under Creative Commons

Dimension D photo courtesy of Arturia

Synth keys photo by Paul Deetman on Pexels

Radio photo by Isabella Mendes