The secret sauce behind Fred Again..’s “Ten”
Imagine waking up to one of the world’s biggest artists featuring your samples in their latest single, jaw on floor and everything. That’s exactly what happened to German artist, producer and sample pack creator Oliver River when Fred Again.. released “Ten” featuring Jozzy and Jim Legxacy off his latest album “Ten Days”.
“I totally missed out on this song for a long time until I saw a friend posting it on his story and I was like - wait a minute…I KNOW THESE SOUNDS! This got me super excited and grateful. I knew what I was signing up for when I sold those sample packs and that potentially a huge artist could end up using them, but hearing it in this song made me so happy. Especially because I really like Fred’s style.” says Oliver.
Watch Oliver react to hearing the track
“The main melodic sample consists of a sinewave with pitch modulation, a noise layer, tube saturation, and some reverb. All this gets rendered in a single audio one-shot and put into a sampler. This way you re-create this old-school sample feeling” Oliver explains.
Watch Oliver break down the creation of the “Ten” sample
“I’ve used RC-20 Retro Color on pretty much every sample pack I’ve ever made” Oliver continues, sharing his favorite settings for different use cases.
Drums
“I love using Rc-20 to add a little bit of texture and grit to my drums. Using the noise module with heavy follow or ducking creates nice flavours on your drum kit. I also like adding some more harmonics and controlling the transients with the distortion unit.”
Piano
“I like browsing through the presets and using them as starters for tweaking the settings to my liking. Pretty much every unit is doing its work here. An often overlooked feature is the easy-to-use EQ, which shapes the sound of my keys and piano loops a lot!”
Guitar
“Sometimes all I want is a little bit more retro feeling in my guitars, and adding a little bit of noise and pitch modulation does the trick perfectly!”
Vocals
“For this vocal chop sample I once again went back and wanted to add a little more lofi feeling by adding noise and pitch modulation. The reverb helps to get those vocal chops sound really big and dreamy while the EQ cuts out all those high noisy frequencies to tuck it back in the mix and make it sound more like a texture rather than a real vocal. Magnetic adds to the nostalgia by adding tiny bits of errors. Imperfection is key.”
