80s instrumental (PWL style)

Btw, this track like many of our instrumentals are constructed with the idea of adding lead & backing vocals on top. But that takes money to rent a proper studio & engineer, a huge amount of time to comp and edit the vocal takes and finding a decent lead singer. Feel free to make up your own tune and sing along. If you come up with something good send me an email! :D

Btw, I should mention my friend who wrote this track is an official PWL Mixmaster. He worked at the vineyard from '89-'92 doing some of their specialty 12" mixes they used to press for DJs. He was working at a music store and heard through the grapevine about the opening. He landed the job by calling up SSL and getting them to send him the desk manuals ahead of his interview so he could show them he knew how to use their desks (they told him he beat out ~170 applicants for the position). He claims to have driven Kylie to Heathrow Airport once in one of the PWL BMW's - said she was nice.

My only brush with PWL was going there to meet Phil France one afternoon at the Vineyard shortly before he left for Avex UK in about '94. I had to wait a while in reception. I remember Black Box calling and being given the run around by the receptionist. That and walls lined with gold discs with boxes on the floor with more gold discs. We'd done some fairly poor demos, but we had a studio and PF needed a studio for his songwriter "Boris" from Europe. Unfortunately, Boris had no car and our studio was in Reading not London, so things didn't work out. A few months later, a string of low charting euro hits came out of Avex for a year to two. Maybe if Boris had worked with us he'd have done better, who knows!

I just remastered the track with corrective EQ and it sounds a lot better.... I mean..it always sounded like this ;-)

@Yisraelee Official: Shoot me an email (alex@forthandbailey.com) and I'll send it to you. The toms are samples - there's nothing quite like real PWL toms. The best I can tell, PWL toms are a hybrid mix of one of the fairlight toms (for the sharp attack component), and some kind of synth sound that gives the heavily modulated 'wow' sound (think 'Toy Boy' toms). They vary the levels of both components to give a different tom sound for each track. PWL used a number of other fairlight drum sounds btw. The snare on I should be so lucky is straight out of the fairlight IIx library. I didn't realise until a few years ago how much PWL used the fairlight because they didn't use the trademark sounds (unlike PSB, Art of Noise). Fairlight II on Dead or Alive Youthquake, Fairlight III on Rick (although NNGYU's pads are telltale if you listen - nothing else sounded like that in '87). Bananarama "Once in a lifetime" - one of my favorites. I used to dream of owning a Series III as a spotty teenager!

Will definitely be checking out your tracks. I'm sure we chatted a few years back on Les Sharma's board. Cheers!

3 octave pitch bends with modulation on the FM7 :) yummy!

Probably the best (and my favorite) use of the PWL toms in these next two breaks. It's actually the combination of the toms and the drums that really sells it.