Recording the ‘Vinyl’ Mind Veneration Remix
Mark LaFountain/Mind Veneration says: "A bit about me... I'm Mark LaFountain and I love classic Synth Pop. When I was growing up in the early 80's, bands like Duran Duran, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode – they made my world go round. I bought my first tiny keyboard, the Casio VL-Tone when I was 12 and began recording music using the Casio, a cheesy Radio Shack reverb unit and two cassette recorders. Fast forward a decade or so, and we had a house fire that consumed everything... so I had to start over again.. this time with an upgraded setup! I heard the ambient house band The Orb in '93 and was so taken with their sound, I decided to adopt the monicker Mind Veneration and began working on tracks that focused a little more on rhythms, atmospherics and effects.
I first discovered Destination through their track 'No Substitute' on SoundCloud and instantly fell in love with it. It just bubbled with fun and innocence - the way Vince Clarke's early work did. I contacted Glynn and Bridget to see if they would be open to having me remix it for them and they graciously agreed. A little less than a week into working on the 'No Substitute' remix, I heard 'Vinyl' for the first time and was completely blown away! It was as though The Eurythmics, Erasure & New Order decided to join together for a track and this was the result! Glynn contacted me about remixing it, and I jumped at the opportunity.
Since 'Vinyl' was already pure synth-pop gold in its original form, I thought it might be fun to steer it in a slightly different direction. I wanted to give my remix an Animotion 'Obsession' feel... a heavier beat with an electric guitar backbone. I enlisted the help of two fantastic guitarists and personal friends, Joe McLain and Ryan Garst to record overdubs, who both did a fantastic job adding their own unique style and character to the finished remix. I had Joe record over an hour of Fender Stratocaster overdubs that I spent a fun weekend sifting through until I found just the right parts. With guitars in place, I set out to beef up the drum track and ended up doing my best (though completely unintentional) Rolling Stones 'Undercover' impression. I dug through literally hundreds of Snare samples trying to find the right sound, eventually layering 5 separate snares thought the track.
On the synth side, I had a patch for the Mini Moog that emulated Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy the Silence' bass line. (my favorite track from them). I'd been looking for a place to use it, and 'Vinyl' seemed the perfect choice. I also wanted to add a touch of Giorgio Moroder's wonderful synth programming from 'I Feel Love', so I used the Moog Modular V to recreate some of those pulsing arpeggios, hi-hats and snare drums, as well as using the Solina routed through a phaser to accomplish those familiar synth strings. Glynn original wrote such a great synth hook for the chorus of the song, I wanted to really let it shine, so I re-created it using some Cellos, Violins, Violas and Marimbas from the Vienna Orchestral Library. It's the bit that opens up the remix.
For the vocals, I wanted to add in a vocoder, so I used the XILS Labs XILS-V which models the old Roland VP-330 used on some of my favorite records from the early 80's. Most of Bridget's vocals have a harmony that I played into the Vocoder to subtly add some ambience. I couldn't find a place to let the vocoder really shine on the track, so I waited until after Ryan's last guitar solo to really feature them prominently in the mix. You can hear the remix here: https://soundcloud.com/pinkdolphinmusic/pdm00025-destination-vinyl-4
I would love to see this Kickstarter Campaign succeed – It's ALWAYS been a dream of mine to have a vinyl album with my music on it, but it's always been financially unfeasible. To have the opportunity to stand alongside the 7 other fantastic remixers who have brought their own phenomenal twist to the original track on a psychedelic yellow 12" single would be a dream come true! Please consider contributing on any level that you can!"
You can pre-order via pledge at the Kickstarter site here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pinkdolphinmusic/vinyl-on-coloured-vinyl-exclusive-remix-lp-by-dest