Sound like masterclass
The Pet Shop Boys have just released a new album, Nonetheless, so it’s a great time to show you how to create some of their signature sounds for free
Andy has been writing about music production, studio gear and technology for over 30 years, having edited magazines including Future Music, MusicTech and (twice!) Computer Music. He says we can look forward to several ‘How to sound like Gary Numan’ features in the course of this series…
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys are currently celebrating four decades of having produced their unique brand of electronic pop. To mark the occasion, they’ve brought out a new album, Nonetheless, so it’s time to look at what makes their music tick.
The duo started writing music together in 1981, and began a long list of chart hits with their debut album, Please, in 1986 and the huge hit singles West End Girls, Suburbia and Love Comes Quickly. They then enjoyed number one after number one during their so-called ‘imperial phase’, with tracks including It’s a Sin and What Have I Done to Deserve This? featuring Dusty Springfield.
More ‘single word’ titled albums were released in the ’90s, ’00s and 2010s with hits like Being Boring – written about a friend of Tennant’s who died of AIDS – giving the duo a great rep for tackling heartfelt subjects with often uplifting melodies.
In this tutorial, we’re crossing PSB eras to create parts for a tune using just one synth, Our go-to, ZebraCM. We’ll first look at a Pet Shop Boys classic chord sequence that Neil once described as being a surefire formula for creating a hit, and then we’ll layer in some basslines in a style from more recent tracks like the recent single Loneliness.
So if you’ve asked ‘If, when, why, what?’ about PSB music, here are your answers!
Step by step
1 We’ll go for a chord progression with a pad sound. This tutorial is more about the notes and progressions than synth sounds, so we only need to approximate the sounds. ZebraCM has just the preset we need in the form of Choir of Apathy. Load it up!
2 Neil once told Q magazine that, “if you ever want to write a classic pop song, use these chords: Ab, B b , G minor 7th, C minor. That’s ‘The Chord Change’. You can’t go wrong with that. A guaranteed worldwide hit”. Let’s give it a go. The first is as shown above and achieved by playing the notes Ab, C and E b.
3 Play a Bbchord with the notes B b, D, and F; a G minor 7th with G, B b, D and F; and finally a C minor chord with C, Eb and G. You’ll notice this is similar to the progression used in Being Boring and many other pop hits. Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, for example, might use a slight variation.
4 ZebraCM’s Now we’re going to ad
