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Recreating Daft Punk's Something About Us
An in-depth, personal journey recreating Daft Punk’s “Something About Us” in Ableton Live 12—track by track. From synths to talkbox guitars, a nostalgic dive into French Touch culture, sound design, and the joys of music production.
Quirky French electronic pioneers like Jacno, the retro-futurist charm of Telex from Belgium, and, of course, Giorgio Moroder, the godfather of Italo Disco —all contributed textures, tones, and sensibilities that would echo decades later. I kept the processing minimal: just a gentle midrange boost (mainly to make the part shine a bit more on AirPods), a touch of Ableton's stock Vinyl Distortion for added warmth, and side-chain compression tied to the kick for subtle movement in the mix. To add a bit more funk character, I ran it through an envelope filter stompbox emulation, which gave it a gritty, slightly overdriven sweep—more like a dusty analog auto-wah you'd find on an old pedalboard than a pristine digital effect.
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