#arpeggiator

"Rio" is a 1982 song by British band Duran Duran. It was first released late that year as the group’s seventh single, but did not attract much notice in the US. However, after their breakthrough hit "Hungry Like the Wolf" stormed MTV and scaled the American charts in December 1982, radio programmers (particularly the influential KROQ in Los Angeles) began to play the similar  "Rio". Capitol Records decided to reissued the single in March 1983 and by June it became the band's 2nd US top 20 hit (peaking at #14).

The keyboard pattern for the song, well-known among Duran Duran fans and synthesizer enthusiasts, was produced by an arpeggiator—a tool which can play the individual notes in a chord in a chosen pattern. It was once rumored that the synthesiser used to achieve this was a Roland Jupiter-8. However, it has been said by Nick Rhodes to actually be a Roland Jupiter-4 using the random mode on the arpeggiator with a Cmaj7 chord.

Director Russell Mulcahy filmed the now-iconic music video for "Rio", which featured images of the band in Antony Price suits, singing and playing around on a yacht speeding over the crystal blue Caribbean Sea. Short segments show band members trying to live out their assorted daydreams, only to be teased and tormented by body-painted vixen Reema Medawar.

I did a jam session last week, trying to go back a bit to my Cyberloops style of doing just a few loops that could be mixed and matched... and nothing I made really worked for me. So I never uploaded it. But today I sat down and tried something a little different. Raised the tempo up to 160, then ended up doing everything half-time and making something that felt much more... like a soundtrack. Like I what I was trying to do last week. I guess I was just trying too hard last week, while this week I just let it flow a bit.

This one is extra long, because after I finished making it, I realized that I could easily add a soft counterpoint solo line across the entire thing. I fiddled around a little bit... then just hit record. After an hour and a half or so of making loops, I just hit record and recorded an improv counterpoint solo across the entire piece.

I could not have done that a year ago. Hell, I probably would have needed four or five takes six months ago.

We are releasing a limited CD run of SUBSPACE, the sister album to our new studio album SPACE.

ORDER LIMITED CD  STREAM