How to make the lead-ish sound in pay no mind by Madeon?

[myda]

its basically the only main sound in the beginning besides the guitar. it kinda sounds like strings to me? I'm just getting really sick of using supersaws for everything haha. any help would be great!

[Nogan]

From what it sounds like to me when messing around with a mid / side EQ, there is the main guitar riff paired with a reverse piano that covers some of the fundamental range of the chords. Then there are strings that play into a higher chord section that is around the 2nd measure of the loop (very sibilant may sound like noise). The strings appear to be really formant sounding, so perhaps he may have layered a group of voices / a choir there as well?

To me it sounds like a lot of his layering is about the timing of when the instruments come in and leave.


Here is the M/S chain that I did if you'd like to hear how I got to my guessed conclusion.
https://instaud.io/ijc

let me know to take the link down if it violates some copyright thing, but I think it should be fine.

[myda]

yo thanks man! I'm definitely gonna try to experiment with layering, I'm almost 100% sure that's what it is too

[Austin K]

From what it sounds like to me when messing around with a mid / side EQ, there is the main guitar riff paired with a reverse piano that covers some of the fundamental range of the chords. Then there are strings that play into a higher chord section that is around the 2nd measure of the loop (very sibilant may sound like noise). The strings appear to be really formant sounding, so perhaps he may have layered a group of voices / a choir there as well?

To me it sounds like a lot of his layering is about the timing of when the instruments come in and leave.


Here is the M/S chain that I did if you'd like to hear how I got to my guessed conclusion.
https://instaud.io/ijc

let me know to take the link down if it violates some copyright thing, but I think it should be fine.

Reverse piano = each note is reversed? Do you shorten the tail first (i.e. the tail which becomes the attack when reversed)?

[Nogan]

You could sample a reversed note and play them from a sampler but the attack times would vary a lot. Instead I'd say play the chords and bounce them back in place and reverse there. You could shorten the tails if the release / samples end up playing for too long.

I think just playing around should give you an idea of what you're looking for.