How To Make Synthwave with The Midnight

This week Sonic Academy proudly welcome another new tutor - one-half of the Los Angeles based synthwave duo The Midnight, Tim McEwen, for a brand new course in How To Make Synthwave.

Taken from their highly acclaimed 2016 album 'Endless Summer', Tim remakes the stunning 'Comeback Kid' in Logic Pro.
With their signature retro synth sound, pop inspired vocals and a synth guitar solo that oozes cool, this track takes you to a parallel universe where it’s always 1984, everyone drives Ferraris and Lamborghinis while sporting Raybans and pastel suits, and it’s perpetually the last night of summer break.

This structured and easy-to-follow course starts with the kick, snares, claps and hats as Tim guides us through building the 80's groove before moving on to the synths and bass sections. We then check out some fills and effects before we move onto that awesome solo and vocals, finishing off with the arrangement and automation tweaks.
Don’t worry about the long list of plugins used in this course, most DAW's will have stock variants of the ones used here and we have added all MIDI files and renders of the synths in the resources - so everyone can follow along!

Check it out and learn from a true synthwave pro!