Pet Shop Boys "This must be the place I waited years to leave" Cover version

Cover version of the Pet Shop Boy’s song “This must be the place I waited years to leave” from their 1990 album Behaviour.


This is not intended to be a perfect ‘note-for-note’ recreation, more of an interpretation of the track built around certain key elements such as the lead vox motif (from the Emulator II) and the guitar riffs (played by Johnny Marr). I’ve sought to create a sense of atmosphere to reflect the sombre nature of the original song using modulated reverbs and delays.


Instruments used and their roles:
• E-mu SP-12: All drums with the exception of the crash cymbal. Incidentally, the snare is from one of the SP-12 factory disks and I’m fairly sure is the same sound as was used on ‘Hit Music’ and ‘One More Chance’ (although I have the OMC snare as a processed sample in the Fairlight – more to come ;-) )
• Emulator II: Marcato Strings (factory) used as the pad and lead string line: Voices 1 (factory) used for the main hook, per the PSB’s original track
• Linndrum: Low Tom (Tom #17) used for the lo smack at the start of each four bars
• Fairlight Series III: Electric guitars (custom), cymbal and a low tom to double with the Linndrum
• Roland JX-10: Swell brass sound
• Roland JD-990: Main Pad (doubled with the Emu II Marcato Strings) made up of a edited version of Hybrid Strings preset (essentially a detuned sawtooth pad) and a Sample-and-Hold type patch
• OSCar: Used for the 16-th notes bass. I recorded this circa 10 years ago (the OSCar has since been sold). It’s the reason for why the key of my version is different from the original track. I’d recorded the bass in b minor and didn’t want to change the bass when working on the rest of the track!


FX used:
• Delays on the guitars are a combination of the PrimeTime II and Korg SDD-3000 in hardware, with an additional UAD SDD-3000 in software
.
• Reverbs are a combination of Lexicon M300L, UAD RMX-16 (3.4s ambience) and the old TC PowerCore Classic verb (an old favourite of mine) for the long modulated reverb on the guitars and brass
• Boss CE-300 chorus used on the bass to round it out.


Other Mix tools:
Recorded and mixed in Cubase 10.5. All channels have Slate Digital’s VCC (SSL E model) and SSL’s Native Channel strip v2. Some instruments have UAD compressors applied (1176 Rev-A, LA-2A on the guitars and a Distressor on the snare).


Lastly, I seem to remember using a midi file as a 'quick-start' for the drum programming and that I retained the snare track for the fills but it’s so long ago that I can’t remember who to credit!


Enjoy.