Dance music creators on the modern sounds of V Collection.
Icarus, an electronic music duo from Bristol, UK, are owners of Fly Boy Records and have release on Pete Tong’s FFRR imprint. We spoke to brothers Tom and Ian Griffiths about their use of V Collection and how it forms the basis of their dance anthem sound.
The process of finding sounds varies. Sometimes we’ll have a specific sound in mind, sometimes we’ll know what type of texture we’re wanting to add to a track, or other times we’ll just be flicking through sounds and something will catch our ear. A lot of the time, we’ll manipulate a preset to get exactly what we want before processing it with fx to create something new.
Over the years, we’ve used a lot of different VSTs but always kept coming back to a handful we really like and the CS80 V was one of them.
We’ll probably never own a real CS80 but this is the next best thing!
The beginning of an idea
Sounds are often a source of inspiration for us but ideas for new tracks can come to us from anywhere. Quite often, one of us will have heard something that has caught our ear whilst out and about and then we’ll either record a voice memo or write a note down on our phone to come back to when we’re in the studio. Usually the finished track ends up as something a million miles away from what first inspired it.
The Brass sounds are also great and really versatile. We’ll sometimes start with a fairly basic Brass patch and then tweak and effect it to turn it into a Pad or Bass sound.
It really depends on where the idea or inspiration for the track has come from before we decide which virtual instrument to open. A lot of the time though we’ll start with some chords, maybe on a Jupiter or CS80 pad and then build up the layers of harmony using different textured sounds such as heavily effected lead sounds.
We’ll often use the Jup-8 V for Pads and Lead sounds.
Mini V we mainly use for bass. We have a Minimoog Voyager in the studio but still find ourselves reaching for the Mini V a lot of the time!
Music and support
There is so much scope to create any sound you want with the V Collection, It can be a bit overwhelming at first. Take your time to learn a few of your favourite sounding synths well and you’ll be able to apply what you’ve learned to others in the collection and achieve the sounds you’re after.
We’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of Radio 1 support over the past few years but hearing our music on the radio is still a strange and amazing thing. It’s crazy how differently you listen to your own music when it’s being played on the radio.
We were originally sent Aurora’s music by our publisher and we loved her voice when we first heard it. The main part of our track ‘Home’ was made by duplicating and pitching layers of her vocals to create a big expansive sound. That’s still one of our favourite tracks we’ve written.
Icarus recently released their new EP' This Must Be The Place'. https://thisisicarus.com