Released in February 1985, Sussudio is the first track on Phil’s hit album No Jacket Required and reached number 1 on the US Billboard charts. Sussudio is a made up word that just worked in the context of the song, which sounds suspiciously like Prince’s 1999.

Those Prophet-5 synth chords are a dead giveaway but, after initially fearing cries of rip-off, producer Hugh Padgham put Collins’ worries to bed with an amazing bass sound for the track. Played on a Minimoog, the bassline is a funky affair that really drives the track along, working in perfect synergy with the Linn/Roland TR-909 drums. The bassline was sequenced on the Minimoog via a MIDI to CV box (to trigger the synth from whatever sequencer was being used) and gated from the drum machine to keep it super tight.

Listen: Phil Collins - Sussudio

How to get the sound

To recreate the Sussudio Minimoog sound in Logic, we used Logic’s very capable ESM monosynth plug-in using a 2-osc blend with medium cutoff and high resonance settings for that high-end squelch you can really hear on the record. We think this recreation gets pretty close!