Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Guitar Amps
  • Plugin Week 25
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Artist news
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Software & Apps
  • Drums
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • Plugin Week A-Z
  • You Oughta Know
  • Fake AI band
  • 95k+ free music samples
  • Wrecking Crew
Recommended reading
PinkPantheress
Artists PinkPantheress has sampled the cream of '90s and '00s UK electronic music on new mixtape, Fancy That
Marshall Jefferson
Samples SampleRadar: 267 free deep house samples
Air Nicolas Godin Sexy Boy
Bands “Each time I pressed Enter I saw my life changing”: Air’s Nicolas Godin reveals the secrets of Sexy Boy
rival
Artists “You end up doing different things with a plugin versus a hardware synth”: Rival Consoles on why he still uses a Prophet emulation – even though he owns the real thing
The Prodigy
Artists How a novelty sample almost derailed the career of one of the greatest electronic acts of all time
Madonna in 2005
Artists “I immediately heard the melody in my head”: How Madonna created a dancefloor classic — with the sample from heaven
all saints
Artists "I remember in the studio thinking: ‘Oh my God'": A music professor breaks down the theory behind All Saints' Pure Shores
  1. Tutorials
  2. Music Production Tutorials

Get the sound of Blackbox's Ride On Time

Tuition
By Future Music ( Future Music ) published 27 July 2012

Classic late-'80s house pop rebuilt

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Intro

Intro

This classic pop-house track caused a huge stir when it was released in 1989, not only because it was a great tune but also due to the controversial and initially unaccredited use of Loleatta Holloway's sampled vocals from her tune Love Sensation.

The band also hired a model to lip sync for all the TV and live performances, which just added to the controversy. Despite this, Ride On Time was a huge international hit for the Italian production team and the infectious house piano riff (played on a Korg M1 using the now infamous preset piano 8), coupled with Roland 909 drums, cheesy strings/brass and dark synth bassline, typified the Ital-house sound.

Little is known about the making of the track, but we're going to attempt to recreate the main chorus loop using Logic's stock sounds and plug-ins.

Page 1 of 6
Page 1 of 6
The drums

The drums

First off you’ll need a copy of the original track. Skip to 3:33 (on the album version) and you’ll hear the beat isolated for a few seconds. You’ll need a 909-style kick, snare and open hat, a 909 clap panned to the left, plus a tambourine.

Listen carefully so that you get the correct placement of all the rhythmic parts. In Logic, we’ve loaded up several instances of EXS24 with a different rhythmic element on each channel (track 1 open hats, track 2 kick, track 3 snare, track 4 clap, track 5 tambourine, track 6 shaker and track 7 bongos). Quantize all parts to 1/16th notes to get the correct feel.

Page 2 of 6
Page 2 of 6
Harmony, melody and bass

Harmony, melody and bass

Once everything is placed correctly when compared to the original, move onto the harmony, melody and bass instruments.

For the classic M1-style House piano, we’ve loaded the ‘Stereo Grand’ preset into EXS24, for the bass sound we’ve loaded up Logic’s ES1 synth, for the strings an EXS patch called ‘Arco Strings’ and for the organ another stock EXS preset called ‘B3 Dry Jazz’. At 20 seconds into the tune you can hear the piano part with just the bare bones beat, so this is the best place to try to copy the piano part by ear – have a look at the screenshot if it’s a little too tricky to work out. The same applies to the bassline and organ parts – check the screenshot for accurate note placement or try slowing the track down so you can hear things more clearly.

Page 3 of 6
Page 3 of 6
Tweaking

Tweaking

Now that the beats and music are in place, let’s tweak the individual parts. First look at the drums. High pass the open hats on the EXS24 to give them more sizzle and so they don’t take up too much low end in the mix.

Use Logic’s channel EQ and compressor to add more beater sound to the kick. Do the same with the snare – roll some bass out and then compress. With the percussion parts, again it’s a matter of using subtle compression and EQ to make them cut through the mix. Pan the tambourine hard left, the clap more subtly to the left and pan the bongos to the right.

Page 4 of 6
Page 4 of 6
Piano

Piano

The stock Logic piano sound is already quite close to the original M1 sample, so just employ some
compression and EQ to make it cut through the mix. Roll out all the lows from 215Hz downwards and boost the top end +5.5 at 2000Hz.

For the ES1 bass, start with the default patch, then switch Osc pitch to 8’ with the first square wave type selected on the sub Osc and saw on the main Osc, then mix in slightly more main Osc than sub. Throw on the C2 chorus to add extra animation and width to the sound and tweak the envelopes for fast attack and release, medium decay and long sustain. Filter resonance and cutoff should be set pretty low.

Page 5 of 6
Page 5 of 6
Mix massage

Mix massage

Finally, massage the mix until you’re satisfied that it sounds authentic. Use an ’80s-style reverb
plug-in to get things to blend, especially on the string part, snare and piano.

Then add some stereo delay to the claps and the organ to fill out the parts and make them flow more. Once you’re happy with the mix, you can do a quick bit of home mastering for extra loudness and brightness. Simply add a little high-end boost using the channel EQ and a limiter to stop overs and maximise the volume, with about 3dB max of gain reduction.

Page 6 of 6
Page 6 of 6
Future Music
Future Music

Future Music is the number one magazine for today's producers. Packed with technique and technology we'll help you make great new music. All-access artist interviews, in-depth gear reviews, essential production tutorials and much more. Every marvellous monthly edition features reliable reviews of the latest and greatest hardware and software technology and techniques, unparalleled advice, in-depth interviews, sensational free samples and so much more to improve the experience and outcome of your music-making.

Read more
PinkPantheress
PinkPantheress has sampled the cream of '90s and '00s UK electronic music on new mixtape, Fancy That
Marshall Jefferson
SampleRadar: 267 free deep house samples
Air Nicolas Godin Sexy Boy
“Each time I pressed Enter I saw my life changing”: Air’s Nicolas Godin reveals the secrets of Sexy Boy
rival
“You end up doing different things with a plugin versus a hardware synth”: Rival Consoles on why he still uses a Prophet emulation – even though he owns the real thing
The Prodigy
How a novelty sample almost derailed the career of one of the greatest electronic acts of all time
Madonna in 2005
“I immediately heard the melody in my head”: How Madonna created a dancefloor classic — with the sample from heaven
Latest in Music Production Tutorials
ableton
8 things you can do with Ableton Live's updated Auto Filter device
API
Our pick of the very best VCA compressor software emulation plugins for any music project
Native Instruments Raum
How to use reverb to build impressive-sounding filters, reverses, risers and pads
Uvi Phasor
How modulation effects work and how to use them
bon iver
"It’s simple enough to create the perfect hard-tuned and harmonised effects within our DAW, providing you have the right software": How to harness hard-tuned vocals
Plugins Future owns
Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
Latest in Tuition
Plugins
How to get famous sounds and effects using only Logic’s stock plugins
Plugin Chains
How to emulate a classic analogue recording system entirely with plugins
Odin 2
Fantastic (free) plugins and how to use them: The Wave Warden Odin 2
ableton
8 things you can do with Ableton Live's updated Auto Filter device
Native Instruments Raum
How to use reverb to build impressive-sounding filters, reverses, risers and pads
mixing desk
“Learning how to mix is almost as important as hitting on your original musical idea”: New to the mixing process? Start here

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...