I decided recently to do a new version of the piece with a more modern rhtyhm section sound. You can hear the latest version at broadjam.com/rhunter under the name “Lever Down (Remix).” I completed a mix several weeks ago, and I liked it fine, but now I’m going back in to tinker some more.
The main thing I’m tinkering with (other than getting rid of a lot of clutter in the midrange) is the harp sounds. The first draft of the remix contains a pretty raw harp sound that’s very similar to the 1981 original (which was recorded through a Boss BF-2 flanger into a tweed Fender Champ amp that Erik Lindgren had rescued from somebody’s sidewalk trash in Cambridge a few days earlier–don’t ask me why anyone in their right mind would throw out a working Tweed Champ; maybe it was a revenge thing). It’s a hot sound, but I decided I wanted something more obviously electronic.
What I’ve done for the latest mix, which should be completed this week, is put two pitch shifters on the harp, one set to a perfect 4th down, the other to an octave down. You hear the 4th down first, then the octave down, then both together. I put a lot of effects on the pitch shifter too, and it comes out sounding something like a distorted tenor sax that adds a lot of weight to the harp.
I may mess with it some more–I might add an octave and a perfect 5th up, too–but I’ve already got something more electronic than what I started with. And for this remix, fresh sounds is the name of the game.
That reminds me: got to put some strings on it too to add some high end sheen. A producer’s job is never done, at least until just before deadline.