How to make some sounds from Jessie Ware 'Soul Control'

When playing music, timing is everything, and to a lesser extent when releasing it too. So what if you’ve proudly and passionately poured your heart and soul into a disco centred album, primed for release. Only for huge restlessness and uncertainty over political racial reform to erupt, against a backdrop of an unprecedented global pandemic, which has brought civilization to its knees rather than it’s dancefloors?

Oddly enough, that’s not just a hypothetical situation for this week’s featured artist, Jessie Ware, as she recently released her funk-fuelled disco fantasy ‘What’s your pleasure?’ in June amongst all the chaos. In some regards it’s the perfect antidote, not in medical terms sadly, but it’s toe-tapping beats and basslines are a wonderful aural distraction and provide a musical portal to a world far away from our current collective mental state. Seriously, if you’re not feeling great right now, Spotify, Tidal, or even physically buy ‘What’s your pleasure?’ and instantly feel your mood lift as the needle hits the metaphorical record.

Keen to encourage listeners to enter into the spirit of the record, even if the local discotheques remain out of bounds, Jessie enthuses “The whole premise is that it's fun and it's fabulous and it's fantasy. So why not have a disco ball and flashing lights and a smoke machine?”

Lucas exercises enough self control and manages to resist grabbing the office glitterball long enough to bring us all the sonic secrets behind the album’s fourth track ‘Soul Control’. In the latest DRC Sound Design Tutorial, he breaks down the arpeggio, the strings pad, the lead and the bass - a funky foursome full of disco flavour for your DAW!

Click here to download the Ableton Project file

Ware’s your head at?
Team Imaginando