Aha - Take On Me | DRUMS | Tutorial

[@MrAndyshanahan]

In the late 80s A-Ha hired one of our big studios in Sydney to do some work. The hot ticket for every engineer/producer in the country was to be allowed into the session. They were doing stuff with production that our guys had simply never seen before. Truly remarkable and talented band. I had a copy of the album for sure, in fact I still do :)

[@EspenKraft]

Cool!

[@ciatangallaghe2485]

Ask limmie how good Aha are.

[@deyanfont]

@@ciatangallaghe2485 llo😊😊

[@garagebander8485]

So check this out. I have studying this piece for a while. It was in fact a LinnDrum that was used (of course). However, the “16th’s” are actually a DX7 patch called “DRM-SNARE” or something like that. And it isn’t 16th’s people. Its actually a cool little rhythm that’s supposed to be an accompaniment to the Linn Kick thats on the 4 beats. And that little “whoosh” or “cymbal” you hear on the beat of the 3 of every bar, is actually a LinnDrum snare pitched down and has a lowered volume. The hi hats actually don’t come in until the main riff starts. The hi hats start on bar 13 and transition into 16ths on the start of the verse. Its pretty interesting!

[@suadcokljat1045]

I 100% agree. Cheers! S

[@cortical1]

What do you mean when you say they aren't 16ths? If there are 16 beats per measure how are they not 16th notes?

[@garagebander8485]

@@cortical1 if you listen to closely during the verses, there is a rhythm on a synth that plays the same exact way the dx7 drum-snare patched is played. Same notes and everything. The whole drum sequence is brilliant. That little rhythm that the synth plays isn’t in a straight 16th’s manner. Like I said its more of a rhythm.

[@mazingbum]

Yeah!!!~★

[@davidryle]

"Take On Me" is one of those songs that immediately raises my heartbeat. It's a natural pace changer. Genius band and one of the very best from the era. Thanks for going over the details of this classic.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers David! :)

[@michaelcarey]

I had an entire C90 cassette with nothing but Take On Me recorded on it! Iconic 80s song, timeless.

[@spjotvold1]

Norway's pride indeed. Nice to see the drum part broken down. The drums and the layered Juno 60-riff are two key elements in the original song. I played the cassette to death as a 10-year old after I got it for Christmas in 1985. 🙂

[@emiel333]

I’m not from Norway but I can tell you that I love ❤️ the music of A-Ha! Take one me is well known by the public. But I’m simply in love with the song The Sun Always Shines On T.V.

[@OriginalRaveParty]

I think A-Ha is considered a worldwide treasure 😃

[@Original_Lurke_fromthe_Unknown]

Cool. Not only a treasure for Norway but also for me as well. New album ordered. Can’t wait for that. A-ha has been with me since the late 80’s. I went to go see them in concert in 1988.

[@R0b3rtao]

Amazing! One of the most perfect pop songs ever made! 😍😍😍😍😍

[@chinesemusic8019]

Three years ago, I visited your tekniskmuseum technology museum in Oslo and there was a synthesizer exhibit that had classic synthesizers and they played Aha Take on Me on loop.

[@EspenKraft]

Cool!

[@sylvainfortin841]

I was six years old in 1985 when I first heard this great song and today I still love it.

[@lainet]

Wow... I've heard the song soooo many times never realising the presence of these "16th note secondary kicks". Had to go listen to the original again... yes, there they are! 😮

[@mrdali67]

There are stems floating around so you can see and listen exactly how its done. And like garagebander 84 wrote its made of some added DX7 effect sounds to the main drums of the Linn. The top line synth is made of 3 tracks, the octaves and a third that adds the bell like atack. Actually fun to play with and try to get it to sound exactly like the original. some of the stems are pre processed, but you still have to do a lot to it in the mix to get the same sound as the real master mix.

[@foliage_man]

I think Espen made a mistake and meant to say "8th notes on the secondary kicks", this can easily be felt through the snares on 2 and 4, and is further confirmed by the DAW screen Espen shows later (although incorrectly labeled "kick 2 16th") as you can see the secondary kick pattern hits 8th notes.

[@EspenKraft]

The video I made went through different edits towards this (it was made a while ago) and some of the voice over words stuck. I simply didn't bother to re-record everything as time went by. The points I wanted to make are intact. ;-)

[@74goldenjet]

Great video! I would love to see more like this, famous 80s sounds and breakdowns of tracks, the instruments, the effects, the production tricks.

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks!

[@ZoeSummers1701A]

You’re amazing. A-Ha are amazing musicians. You did them proud.

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks Zoe! :)

[@bschir]

HH Push's are only played half the time you have in your timeline in real audio example. The into and versus it is played like that but on the beginning hook / chorus it's only played every other measure. And drops out completely in the halftime breakdown (the best part of the song IMO). Very fun to be able to work on all these classic tracks. Take on me was one epic tune when it came out. Thanks for sharing and keeping history alive. Love the channel.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers! :)

[@80ssynthfan48]

What I hadn't realised is that the PPG Wave was also used significantly on the song. Such a lovely sounding synth.

[@eazy72]

Hi Esben, thanks for this video. I had the pleasure of being with My wife at their recent gig in Copenhagen on the hunting high and low tour. I bought the tickets as a gift for myself for My 50th birthday. What a mindblowing experience for the first time in My life finally witness Your Norwegian Brothers perform live. We also went to Kristianssand This summer. I truly understand why You consider Them a national treasure.

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks for commenting! :)

[@henrikfisch]

... and then ... there is the EXTRAORDINARY voice of Morten Harket on top of that. 🙂 And, yes: Here in Germany many of us also judge a-ha as a precious jewel in pop-music. I can't wait for the new album to come out in October 2022. 😀

[@Chibiknux]

Finally somebody acknowledge the 16ths knocking, I've been asking for years what that sound was

[@ianhutty7093]

does mine not have that? curios what you hear kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYXNhnyOprVkeac&ab_channel=IanHutty

[@daz4627]

This song has definitely been a guilty please since the day it came out... back then I was listening to early Cure, Joy Division, The Smiths etc ... anything bleak, dark and anti-establishment ... this song was (and still is) like a shot in the arm ... now I've come out of the musical closet (as it were) and can proudly say that I really, really love this song and play it loudly in my car (though I still play a hell of a lot of Smiths) 😄

[@SuperWave86]

Cool to know about the double 16ths Bass drum

[@jeanbonnefoy1377]

This immediately triggered images of their wondrous b&w videoclip with pencil drawn rotoscoped animation I watched with fascinated awe on MTV by satellite!

[@lisajohnson1528]

The drums at the beginning of this track is so iconic I heard the keyboard only part and I never realised the arpeggio bit on the verse part love the breakdown x thank you

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@NormanStansfield1]

Royksopp should be another national treasure of Norway.

[@EspenKraft]

Great duo. Not nearly as iconic here as A-ha, but great none the less.

[@djGreenALERT]

You're like the Picasso of the audio world Espen.. I love how you recreate iconic music from nothing.

[@LukaRay]

The drum pattern for this song really is amazing! It adds plenty of body to the track, but there's still enough room for the other parts. It really is a great mix! I also really liked the drum programming in the 1984 version, but the 1985 version is a very impressive enhancement of all the tracks. The song really supported the story that was being told perfectly and is a well deserved 80's synth-pop anthem. Also that gig sounded like it was a lot of fun to do! Great video as always Espen!

[@EspenKraft]

Happy you liked it! I prefer the 1984 version myself as well, but the drums in the final and definitive version has a really powerful impact and it was fun to break it down and find out how it was put together.

[@magicmastera]

This is awesome how you analysed the drums. Fantastic.

[@rebeccaschade3987]

Wow. Who would've thought. Only a few days ago I was trying to break down this drum pattern in FL Studio, trying to figure out exactly what makes it so distinctive, and yep, those 16th kicks just creates such a recognizable sound. Your version is so much better than what I came up with though. Thanks for doing this great breakdown.

[@EspenKraft]

Many thanks! :)

[@poykehmusic]

This intro drum was sampled for *Sandra* 's _"Celebrate Your Life"_ 99 remix

[@aiaccident]

Super awesome! Best, a random Swedish synthwave producer

[@retro-dademusic6403]

You are a Norwegian Treasure for us Espen! 😎

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@cortical1]

Great idea for a video, Espen. Seems like breaking down lots of our old, very familiar programmed drum parts would yield many surprises and previously unobserved parts.

[@EspenKraft]

I had to do a lot of them for this app, and I got some surprises here and there. Maybe I'll do more of these later. Cheers :)

[@ocnb]

That's amazing! I feel like an honorary Norwegian now 🤗

[@larsbergen6126]

Thanks Mr. Kraft, again a great job!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@wyro1741]

Sounds like “Maniac” too when you strip it down - ‘Maniac’ adds that machine gun cowbell though haha

[@ChrisCeeStylzChavez6155]

Awesome so refreshing hear mis them 80 gear creativity,thanks for the tutorial always a pleasure Champ

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@jwojak]

Great work, as always! A-HA as "National Treasure"? Of course, I'm not suprised, and this brilliant song is a real "ever-green" !

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@benjaminprietop]

once I got an app for playing drums on your phone and one of the kits sounded similar to this intro, I played it all the time

[@suadcokljat1045]

This is like those moments when briliant things happen by mistake - like when you go to load different 16th hihat sound (from a floppy of course) and then while Atari is playing you load a kick or synth by mistake. And Boom! Everyone in the room first speechless while they process the wrong information and than - happiness! Cheers! S

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@CallousCoder]

Hi Ray here! New account and new found passion for synths. Been a bit out of the loop. So looking forward! This is added to me to watch list.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@morphoice]

My favorite song. No one ever realizes there's a flute in it ;)

[@newforestpixie5297]

In 1987 my Sonic Youth & Pixies loving chum visited me with news that serious industrial rock punks Killing Joke had released a new album . “ Is it any good Peck “ I enquired . “ Nah - they now sound like fucking Aha “ was his disgusted reply. I still assume to this day that he was referring to the wonderfully ethereal gothic track “ Adorations “. Jaz Coleman & Co hadn’t been taken into S.A.W s’ stable or Bros’ or Ahas’ but Jazs’ new vocal style with the added Morten esq delivery or affectation which goes “ Aaoohhoo “ certainly helped my understanding of his comparisons. 🏴❤️😁

[@EspenKraft]

Nice story ;-)

[@newforestpixie5297]

@@EspenKraft ❤️thanks for your work 👍

[@80ssynthfan48]

I do wish they would have talked more about the sounds, arrangements and changes they made, in the 3-part video they did on the story of Take on Me. I find these things more interesting than the promo video.

[@wrmusic8736]

those kind of videos aren't aimed at musicians but at fans. To fans the music is an experience - they wouldn't understand the technicalities of why Jupiter 8 mattered or what chord went where and why this delay unit sounds like so. Obviously would've been great if somebody was doing purely technical interviews with those guys and yeah I know about Muzikxpress doing similar things but it's still middle of the road. But we have Espen Kraft here to reverse engineer songs for us so not all is lost.

[@claudiocluz]

Amazing!

[@oO5Dynasty]

Thank you for this! I learned some new tricks!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@westbethkid]

very cool! The drums have kind of a "Prince" feel to me. Like something off of "1999" album

[@bozjonez6092]

They may have been the same Linn drum sounds

[@J._Campbell]

Beautiful job, Espen!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@pizzagogo6151]

Very interesting Epen, thanks, great & legendary track. Probably on of my favourite DX sounds of all time on this too🥰Doesnt surprise me there are a lot of subtleties there, only recently became aware of the back story on how much this track was edited/remixed & generally fiddled with before it became a hit...

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@hawk194]

You are a master of the art. Fantastic.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@ruhrpott7436]

Well done!

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks!

[@FFrrEEddRRiiKK1]

Fairly genius drum composition, and nice tutorial.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@SeverityOne]

Another reason for the success of a-ha, apart from that they are/were just good musicians, was that they had two really cute boys, and then they had Morten Harket. Bit like George Michael really, a truly beautiful man with a truly beautiful voice. Needless to say that I love "Take on me" (and was desperate to learn how to play the riff, so maybe I could impress a certain girl), and its more-or-less successor (at least, in terms of the music video) "The sun always shines on TV". Their best-of album "Headlines & Deadlines" is one of my favourites.

[@lundsweden]

How good is this?! Loved AHA from '85 until now. I always thought it was a synth doing the 16ths, so cool to find out it was the 2nd kick drum!

[@EstuaryMists]

It is a synth; a DX-7 playing the split kick/snare sound from one of the cartridges. Check out the Mu:zines Blog where he breaks down the drums used and matches this element perfectly.

[@soepil]

Very interesting. I've never thought of that before. Thanks for the video.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@mrz80]

"I am the 80s" indeed! :D

[@damion2226]

Nice one Espen. I would love to see you do a follow up to this so you could talk about what particular synths they used on this song. I heard the drums were the Linn but not sure about the others.

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks man! I have no plans to do more about this. This was just done because I already had a little thing going for the the app I was talking about. They did use a Linndrum on the original.

[@80ssynthfan48]

PPG Wave, DX7, and Juno 6 or 60.

[@synthfellow]

Great! I've actually been thinking about those drums and the song, wondering what makes it so special and what drives the song. Now you answered that question :) .. great!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@BestBackingTracks]

Hey Espen! Great video as usual. Was wondering if you could give a go at something like Sisters of Mercy's Lucretia? Would be awesome to see how you set it up.

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks! No, no plans to do that. I don't take requests for videos really.

[@simmibeats]

Those drums sounds so good. I would really like to use them I my music🙏

[@jorgentern1095]

Great stuff! Maybe I’m wrong, but the ”pushed hat” sounds more like a reverbed and gated kick to me…

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@cleverhardy5230]

Apparently, it was a pitched down and processed Linn snare. Mids and highs must have been boosted.

[@davetbassbos]

That was great, thanks!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@donkeyadaml.]

Very good video and performance as always 👍👍👍Have a nice day and all week 😉 Greetings 😎

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@NostalKeys]

You’re the best!

[@SXTransmission]

You're very brilliant at this! It takes me ages to figure out a song, and then it's probably wrong as well (always fun trying though). So how you managed it for a whole set of songs is amazing. What I really really want to know is, did you manage to nail the high vocal notes as well? A special painful operation is usually needed for most of us! ;)

[@EspenKraft]

Not sure what you mean by high vocals, here? I did the intro to a lot of chart hits, very rarely vocals going from the first bar. ;-) Cheers

[@SXTransmission]

@@EspenKraft Ah, I see. I thought you'd done the whole song! I pictured you singing it too! Sorry for the confusion! And yes, not many songs start off with the vocals straight in. So many quite long synth intros in the 80's. These days it's all cut right back.

[@EspenKraft]

That said, I do sing quite high in my own vocals, for my own music. I can easily go in to the high falsetto as on "Take on me", but that's another story.

[@6581punk]

There's often a lot of cool tricks being done on recordings. Another is Wouldn't it be good by Nik Kershaw, he had to record individual guitar notes, multitrack and bounce the tracks to get it to sound right.

[@rogerioalmeida4358]

Thanks a lot for this video! Straight to the point, lots of information in 5 minutes😄! How about the iconic Top line synth 1? Could you give us a tip how to create the patch?

[@EspenKraft]

Thanks! I have such patches as presets in several of my patch banks for different synths. ;-)

[@80ssynthfan48]

The lead melody? You need something that can sound similar to the Roland Juno 60. There is a preset on Tal-U-No 62 (free of charge) called "synth heaven" which with a little tweaking can get you similar to one of the two layers that were used for the lead on the original. Then you have to find the right sound to layer with.

[@rogerioalmeida4358]

@@80ssynthfan48 Tks 4 the tip!

[@miguelrejas5034]

Awesome!!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@gullyfoyle6354]

Wow wow, that second kick on sixteenth, that's it! :-)) and the Hi hat, too. The original had a massive compression compared to your recreation... You nailed it, Espen, congrats. Cheerio.

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@chriswareham]

Such a classic track, and I only receny discovered that it went through so many iterations before being a hit. I only knew about the two UK releases untIl I read the mu:zines blog post covering the whole recording process.

[@neworder80]

Que modelo de drum machine..?

[@80ssynthfan48]

I think it's a Linn, but not sure.

[@80ssynthfan48]

Oh, you meant the one Espen uses, or the one A-ha used? I think A-ha used a Linn.

[@Josephsalvaggio]

hello, Could you tell me which machine I should use to reproduce the "arpeggiator effect" sound? which is added on like a tempo click behind the drum sound! THANK YOU

[@EspenKraft]

99% of all synths are able to do this. It's just a muted short decay sound, almost like a filtered down synthesized kick drum.

[@Josephsalvaggio]

@@EspenKraft Thank you very much for this info!

[@MorbidManoeuvres]

ok cool, but where did the drum sounds come from ?

[@EspenKraft]

The original drums were part Linndrum, part live cymbals.

[@MorbidManoeuvres]

@@EspenKraft yes originally i thought it was a lindrum. anyway they sound exact here. beautiful re creation. this open hat is magic is that usually on a lindrum ? (the hit you mention that keeps the momentum) cheers

[@ChipRobertsOfficial]

In my brain, it was an RX5, but I'm not sure why.

[@discodivo9045]

nice recreation, you placed the open hat only on the first bar of the 2 bar pattern, it appears on both bars in the original song

[@EspenKraft]

If you watch the whole video things would be more clear. ;-)

[@discodivo9045]

@@EspenKraft :)

[@Epictronics1]

Great vid. What drum machine were a-ha actually using for this track?

[@EspenKraft]

Linndrum. Cheers :)

[@kazunorikawasaki7081]

👍👍👍

[@matsadona]

Iconic song for sure, that still holds its own compared to many recent songs. Unfortunately it has put many of their other songs in the backwater, denying them the appreciation they deserve. However it is also an interesting question in what degree the iconic video contributed to the success?

[@EspenKraft]

The iconic video was the key to success as the song itself had failed a couple of times already.

[@matsadona]

@@EspenKraft have to admit that I wasn't aware of all the versions until today. Amazing that the 80's music can still surprise now and then :)

[@Alinktome]

Opening drums from michael jackson Beat It is different, but there is some similarities with a second snare, a speed tempo, and kind of production perfection.

[@TheSshadow7]

Aha is much better and deeper than people think. This hit, to me, wasn't even close to their best song.

[@RiggiMediaInt]

Very nice. I'm trying to read through the comments and figure out which drum machine did they originally use?

[@EspenKraft]

They used a Linndrum in this version. How the song was made and recorded is well documented in the SOS "classic tracks" some years ago.

[@Heavy_Distortion]

NØRWAY.

[@synthfellow]

Btw, have you made any research into wich drummachine they used for the song/songs? Would be interesting to know :) EDIT: Found a thread saying it was LinnDrum wich makes sense ...

[@EspenKraft]

It was indeed. SOS did a "classic tracks" some years ago and lots of details there.

[@cleverhardy5230]

Yep. They used a LinnDrum for the main drums, a DX7 preset for the clicks, and live hi-hats for the hi-hats.

[@wrmusic8736]

What did you use for that push hihat? Sounds really bulky and clappy, better than in the original beat. And yeah, Take On Me is a genius '80s song.

[@EspenKraft]

I used the sound you hear. ;-) Custom samples.

[@80ssynthfan48]

If you can't find the right thing, you could if desperate also use a steam hiss sample from the internet. The good thing is that you can cut it short as an inserted audio clip so you can cut it to the right length and do EQ, balancing etc.

[@fredtillman3050]

I wish you could've done 30 minutes on this song alone.

[@preferredimage]

Ah yes. but can I assume you have heard their demo track with the chicken noise on it? known as a-ha - Lesson One (Autumn 1982 _Take on Me_ demo) quite the departure from what we all know as take on me!

[@EspenKraft]

I'd say every other version than the "chicken version" is the departure being that was the first one. ;-)

[@80ssynthfan48]

Miss Eerie / The Juicyfruit Song (1981) by the band Bridges (with Pal/Mags) is where you can hear the DNA of Take on Me for the first time.

[@preferredimage]

@@EspenKraft You could probably recreate the demo track version if you have a Yamaha PSS170 kicking about (or a bontempi organ!!)

[@stcezaire06]

Bravooooooo super

[@EspenKraft]

Many thanks!

[@myleslawler6866]

Does the name 'A-ha' have any significance in Norwegian? In English, it is an onomatopoeic expression for surprise.

[@EspenKraft]

It means exactly the same in Norwegian as in English. ;-)

[@JoergWessels]

At first I thought you count the beat as double time, thus approximately 85 bpm, but seeing your Nuendo arrangement, you don't: there are 8 secondary kicks per bar. So they're not 16th but 8th.

[@EspenKraft]

I set the tempo in Nuendo to 170 because I didn't want to change the click resolution. ;-)

[@JoergWessels]

@@EspenKraft Thanks for the reply. I always felt like the snare falling on 2 and 4 which would mean a tempo of around 170 bpm. Now I learned that some people, you included, feel the snare falling on the 'ands' which means a tempo of around 85. Which is the scientifically correct answer?

[@Nacios007]

I already see this video being blocked soo hard🤣 Nice Video tho!

[@EspenKraft]

Cheers!

[@mjwalters8394]

Should be Bm E A D E during the main intro

[@DJSTOEK]

😷🙂

[@mjwalters8394]

Pad chords are wrong aswell

[@reidhauke3389]

Cheese!

[@mjwalters8394]

2nd kick is wrong listen to the multitrack

[@coreyano]

Got to play the song at the end at least

[@aphexon.]

NO NO NO! you are from noRway! not no way.

[@57too]

'Take On Me' has to be one of the worst songs ever.

[@synthverkstad2093]

Go away! You are probably tuning in to the wrong YT channel if you don’t like this song.

[@Eromasta6]

und zen vi take over poland, ya!