Pet Shop Boys It's a Sin - Instrumental recreation (Full track starts at

Instrumental recreation of the Pet Shop Boys 1987 number 1 record from their masterpiece album ‘Actually’.
The video is divided into two parts, with the first part showing each of the instruments and sounds used.
The FULL TRACK STARTS AT 10:22, for those that are more interested in hearing the whole rather than the details.
I’ve used the same main two instruments (in the Fairlight III and Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter) that I believe Andy Richards used to programme the track back in the day, and most of the sounds are either the ones used, or very similar.
The original record was mixed in SARM studio 2, on an SSL E console, so I’ve used equipment in similar vein to mix my version.
The track is mixed in Cubase 11 with all EQ and dynamics provided by SSL’s Native Channel.strip and UAD’s 1176 collection, and the 2-track audio routed through my SSL clone bus compressor for that bit of glue.
In terms of FX, this was a fairly simple mix, with the Lexicon M-300L providing the main reverb, supplemented with a UAD Lex 480 instance set on Large Wood room and my Dimension-D (setting 4) to apply a bit of chorus where needed. There is also a flanger on the background noise in the middle-8 and on the ‘thunder’ sounds, and that’s it.
Enjoy!

[@NostalKeys]

I'm speechless. This is a masterpiece recreation of It's a Sin. Congrats, brother.

[@celsomiranda7613]

It´s a perfect deconstuction/reconstruction of the original. It´s like decyphering a myth. Congratulations for such a humongous work!!

[@benhamel6550]

I live for this stuff. Discovering what makes the sounds we love

[@Kevin-si1es]

One of the synth songs ever made great instrumental cover xx

[@StriveDad]

That intro gave me goosebumps 😮😮😮

[@themotownboy1]

Beibg familiar with the orignal's multitrack, i can say this is very vety close and sounds quiye authentic. Well done!

[@adentertainment7184]

Wow , NO WORDS for this Mastertrack !!!!

[@deciBeats]

This is extraordinary!

[@cpt_nordbart]

Ah the Fairlight. The backbone of all types of music for a long time.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

Best audio quality of any sampler in history due to how it pitches the samples. (It changes the clock rate of the whole voice rather than re-computing the sample against a master clock rate.) Had some opportunities to play one, the sound of repitching sounds low is unbelievable, it sounds like analog tape.

[@rj8mp]

You completely blew me away with this one! Amazing attention to detail, you're so talented dude! In fact, thanks to you now I can fix a few things on my own version of the song. Thank you so much for this!

[@EstuaryMists]

Glad I could be of help. I was lucky to have most of the sounds as they appear on the record. I’ve got a couple of other PSB tracks on the go but am having a harder time filling the gaps where I don’t have the actual sounds used.

[@philwignall6714]

⁠​⁠@@EstuaryMistshey, awesome vid thanks. Might be a daft comment but could you not ask them (PSB) for a few pointers on filling the gaps?!

[@stevesrover]

Gosh, that is amazing. I’ve always loved this song - what an astonishing depth of instrumentation!

[@philstrachan]

Well programmed! Bravo! Fairlights were hard to get right from what I've been told by muso mates who used them back in the day! 👏✨️🇦🇺🎭 god bless the 80s 😁

[@ryanpj1903]

It's a real treat whenever you upload because you always create a masterpiece. Excellent recreation as always!

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks for the kind words Ryan. Makes the struggles I have with the video side of things worth it!

[@tecnos-uk]

Fook me! That sounds amazing, you couldn't get much closer to the original track than that, nice work dude!!! 👏

[@ashokmohanvipula6667]

This shows how much has gone into the original creative masterpiece !

[@phlhrgster]

Outstanding, brilliantly done!

[@tbase26]

A fab watch/listen and thoroughly educational. Today I learnt about the PPG Waveterm Library. Has opened up a whole new world to me. Many thanks, keep'em coming!

[@80s.Covers]

That's amazing 🔥💪

[@markneefs3458]

Excellent! Good mix! Incredible atmosphere! Well done!

[@segaretro92]

absolutely love all the content on this channel, it’s incredible

[@cristophercrisfly3595]

Awosome! I really enjoy to see how this great song was created and played.

[@dermotpearson8863]

Wow. Incredible. I love this song 🎧 Great version

[@sveinnarn]

Wow. I didn't expect the final outcome to be so amazing. Brilliant work!

[@Rorschach.]

I would pay cashmoney for this instrumental mix. Bravo!!!

[@amulpatel]

The attention to detail.The breakdown of each layers. AND to top it off the old analog 80s gear.. amazing! on my headphones it sounds very very close! Can't believe Im just now seeing your video.. What a treat. Thank you for sharing

[@svannuffelen]

I still have the 12" extended version on vinyl !!

[@EstuaryMists]

So do I somewhere. Bought new in 1987!

[@kevincoffield1787]

Outstanding!!! That's a lot of work. Bravo Sir! I hope Neil and Chris hear this. 👏👏👏

[@SanichirBold]

This must be the best, I waited years to hear!

[@serkandemir1632]

Tebrik ederim,cok büyük bir emek,yüreğine emeğine sağlık 🇹🇷🇹🇷

[@PJXay]

Is that a real fairlight? If so that’s pretty cool! Also literally spot on… you wouldn’t have to tell me twice if you claimed that this was the original instrumental!

[@Distorted-Vision]

Of course it's a real Fairlight.

[@Ricorchette]

Absolutely amazing...

[@JasonMercerUK]

Amazing. I love this. Thank you ❤❤❤

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks Jason, Glad you enjoyed it.

[@jorgebenjamin]

What a job! Congrats!

[@mtbevins]

Wow... just wow! So cool to see these instruments used in this amazing recreation.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mjwalters8394]

Absolutely stunning recreation

[@ianhardcastle3506]

Wow! impressive! more please! amazing to see the breakdown of the sounds and parts

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. I’ve got a few more on the go but listening to them, I’m not so happy with some of the sounds and aspects of the mix, so need to find the time to get them right (and do the videos) before uploading. I’ll try 😮and keep to the same format though.

[@peter160266]

Excellent version🎹❤️🎹🎵

[@armandartre5687]

Amazing!

[@mikeboyes1]

Just ace! Thank you!

[@supergeorge72]

Great job, sounds amazing. Congratulations.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@johnritchie7800]

Well done brilliant 👏

[@JayDeetrix]

This is incredible and breathtaking what you have done. From the viewers angle, you sitting on your office desk with a monochrome computer, keyboard and some equipment have recreated what the pet shop boys probably did with an array of keyboards and enough equipment to fill a garage. Your version is an exact instrumental replica...master rolex copy. Respect.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thank you. Yes it's amazing what can be done with modern equipment. When I started out, owning professional-grade gear was prohibitively expensive, and now we have low-cost analogue instruments and pretty accurate recreations of classic gear in software format for comparatively little money. It still amazes me that I can sit in my room, in front of a screen with a full SSL-branded mixing environment and get better results that I could have done in relatively expensive studios of yesteryear.

[@JayDeetrix]

Brilliant stuff - that is similar to what my KZbin account and website has always been promoting. To get young people into playing their own music and allow people realise what you can do with just the basic modern computer and some equipment in your own room. All my music so far has been done on a budget with mostly freely available vst instruments where I try to recreate a tiny essence of the original song (or at least what sounds to me as the original), your recreation of this wonderful petshopboys song is a master rolex copy my friend - saved in my favourites as an example to all.

[@psb_technology]

Superb job to the last detail👏

[@damo5791]

Amazing! SO good as always. Congrats!

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Appreciate the comment.

[@80ssynthfan48]

Incredible.

[@stevencooper1234]

Fantastic Fantastic Fantastic. Amazing work and a beautiful recreation. That Fairlight looks in incredible good condition as well. I would love to own one myself but I'll have to keep using emulations for now

[@MrDiscofire]

Amazing, Absolutely superb🙂

[@EstuaryMists]

Thank you.

[@SiEffen]

Love this. I tried programming it myself years ago, but this is an absolute masterclass. Wow!

[@lotus30com]

So Awesome! The PSB has been one of my favorites since first hearing them on the radio back in 1986. This song is a favorite - I love the choir on it. Thanks for the deconstruction video - that was so fun to watch! I'm looking forward to your next recreation!

[@EstuaryMists]

Hi Kirk, thanks for the comment! For me it’s the Advision and SARM era that straddled Please, Actually and Introspective that fascinates me the most, with the culmination of top-quality song writing, fantastic collaborators and the best that music tech could offer. I plan to do a few more from this era and have a couple already done - I just need to do the videos, which seem to take me a lot of time. That choir patch on Series III is one of my favourites. I guess this was one of the sounds that persuaded people to part with £50-60k back in the day! Do you still have your Series II?

[@lotus30com]

@@EstuaryMists So little time - so much to do! I understand that. That certainly is an awesome patch. Is it in that SIII hard disk image that's floating around? I have a copy of that, but I don't have any Choir03_VC in my collection. I do have the IIx still; it's sitting right next to me! I'm looking forward to your next video. You do an amazing job with them! Thanks for taking the time to do them.

[@andrewgarley1400]

Superb!

[@nicopico1998]

This is on point!

[@localtrack1966]

Amazing, really amazing job. Wow

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@cnymo]

Great remake. Respect!

[@deejayC]

Absolutely superb

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Appreciate your comment.

[@leerichards7505]

Stunning!

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks Lee

[@eacrubio]

Que buen trabajo......increíble

[@davidpearson6785]

A really interesting upload 👍👏

[@MrMRomeu]

it is so perfect!

[@johnbrees22]

Any chance you could upload just the track. This is absolutely brilliant

[@joseluisgt2791]

Great job!!!!!!!❤

[@jaytee200]

Nailed it! Excellent!

[@JgHobley]

😲 That is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing. I love this song and tried to recreate it years ago, not to your standard though. It's good to see the arp that is low in the mix but ties it all together. The lead string sounds are immense. I think you have convinced me to buy another synth and some software. 🙏🏻

[@andresdeballester4596]

Very very very great job

[@petshopboysactually]

This is amazing!

[@maj3735]

AMAZING!!!!

[@emulatorIIforever]

Jeepers. Well, you've knocked it out of the park once again! Probably my favourite PSB single, and this is such a faithful and detailed rendition. Wonderful to hear it deconstructed like that and rebuilt from the ground up. I've always loved that blend of light and playful percussion with the quite sinister and evocative chords, and it's a prime tour de force of the production technology of the time. You totally nailed those percussion parts, it's really hard to get that balance of clean simplicity and the energetic feel. Intriguing to hear those WaveTerm samples for the choir and pads, I never really appreciated that the WaveTerm was such a part of the PSP production sound, despite having seen the PPG 2.3 on Chris's keyboard stands on endless TV appearances (doh!). And that WaveTerm choir T400, wowsers that's a murky and dirrrrrty patch. Glorious. I think this is also an excellent example of how things can sound quite benign and cheesy in the initial development phases of building a track, and it's only by persevering and layering up different textures to create a thicker sonic landscape that one ends up with the deliciously rich production sound that we all remember so fondly from the era. Seems everyone in the studio today wants every patch you call up on the synths to be an instant smash hit sound… and that impatience leads to some pretty dreary one-dimensional production. Was so great to wallow in this masterclass of interweaving many timbres to create those classic textures. Fantastic work, thanks for posting 😊 PS - intriguing to see the W-30 making its debut in the setup... I always had you down as more of an S-750 with a mouse kinda guy... the W-30 makes it all far too easy 😉😆

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks David. I always enjoy reading your posts. It’s one of my favourite PSB singles too and I’m very pleased with the result; I doubt I will get another recreation this close. The chords are certainly evocative and whilst in the main, they’re based on a fairly simple structure (circle of fifths?), the way in which they’re voiced makes the individual elements sit together so well, especially in the middle 8 and outro, which layer the pad, choirs and the strings beautifully. It’s interesting you mention the PPG, as for years I couldn’t work out which string sound was used for the pad for many of the tracks on ‘Actually’ (One More Chance, Hit Music, It’s a sin and Heart), and knowing the Fairlight and Emulator libraries well, I knew it wasn’t from either of those. It suddenly dawned on me that they shared a common denominator - Andy Richards - and I remembered reading that he was a PPG / Waveterm guy prior to him purchasing his Fairlight, so I loaded up my PPG Waveterm string samples into the Fairlight and hey presto, there it was. My old friend the W-30, has been promoted to the desk for the time being, as I was going through some of our old dance tracks from the early 90’s. Whilst I still have an S-760 in the rack, it rarely gets touched now, as I never gelled with it in the same way I did with the W-30. I used that so much back in the day that I could quite literally use it blind-folded!

[@madpaul6520]

Loved it.

[@TheRealBlueSwan]

OK, this is legitimately an amazing recreation!

[@EstuaryMists]

Cheers!

[@user-ve1yg1fv8r]

Шедевр. Спасибо огромное❤

[@wccarter08]

This is a characters theme in my dnd game. I’m so glad I found this.

[@ThePistol1977]

Brilliant 👏

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

[@lynx1061]

Bravo!

[@LFOVCF]

Just no words. Oh go on then. just the one mind.....FANTASTIC!

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. Appreciate your comments and glad you enjoyed it.

[@dominikkarkowski]

i really like your videos. Ive been following your channel for quite a few years now. You should do the same as you did here with your old covers of always on my mind and west end girls. Keep up the great work

[@elizandrolorensi6571]

Bravooo!!!

[@leonchik1976]

Amazing

[@seeyouintheeighties]

Incredible

[@juliancroot]

Well this was excellent, and very interesting to watch. Thank you. Your approach to sharing the build is something I may take inspiration from in my own future covers. I had plans to do this track myself, but I’ve crossed it off my list…there’s no point now. 😀.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thank you. I'm glad it was helpful. I wouldn't let this deter you from doing your own version though; it's always good to hear different interpretations.

[@RedRiverChannel]

Wooow, this is so good

[@frasermathieson9767]

perfection!

[@Dovoro.]

Bravo, sincerely ❤️

[@joeynuggetz]

impeccable

[@szilvesztersassak3808]

Perfect!

[@declandillon5795]

As good as it gets!!!

[@djpanospiretzis]

Oh my god!!! The best remake close to the original!! ❤❤❤

[@svannuffelen]

Whhaaaw ! So spot on !!

[@maj3735]

This should go viral

[@PCLanimator]

Unbelievable!

[@jazzmastert]

Flippin' 'eck! Astonishing!

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks Adam.

[@gimmietheprize]

Beautiful!!

[@pilarpascual5754]

Bello ❤

[@pilarpascual5754]

Precioso está música te transporta ❤

[@pilarpascual5754]

Nunca he escuchado algo parecido a esta música y canción no me la quito de la cabeza ❤😊

[@pilarpascual5754]

Impresionante

[@KieronEdwards]

Fantastic version - absolutely spot on ... I think this is your best re-creation yet.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks Kieron. I agree, it's my most accurate yet and probably of the ones to come, as it was a happy coincidence of having a lot of the sounds in the Fairlight and being able to recreate the 'synth' sounds on the MKS-80, which according to sources were the main two instruments used on the original (along with the JP-8). I've had this and 'One More Chance' on the blocks for some time (which sounds pretty accurate too) but the videos tend to take me a long time!

[@KieronEdwards]

@@EstuaryMists Any chance you could do a 'sound walkthrough' for 'Always on my mind'? I found the first part on this video fascinating to see/hear.

[@EstuaryMists]

@@KieronEdwards I'll stick it on the list but can't promise. As you'll see, I'm not the most prolific poster! I have got some way through doing a similar video for West End Girls though, so I'll try and get that finished soon. Next to be posted is probably 'One More Chance'.

[@KieronEdwards]

@@EstuaryMists Sounds good - I'm also wondering if the reason we only ever see your hands is because you're Chris Lowe? How did you get hold of the actual samples? :-)

[@Yoofaloof]

Magnificent.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks!

[@pilarpascual5754]

Demasiado ❤

[@maxdavid4299]

Bravissimo

[@fabiotaddei7774]

You did a Great job.. the rendition is 100% accurate. No difference with the original. Thanks a lot to give a new light to this song, which I think is a masterpiece. I’ve also listen to It couldn’t happening here which is also great.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks, and I agree the original is a masterpiece, helped (IMO) enormously by Andy Richards' considerable talents. This is my most accurate for sure but it helps that a lot of the sounds are from the Fairlight and ergo exactly the same as the record and the synth parts are fairly easily recreated on the MKS-80.

[@fabiotaddei7774]

Have you planned to release other PSB songs? My suggestion: Can you forgie her or Deeaming of the Queen ☺️

[@EstuaryMists]

@@fabiotaddei7774 I do plan on releasing some more - One More Chance is likely to ne next. I've done the music - just need to do the video. In all honesty, any PSB material I do will likely only be from the Please to Introspective era, as this is my personal favourite and of course was when they used the Fairlight and Emulator as the foundation of their sound.

[@fabiotaddei7774]

One more chance is one of my favorite from actually.. i’m not scared would be my dream 🤩

[@c0ldc0ne]

1.84K subscribers and yet only 1K likes. What were those other 840 people sniffing? This is epic!

[@DK184]

Hello, you are really master. I absolutely lost illusion of my cover version also. You have great listening and advantage of Fairlight. Congratulation👏.

[@EstuaryMists]

Thanks. I guess the music lessons I endured as a child eventually served me well!

[@robstammers7149]

This good, very good, the thing missing is Neil's voice...

[@lisajohnson1528]

At 8.35 the sequencer plays the argeggio I've tried since 1987 to play this but could never figure out the notes I get close but fail miserably does anyone know the correct notes for this the equipment you have is like the Holy grail of 80s early 90s synths very envious loved your reworking of this track well done amazing

[@gamingwithcallum6087]

Just listen to the notes here and figure it out

[@fabricebeudon7617]

About the arpeggio you can play the official video or here and select a slow speed to figure out the notes and variation easily ;)

[@lisajohnson1528]

@@fabricebeudon7617 thanks i will try that

[@RomanChromov]

Очень хорошо!