I am eternally grateful to Leo Abrahams for introducing me to the marvellous world of Hollow Sun, virtual instruments for Native Instruments Kontakt which sound brilliant and cost a fraction of other, similar instruments.
The original plan had been not to use any plugin instruments of any sort, and for almost all of the album, that remains the case, but the Cathotron was one exception – it’s beautiful sound won the daft ideological battle easily. It just recreates the feel of old cinematic strings really well, and was perfect for a couple of the tracks.
When we were mixing songs using this sound, Leo put it through an old analogue delay pedal which we tweaked very slightly in real time to give it a bit of shimmer and a slight edge so it sat perfectly with the analogue gear. Definitely check out the Hollow Sun stuff if you have Kontakt!
