Dubai has huge talent pool but not all of them come in the headlines every time. Few of them however break the shackles and tell the world about the potential they have. The UAE based Dubai DJ Megadon Betamax have created sensation after he created a track with the sounds of a car.
It sounds like a joke, at best, or, at worst, a ridiculously self-indulgent musical stunt.
After being approached by a luxury car brand, a Dubai DJ has created a track only using sounds made by a car.
That it is musical at all is a surprise – even more surprising is the fact that, despite a sonic palette of revving engines, doors slamming, blaring horns and not much else, it actually sounds rather good.
Chromatic by Infiniti is a bona fide viral hit, clocking almost 200,000 plays on YouTube since it was released in January, reaching curious ¬audiophile-ears around the globe.
It’s all the work of Mostyn Rischmueller – aka Megadon Betamax – an established Dubai-based DJ/producer whose disco-infused dance tunes normally appear on his own Voyeurhythm Records imprint. The gig fell in his lap after he was approached by the Japanese ¬luxury-car brand, Infiniti.
For a single day, Dubai DJ Rischmueller was given access to a selection of models in the manufacturer’s range and let loose like a mad botanist in a rainforest. Armed with a barrage of mics, the DJ set about exploring the sonic potential of the vehicles, capturing dozens of sound samples from each model – from engine noises to alarms, the whirr of an electric seat to the whoosh of the windscreen wipers.
Experimentation proved to be the key. In a moment of inspiration, the team tried hitting an exposed pipe with a tyre iron, producing a warm, xylophone sound that became an important part of the track’s melody.
Listening to the tune, it doesn’t sound much like a car. So how did he do it?
First, the track’s tempo was set by the back and forth swipe of windscreen wipers.
Beats came next, primarily made from combined samples of car doors slamming, for the kick/bass drum, while the click of door handles doubled as snares and handclaps.
The percussion potentials were numerous – but the main problem was that there’s not a lot of tune to be found in a car.
Melody lines were created by cleaning up the sounds, bathing them in ear-easy effects and bending the pitches into melodies. But, crucially, all of the track’s raw sounds came from the car, Rischmueller, the Dubai DJ says.
Engine noises are scattered throughout the finished tune – a deliberate reminder to the listener that this is a car they are hearing – while the pre-¬recorded voice of the car’s GPS system offers something resembling a tongue-in-cheek take on a vocal line.
The Dubai DJ is also one of the founding members of underground night Dust, which won the Best of the Rest Club Nights award. The musicians said that the idea was to create a real song and the melody was the toughest challenge he faced while making the music.
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