After my first article about Kali Uchis, I couldn't help doing a second one about the same artist for the first time on this website, after listening to the latest Kali Uchis song 'Telepathy' so many times everywhere.

The song belongs to Kali's second studio album, Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞, sung for the first time almost entirely in Spanish, and being a devotion to the genres he liked when he grew up in the United States and Colombia. The song ‘Telepathy’ mixes English and Spanish, and talks about keeping a loving relationship alive in the distance.

The voice has the leading role in this song absolutely, with an incredibly catchy melody in the chorus that I could not get out of my head, which is why I decided to write this article.

Leaving the voice aside, I found interesting to deconstruct the instrumental of this song, with a solid drums, bass with great sub-bass EQ, and some bubbly and warm keyboards.

Listen to my remake below:

The structure is simple and repeats the same chords throughout the song. The tempo is 84 BPM.

SYNTHS

There are 4 layers of synths in this song. The first and most protagonist appears in the intro and in the choruses. It is a brass that brings a rhythmic character and that I have recreated with Arturia's CZ. To achieve that sound, I started from a preset in the brass section and adjusted the values in the envelope section so that the attack of the chords and the release was similar to the original. I also modified the effects section settings, adding a chorus, delay, and flanger.

If you listen to the original song you will be able to appreciate the delay with a single repetition, adding density. I've also run it through the Soundtoys Decapitator to give this synth a bit more grain and saturation, making it more “crunchy”. Finally I have put an EQ to enhance the trebles and cut the lows.

CZ Pad

In these same intro and chorus sections, some strings are played, doing two notes and filling that space with high frequencies. As I have commented in previous articles, I usually use the Solina V by Arturia to make this type of strings, being a very used resource.

I have used the viola sound and I have placed the Waves S1 Imager effect to give this sound more width.

Solina Strings

Moving on to the verse, a soft pad is heard making the chords in the background, leaving space for the voice. In this case I have tried my luck with the DX7. The sound is made up of 5 wave types that sound simultaneously and that detune within a few hundredths of each other to give a more sense of density.

The sound is a kind of electric piano with a diluted attack and a reverb trail. I've put the RC-20 Retro Color effect in it with a bit of the "wobble" parameter to give it modulation and "space" to make it more ethereal. Check it out below.

DX7 Pad

Finally, we find a little electric piano detail on the verse doing an ascending scale that I have recreated with a basic rhodes sound with the Stage-73.

Rhodes

BASS

The bass of this song is an important element that blends perfectly with the kick. In the original song, the bass has a very buried sound playing in the sub-bass frequencies, it hardly has a presence in the highs frequencies. You could even say it's actually made with a bass-synthesizer.

In my case, I've recorded it with a höfner bass, played with palm-mute to make it sound more muffled. To give it that sub-bass presence, I've added the famous Waves RBass plug-in, a classic for boosting low-end harmonics. Check it out below.

Bass Sound

DRUMS

The drums of this song are recreated with basically 4 sample sounds: kick, snare, hat and a tom. They don't carry any kind of effect, so I just chose samples that sound very close to the original song.

If you're interested in trying these samples, remember that you can download all the sounds that I use in my articles from my Patreon page.

Drums

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GUITAR

In the middle of the verse there is a slight guitar strum playing the 4 chords. The sound is not very complicated, I have put a preset of clean chorus from the Guitar Rig and I have passed it through the RC-20 Retro Color to give it a more lo-fi touch.

Guitar Sound

We can also hear acoustic guitar strums in the chorus on the original song. As I did not have an acoustic guitar, I have recorded it doing a few strums with the electric guitar and recorded it with a microphone, although it is not the best way to do it.

Guitar recorded with a mic

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I hope you liked it, don't forget to watch the video on youtube and subscribe! You can also download the presets and sounds that I have used in this article on my Patreon page.

See you in the next one?

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