Steve Lacy has been one of my biggest references in recent years. At only 24 years old, he already has several albums behind him. Steve got his start producing by making beats on his iPhone, creating his first songs on the device, using a plug-in piece for his guitar, called an iRig. You can see how in his first demos the drums consisted of garage band loops with a lo-fi cut.

In 2013, at just 15 years old, he began producing on what would become the Internet's third studio album, Ego Death. Contributing on the production of eight tracks, Ego Death was nominated at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Urban Contemporary Album. One of my first remakes was precisely about The Internet, which you can listen to here!

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I wanted to deconstruct the first song 'Bad Habit' of this recent latest album, which perfectly encompasses all the personality of the album. Take a listen below and read on to discover all the instrumentation.

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GUITAR

The guitar is undoubtedly Steve Lacy's ubiquitous tool and the one that gives meaning to most of his sound. From his first demos, Steve achieves a peculiar lo-fi sound on guitars, using chords with a lot of neo soul and r&b personality. On 'Bad Habit', the guitar maintains a 4-chord riff that doesn't stop with a touch of what looks like flanger or chorus. The song has a tempo of 169 BPM.

Recreating the exact sound of a guitar is tricky since you would need to use the same model of guitar, the same pickups, and even the amp with which it was recorded in the first place.

To recreate it, I have recorded 3 tracks with different guitar sounds, which together achieve a similar effect.

The first one could be considered the one that provides the main sound. For this, I have recorded the guitar by line and I have passed it through the “Archetype Cory Wong” amp simulator VST. Starting with the Fat Strat preset (Steve Lacy often uses a Fender Stratocaster on his recordings), and changing the EQ, a similar sound is achieved. Then I added a “Flanger” effect with the Waves MetaFlanger, being the key to give it that touch of movement. Listen to the guitar with and without the flanger effect below.

Guitar 1 without flanger effect

Guitar 1 with flanger effect

For the second guitar layer I have used the “Guitar Rig 5” amp simulator with the Clean Break preset and again adding a Flanger effect from the same Guitar Rig. Then I have put a Goodhertz filter eliminating bass to make the sound finer. With this layer I try to give it that sharp touch in high frequencies. Take a listen below.

Guitar 2

Finally, the third guitar layer consists of the Guitar Rig 5 Auto Rhythm preset, which consists of an auto filter (or auto-wah) that manages to give that crunchy touch. Take a listen below.

Guitar 3

Finally, there is an extra guitar that slides upwards at a break in the song. To recreate it I have simply used any preset with a delay with enough feedback and delay time to keep that slide on repeat. Hear it here.

Extra guitar

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VOCALS

The voices are without a doubt the element with the most strength and presence in the song. Steve often wraps lead vocals with a multitude of backing vocals that amplify the harmony and envelop the song's stereo.

To recreate the vocals, I've recorded 3 different takes that play simultaneously on 3 tracks as lead vocals, and added up to 3 backing vocal tracks that play at times. I used an effects chain that I always use on vocals, and created a couple of return channels with very short delay and very little reverb. Listen to a snippet of the voice below.

Vocals sound

A clear example of harmonization with choirs is when he pronounces the phrase "i bite my tongue / it's a bad habit". He then hears the lead vocal without backing vocals, and then as a third and fifth are added to the main melody.

Vocals without chorus

Vocals +3rd

Vocals +3rd +5th

In other parts, I have put a powerful delay to the choirs, to create surround effects. Listen to the following example (please don't laugh at my falsettos, I know they sound pathetic :b)

‍Back vocals

And listen to the same fragment with the main voice.

Vocals + Back Vocals

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SYNTHS

Only 1 synthesizer sound appears in the choruses, with a somewhat arcade sound and that from the outset already reminded me of the “Startup” factory preset from TAL-U-NO VST.

Taking that preset as a base, I modified some parameters such as sub-osc, freq and envelope until you get a sound similar to the original. It also carries a slight simple reverb from Ableton itself. Take a listen below.

Lead Synth

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BASS

The bass of the original song has a sound that stays low and barely stands out from the mix in the mid or high frequencies. I have chosen to record it by line with a Höfner and I have passed it through the Waves VST CLA Bass to enhance its sound and compress it.

Bass sound

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DRUMS

The drums consist of a straight rhythm in a loop, without the presence of fills or changes, something quite typical of Steve Lacy's first demos, where he bets more on the complexity of the harmonies of guitars, voices and choirs than the rhythmic complexity.

To recreate the drums I used the Dry Room preset from VST Addictive Drums 2, and I modified the snare and kick drum model to others with timbres more similar to those of the original song. Equalizing the elements a bit, and passing it through the Goodhertz VulfCompressor, the following sound is achieved.

Drums sound

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This has been all, I hope you liked it!

Thank you very much for reading and supporting me, don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel and tell me what you think about the video, see you in the next one!

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