Abel Makkonen Tesfaye is the person behind The Weeknd. Singer, rapper, songwriter, record producer and actor, awarded four Grammys and 20 Billboard Music Awards among many others. His music explores romance, escapism and melancholy through a fusion of Disco, Synth Pop, Synth Wave and R&B.

In this article I am going to deconstruct a song from his third album Starboy called 'Die For You' . This album was published in 2016, but recently, in March 2023, Ariana Grande published a remix of 'Die For you' that has reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

It is a totally electronic synth pop ballad song with a multitude of synthesizers and vocal production.

Listen to my remake below, and continue reading below as I recreated each sound. You can see the chords of the song in the video.

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SYNTHS: How to sound like The Weeknd

To recreate each synth sound on Die For You, I've started with the synth bass. It is a slow line that plays the tonics of each chord and jumps between low and high octaves. I have divided this synth bass sound into three layers, the first one is made up of the following configuration with the Arturia Mini V, with a very round sound focused on the sub-bass. Listen here.

‍Mini V Bass Synth 1

Secondly, I have used the Jup-8 V with the following configuration to achieve a sound that complements the treble. I've added some chorus/flanger and reverb to give the sound more space.

‍Jup-8 V Bass Synth 2

Finally for the third layer I have used the TAL-U-NO LX with the following parameters. This sound is a middle ground between the two previous ones, with more presence in the mid-low frequencies. I have activated the two chorus buttons to give that stereo surround to the sound. Listen below.

‍TAL-U-NO LX Bass Synth 3

Finally, listen to the three sounds above simultaneously.

3 Bass Synth layers Together

As an extra addition, in the chorus of the song I put a fourth synth bass focused solely on enhancing the sub-bass frequencies.

Sub-Bass Synth

The next thing was to add a pad with the chords of the song. For this I used the CZ V from Arturia. It is worth noting the multimode filter effect that makes the sound much softer and softer. Listen here.

CZ V Pad

Later in the verse, complementing the previous pad I've added a string sound with the Solina V. Listen to the two sounds simultaneously here.

Pad and Strings

In the intro of the song, there are some high-pitched vocals, which I have recreated with my voice (explained later), but I have also complemented it with a flute-sounding synth using Arturia's Mellotron V.

Mellotron V Flute

Moving on to the chorus, I've added a key sound with the Jup-8 V that repeats the chords to enhance the choruses with the following setup.

‍Jup-8 V Keys

In the chorus there is also a lead synth that I have recreated with two layers, with the TAL-U-NO LX and with the DX7, with a variation of a preset that I already used in my own song that I deconstruct in this other article. Listen to both below.

‍Lead Synths

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DRUMS Samples

The drum-kit style for this song has a soft-electronic style. I've been trying numerous samples until I've come up with a similar sounding kick and snare. In addition to the hi-hat, a shaker also sounds in the chorus. Listen to the entire drum-kit below. Remember that you can download all these samples and synth presets on on my patreon!

Drums Sound

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VOCALS: The weeknd vocal production

The song Die For You is a synth pop ballad where the voice has almost all the leading role, so its production is very important.

Lately I usually use a specific effects chain for my voice that is made up of Autotune Pro 8 from Antares with a slight adjustment without losing the natural character of the voice, the Virtual Mix Rack where a microphone emulation, an EQ and a compressor are grouped, the FabFilter Pro-DS to correct the pronunciation of some "s", and the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 to give a final EQ to each voice. To this chain of effects I have added the CLA Vocals from Waves to give it the final punch.

In addition, the sends are very important. The voice track has 3 sends, one to the Waves SuperTap for stereo width, another to the Waves H-Delay with a ping-pong delay and finally the ValhallaVintageVerb for the reverb.

Listen below to the voices without the sends and with the sends, do you notice the improvement?

Vocals without FX sends

Vocals with FX sends

In the chorus I have added another track with the same effects to give it more power, and a third track with the VocalSynth 2 Vocoder with the following parameters and with the chords in MIDI. Listen to the Vocoder solo vocal, then all three layers together.

Vocoder Sound

All Vocals

Finally, in the intro there are some ad libs that I made by recording some vocals and raising the pitch in the Antares AutotunePro to higher with the transpose +12 and the throat at 68. Listen to these ad-libs below.

‍Ad-libs

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That has been all! I hope it has been useful to you.

Remember that you can support my work on Patreon and download all the additional content.

Don't forget to watch the remake on youtube! See you in the next one!

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