Replay Heaven has worked on several Kanye West tracks over the years, but you never know if they are going to make it to release as it is quite common for Kanye to totally overhaul an album, even very close to release date, swapping round which tracks make it onto the album. However for 2018’s “Ye”, an album which itself was made in a flurry of activity very near to release, the Replay Heaven team of Hal Ritson, Richard Adlam and guitarist Rob Harris, on preparing instrumental parts for the track “Ghost Town”. Though the track is based on a sample (Vanilla Fudge’s version of “Take me for a little while”) by getting the sample replay team to super accurately recreate all the instrumental parts of the sample, with authentic vintage equipment, Kanye was able to be much more free creatively than by just using the sample alone. For example Adlam’s drumming is able to continue through the track sounding the same as the sample while new original elements are layered in the music in the place of the rest of the sample, or having Hal Ritson’s hammond playing behind the lead vocals, without the original Vanilla Fudge vocal remaining.

On the down side this might be the worst promo video I’ve ever seen (I have a musician’s over sensitivity to models miming instruments badly!). On plus side Kryder makes a banging club track and we did a good job of recreating the Dire Straits elements super accurately. Lot’s of great attention to detail on the research here as usual from using the exact same microphones and preamps used for the ‘knopfler’ and ‘sting’ voices, to downloading the correct DX1 presets, and of course capturing the unmistakable and unique guitar sound on this track.

Replay Heaven provided the sample replay for this Michael Jackson rework of P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing) by John Gibbons

A house classic beautifully re-imagined here, with vocals from Replay Heaven.

We’ve done loads of work on the forthcoming excellent High Contrast album. We recreated the chorus vocal and 80s instrument elements for this new one.

One of our favorite and most extensive sample replays for a while here – recreating the entirety of Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting as sampled and reworked for the clubs by Just Us (formerly under the title “Every time it rains”). This sample replay required us to replay all 5 minutes of the sample involving an iconic vocal performance, live strings, Fairlight CMI samples and eventually a full choir, all recorded on vintage 80s equipment! All good fun.

Some of the most heartfelt and characterful recordings ever made are Alan Lomax’s legendary 20th century field recordings of folks and roots music from across america. For client Rene Amesz & Ferreck Dawn we recreated 2 of the prison blues songs they sampled. We faithfully use early 20th century vintage recording equipment to ensure the retro sound so critical to the samples is maintained.

Great collab between legends Coldcut and Roots Manuva with Replay Heaven team doing all the retro orchestra and celeste elements.

We did the sample replay of this classic Rodriguez anthem.

Rat Boy’s amazing debut album is built on a massive mashup of diverse samples, bringing back the memory of the golden early days of sampling like Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. Doing this legally is a massive minefield, but it’s all under control, with Replay Heaven recreating many classic sounds in the background!

We recreated this classic 80s track – I Won’t Let You Down by pHD for Armand Van Helden. By having a sample replay rather than using the original sample, Armand has access to the stems and so can use the vocal without the backing and the backing without the vocals etc at different points in the track.

We did this sample replay of Rozalla Everybody’s Free for Chase and Status:

A lovely Aretha Franklin vocal sample replay here we did for High Contrast

Marvin Gaye vocals have been very in vogue for the past few years and we have several vocalists who are great at Marvin impressions, and a collection of original 1960s valve equipment to capture the vintage sonics beautifully. Here are 2 recent Marvin Gaye sample replays we have done recently with different singers.

This job was one of the most fun ones we have ever done, with Replay Heaven working on the Sample Replay’s for the funk band, brass, sax and deep vocals!

Vocals provided by Replay Heaven for another Philip George UK smash hit.

Sample replay by Replay Heaven. Artist supplied their own chicken though.

Replay Heaven providing the Gypsy Woman backing replay for this hit.

Replay Heaven recreated the Biggie rap elements for the track.

Replay Heaven recreated the Jacksons parts for this dance smash.