Recreating the sound of Cocteau Twins 🎵 guitars, synth, keys & beats

Cocteau Twins created some of the most remarkable sounds and melodies of the 80s. And I can't count how often you guys asked me to make a video about the recreation of their guitar sound. Well, I also focussed a bit more on the sounds of their drum machine rhythms as I think these are essential in their music. I love to keep thing as simple as possible and hope that my videos help you guys to better understand the music of the 80s and 90s. But more importantly I hope to inspire you finding new ways to create similar sounds or even new ones. This video was sponsored by Skillshare. The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/shoegazer04211%E2%80%8B

Robin is on record talking about how he loved to run drum machines through guitar amps to dirty them up and give them some punch, something that left engineers that they worked with shaking their heads and saying “you can’t do that.. 🤣”. This pushed Robin to begin producing the bands music himself because he wasn’t worried about convention or limiting himself to doing things the supposed “right way”. Many of his guitars are multi-tracked layered and recorded direct right into the board as he has spoken about doing in various interviews. Cocteau Twins aren’t just “a dreampop band”, they are THE dreampop band that literally wrote the blueprint that every dreampop, shoegaze and post rock band has borrowed from directly or indirectly since. Heck the “ambient guitarist” thing that is huge on YouTube as well as the whole “worship guitar” thing can be traced back to Guthrie as well though many of them don’t even realize it.

I really hope this inspires a whole bunch of cocteau twins fans to start bands!! <3

been listening to Cocteau Twins since ~1985 so this was an absolute pleasure to watch and to listen to.

how beautiful is the sound of cocteau twins, it is definitely my favorite band

The drums sounds in Lorelei comes originally from When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin (via the drum machine). The Art of Noise used them a lot too. Countless other artists used an entire sampled bar of it.

The bells from Lorelie are actually the preset bells from the DX7, you can easily get them with the dexed vst or from the Arturial V collection! Great video :)

Yes! Garlands has got to be my favorite Cocteau Twins record! I much prefer the 808 era drums and love the noisiness of this release. Thanks for digging in to this great band.

Kenneth Shields

Early Cocteau Twins records are very inspiring to me and some of my favorite records ever. Thanks for sharing. Blind dumb deaf is probably my favorite Cocteau Twins song along with The Spangle Maker, Millimillenary, Sugar Hiccup so many good ones hard to narrow down. Will Heggie and Simon’s bass and Robin’s guitar and Elizabeth’s unique vocals went together perfectly. Their recording process, song writing, the atmosphere created, beautiful soundscapes very unique.

Not 100% sure but I think the piano sound on Lorelei (and other CT songs like Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops) is the classic bell sound preset from the Yamaha dx7 FM synth, also used on This Mortal Coil and a lot of 80's pop hits singles

For my favorite era of coctea twins (four-calendar cafe) I’ve found Roland r8 or boss dr660 drum machines have the tight kit I more so associate with cocteau twins. Alesis sr16 has some good sounds too for snare and kick for anyone wondering

You nailed the sound so perfectly, nice job

This just made my day. Thanks a lot!

The amount of work this video has is insane!! Congrats bro, you got no idea of how many new things someone can learn here

Ok wow, this is exactly what I've been looking for on YouTube. Perfectly captured and explained. Thank you!!!

your channel is much appreciated man

This is so perfect! I automatically started singing along with the lyrics, even though I have no idea what they are! "Bells and blues and booze and begs and boo bell bennn....". I love doing it!

This was illuminating, indeed. What I'd like to see is a great CTs detective like you taking apart Victorialand or Blue Bell Noll, especially the V-land "acoustic" guitars.

Robin's tried and true Swiss Army knife in the studio was always the Roland SDD-320, which is why a Boss DC-2, or especially a DC-2W which HAS an SDD-320 mode on it, is very helpful for the tone. I have a DC-3 Digital Dimension that was supposed to be an improvement, but is more of a high-band chorus but it makes it nice and floaty when mixed in with an analogue chorus. But the Roland Rack mount was his trick, big time, but you probably already see that from the website! I also have a couple of old Guitar Player magazines that talk about his playing, where he mentions them using MIDI to ensure that all of the guitars have their effects change at the right time for the right songs, etc, but that he would always have some pedals that he would plug in every night so he could just have some fun with his tone every night and make it different nightly live.