Areia Remix #19 | T-ara - Like The First Time
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Download this remix: http://www.areiacreations.com/t-ara-like-the-first-time-areia-remix-19/
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Remastered from my old account after an epic 240,000 views!
Originally uploaded December 2009. Enjoy
Original description:
When back in 1995 I was in middle-high school in a part of Europe that 150+ bpm hardtrance was our breakfast, I remember myself dancing alone in my room to yet another release from SPV. Rave Mission 5 was far my favourite and I can actually write down in paper with ears and eyes closed the exact sequence of every tune in there.
When I first listened to T-ara's "Like the first time" I was impressed by the background pad/lead and the progressive retro bass sequence (probably that goes even back to '80s). I knew the tempo was pretty fast so I had two options: either to make it slower and go for a trance/dance track or I could keep the tempo unaltered and go for a hardtrance one. Kara's "Wanna" was a very similar case but the amount of effort I was putting back then was tiny compared to now.
So I've loaded my default template project, threw the girls in and added some beat. I was trying to find some interesting bass but anything with an appergio in wouldn't sound that good. Then I've said "hey hold on, this is retro anyway", so I didn't need to over-engineer it. As soon as I threw in an aggresive bass with an upbeat groove (that's the simplest bassline you can get - just play a note between each beat) I was officially back in '90s. Then I've added some gated leads and voice pads (it was a must back then - just listen to "Alien Factory - Anytime Anyplace" at around 1:50 and you'll know immediately what I mean) and that sounded massive. It was not just a very dancable hardtrance track but also it had a much higher sound quality compared to then since the advances in synthesizers and audio technology since the 90s has been huge. And of course you couldn't have the sweet T-ara voices back then; at most you would get some cheap futuristic voices saying something crazy.
Then the automation came in. The low-pass filters slowly letting the sounds' higher frequencies jump out are exactly what is making this track exciting and give a feeling of hope and progression (that's exactly why my generation was listening to this music - we were trying to run away from the dark '80s past in search for hope). I overused that technique in the teaser exactly because it gives a feeling of hope; that something is coming up.
The girls are supercute throughout the video and I find them very sexy at the scenes with the black dresses. The way they slowly move to the melody just kills my heartbeat every single time. To the untrained western eyes the video might just seem a bit cute or even silly. "It's just some girls with short black dresses trying to look good, so what?" my overexposed-to-western-sexiness friends back home would say. But there is a huge difference here and this difference is very representative of the gap between the eastern and western stereotypes. It's not okay to express too directly in Korea and that leaves you with only one acceptable weapon to tease your target: charm. And this is exactly what these girls are doing with their moves in this video - I'm not reffering to the cute scenes. Whoever did the choreography and the dresses knew very well what they were doing. And the girls of course have done an excellent job at being charming. When I watch some sexy western video clip (let's say Buttons from Pussycat Dolls) it hits my eyes. But this charm here hits me straight in my heart - I feel like wanting to hug the girls not.... Perhaps that's the reason I'm into asian pop in the first place.
Visit our website for more than #100 kpop remixes! http://www.areiacreations.com
Remastered from my old account after an epic 240,000 views!
Originally uploaded December 2009. Enjoy
Original description:
When back in 1995 I was in middle-high school in a part of Europe that 150+ bpm hardtrance was our breakfast, I remember myself dancing alone in my room to yet another release from SPV. Rave Mission 5 was far my favourite and I can actually write down in paper with ears and eyes closed the exact sequence of every tune in there.
When I first listened to T-ara's "Like the first time" I was impressed by the background pad/lead and the progressive retro bass sequence (probably that goes even back to '80s). I knew the tempo was pretty fast so I had two options: either to make it slower and go for a trance/dance track or I could keep the tempo unaltered and go for a hardtrance one. Kara's "Wanna" was a very similar case but the amount of effort I was putting back then was tiny compared to now.
So I've loaded my default template project, threw the girls in and added some beat. I was trying to find some interesting bass but anything with an appergio in wouldn't sound that good. Then I've said "hey hold on, this is retro anyway", so I didn't need to over-engineer it. As soon as I threw in an aggresive bass with an upbeat groove (that's the simplest bassline you can get - just play a note between each beat) I was officially back in '90s. Then I've added some gated leads and voice pads (it was a must back then - just listen to "Alien Factory - Anytime Anyplace" at around 1:50 and you'll know immediately what I mean) and that sounded massive. It was not just a very dancable hardtrance track but also it had a much higher sound quality compared to then since the advances in synthesizers and audio technology since the 90s has been huge. And of course you couldn't have the sweet T-ara voices back then; at most you would get some cheap futuristic voices saying something crazy.
Then the automation came in. The low-pass filters slowly letting the sounds' higher frequencies jump out are exactly what is making this track exciting and give a feeling of hope and progression (that's exactly why my generation was listening to this music - we were trying to run away from the dark '80s past in search for hope). I overused that technique in the teaser exactly because it gives a feeling of hope; that something is coming up.
The girls are supercute throughout the video and I find them very sexy at the scenes with the black dresses. The way they slowly move to the melody just kills my heartbeat every single time. To the untrained western eyes the video might just seem a bit cute or even silly. "It's just some girls with short black dresses trying to look good, so what?" my overexposed-to-western-sexiness friends back home would say. But there is a huge difference here and this difference is very representative of the gap between the eastern and western stereotypes. It's not okay to express too directly in Korea and that leaves you with only one acceptable weapon to tease your target: charm. And this is exactly what these girls are doing with their moves in this video - I'm not reffering to the cute scenes. Whoever did the choreography and the dresses knew very well what they were doing. And the girls of course have done an excellent job at being charming. When I watch some sexy western video clip (let's say Buttons from Pussycat Dolls) it hits my eyes. But this charm here hits me straight in my heart - I feel like wanting to hug the girls not.... Perhaps that's the reason I'm into asian pop in the first place.