Inner City - Big Fun - How Was It Made?

A deep dive into Inner City's classic - Big Fun
More info below:

Further reading:

[sandwich-breath]

One of my favourite tracks of all time. It still holds up after all these years and is an absolute jam.

[davidhayes]

I bought some old ex-hire musical equipment in London many years ago and amongst the pieces were an Ensoniq Mirage with disks that had 'Big Fun' and 'Good life' written on them. It contained the samples of the sounds you mention. There was also a sequencer, a Korg SQD-1 with disks of the same titles and another set of disks that said 'Strings' and 'Nude' and 'Dance' (These I discovered were tracks by Derrick May). So I think a lot of the sounds you mention other than the 'Lately Bass' from the DX-100 came from the Mirage.

[renattorodriguez]

Hearing the intro of this song just gives me goose bumps. OMG back in the 80's when you hear this song playing you know is time to get on the dance floor if you're still not dancing. I' am 55 now but OMG I so want to go back in time 35 years ago.

[suadcokljat]

Today we use 10 plugins to get 12bit sampler grit. In the 90ties we used 10 outboard boxes to make 12bit sampler sound hi-fi 😂

[doktorwer]

there needs to be a person at youtube in charge of keeping these videos unmolested by "rights owners"

[X-]

He used a Ensoniq Mirage sampler which is most likely where the strings came from, The voice/synth parts in Good Life comes from one of the disk that came with the Mirage sampler

[linus]

This is such useful and important work. Chronicling music history and production techniques and transferring them to today. Thank you!

[Maxskinen]

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the fact that so many TAL VSTs are free <3

[itimmy]

We don't really need a crowd to have a party, just a funky beat and you to get it start it all....we'll dance the night away!🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳🥳

[davidyates]

It's amazing how much effort is required to get close to the sound of those old hardware synths and samplers. This was a really good emulation Guy!

[erroneousbosh]

As a few others have said, the strings were definitely an Ensoniq Mirage factory disk. I don't know if you've ever used one, but they were a bit odd - each disk had three banks of sounds, each with an "Upper" and "Lower" half because the whopping 128kB sample RAM was segmented into two 64kB chunks. There's a very profound technical reason why, which mostly comes down to "cheating" the hardware limitations of the voice chip. Each of these banks, all six, could have four Programs which just set how the samples were laid out (kind of) and the envelope, filter, and LFO settings.

Anyway, the envelope responded to Note On and Note Off velocity, and on the strings disk (factory disk SD101, Piano, Choir, and Strings IIRC) playing softly gave a gentle attack and releasing quickly gave a sharp release. You can actually play it in by hand on a real Mirage with a bit of practice and absolutely nail the sound.

Given that they were 8-bit machines with very low sample rate - the strings samples are at about 25kHz - they sound quite bright and clear, and really cut through a mix. It's a flavour that not everyone will like, for sure, but it really does stand out.

[christianvictor]

Banger job! Recreating this favourite of mine accompanied my whole career as a bedroom producer.

[TheSlowBallBoy]

Great vid! I remember loving this track and working to "reproduce" the sound as a teenager in the 90's, with limited analog gear and an Atari ST! A sampler was out of my budget...now I realise that was the answer! But I still had (big) fun trying 🙂

[Dandroid]

Even as a scrawny teenager, I can remember being blown away by Inner I heard Ahnongay, and I realised Kevin Saunderson is a bona fide genius! 🙂

[gordonbennett]

You didn't mention my favourite part of the track when the vocal goes all echoey and distant near the end.Turns what the masses in UK saw as a pop tune(think it got to number 1 in charts)but those in the know as a genius production.
Got to be in my all time top ten.

[humanerror]

How can this track be 35 years old???? Loved it then and love it now.
Please do Plastic Dream - JayDee.
🙂

[emulus]

I've always loved this track. And definitely always preferred it to Good Life which every compilation album seems to prefer

[BrendanPramjee]

Best house track of all time? Absolute banger

[ricardo.pedraza]

He has another track that got radio play here called Good Life, very similar to this one and came out about the same time I thought. It sounds like it even has the same sampled chord and for sure the same 909. I think I read somewhere he was even on Top of the Pops! He's got a lot of other classic tracks, he's definitely one of the pioneers. Great job recreating it! Keep up the great work!

[djmastergroove]

This is quality! I've always loved that big fun stab sample. It's a proper warehouse/rave classic. Huge respect to Kevin Saunderson a true pioneer in the scene. And thank you for the sample pack! You definitely have a new sub.