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Rosalía - Como Un G

Sep 2022

Rosalía is the main character in the first tidal wave of Spanish international musicians of the 21st century. Rosalía mixes traditional flamenco with the copla and with modern styles such as pop, trap, hip hop, electronic music and experimental music, and can be categorized as new flamenco, flamenco-pop, flamenco-trap, pop. experimental, worldbeat and electronic music.

Rosalía gained worldwide recognition with her second album 'El Mal Querer', and has toured the world, covered billboards and magazines, and collaborated with stars like J Balvin, James Blake and the Weeknd.

Her recently released 3th album, MOTOMAMI, s packed with references to the genres in which she dabbles, among his many names are Willie Colón, Fania Records, the reggaeton duo Plan B and her friend Frank Ocean (I also did several remakes of him here!), with whom she's collaborated on music not yet released.

rosalia

The song that I deconstruct below is the 13th cut of the MOTOMAMI album. 'Como Un G' is a ballad, where the clear protagonist is his voice. However, this time I wanted to try something different with a more empty and subtle theme, where a piano accompanies the entire theme along with touches of synth bass. In some parts, I've turned up the volume on the original song so you can see how my remake and the song meld together perfectly. And why deny it, I also missed Rosalía's incredible voice. Listen to it below!

The structure and chords of the song are as follows, and the tempo is 67 BPM.

rosalia como un g chords

SYNTHS

The song is based on a nostalgic piano that is maintained throughout the song. To recreate it I've used Arturia's VST Piano V and put it through Goodhertz's VulfCompressor to give it more body, and through RC-20 Retro Color to give it a bit of grain, some reverb and a bit of vibrato to give it that worn and melancholy touch. Listen below to the difference between the Piano with and without the RC-20 Retro Color, so you can notice all the personality that this effect brings to the piano.

rosalia como un g piano
rosalia como un g retro color rc-20

Piano without RC-20 Retro Color effect

Piano with RC-20 Retro Color effect

‍In the middle of the first verse, a synth begins to appear, filling in the low frequencies and finally expanding into the chorus. This synth bass has a chorus that expands the bass throughout the stereo, as it happens for example in many songs by Tyler, the Creator. To recreate it I have used the VST TAL-U-NO with the following configuration, without any other effect. Hear it here.

rosalia como un g synth bass 1

Synth Bass 1

Just before reaching the second chorus, there is a short line of another synth bass with a more trap-genre sound, which I have recreated with the Arturia Mini V.

rosalia como un g mini arturia

Synth Bass 2

In the second chorus, the same synth bass from the first chorus is joined by two more new layers of synthesizers that make the sound denser. The first one is a pad-strings sound that I have recreated again with the TAL-U-NO with the following configuration. Hear it here.

rosalia como un g tal-u-no

Pad second chorus

I have recreated the second layer with a Mellotron to give a more lofi touch to the whole. Below you can hear this Mellotron, and all 3 layers at once.

rosalia como un g mellotron

Mellotron

Synth Bass + Pad + Mellotron

Finally, one of my favorite details appears in the outro, which consists of some keys with a dreamy touch of reverb, which I have recreated with the DX7 and with the ValhallaVintageVerb reverb with the following settings. Hear the difference between clean and with reverb sound below.

rosalia como un g dx7
rosalia como un g reverb

DX7 Piano Lead without Valhalla reverb

DX7 Piano Lead with Valhalla reverb

This has been all for this time! There has been a shorter article, since it is the first time that I choose a song in which there is no guitar, bass or drums (recreating the voice was not within my reach either :p). So if you've been left wanting more, the next remake is coming soon!

Remember that you can download all the synth presets I describe in this article and all the tracks separately on my Patreon.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting me, don't forget subscribe to my youtube channel and tell me what you think of the video, see you in the next one!

David Alonso patreonthanks for reading!

If you liked it, or if you want to download the Ableton Projects with the
plugins used and all the tracks & midi files by one click, check out my Patreon page!

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