On the song’s opening line, a woozy, manipulated ‘Padam’, Lostboy explains how it was achieved:
“It was pitch-shifted down an octave, so it's just Kylie’s vocal – or it actually might even be Ina's original lead vocal – pitched down and saturated again. It's got quite a lot of reverb on it and then it's pitched around throughout the track to fit each chord and becomes an instrument, in a way. The end of that phrase is chopped and used as a tonal note that shifts around on the snare and adds to the weird blending of instruments and the vocal.
"Then I used a sidechain effect – when you route a compressor to the kick,” he explains. “So every time the kick hits, it pushes the sound down, so it dips on every beat of the bar. That's on that synth, but it's also on the vocal throughout and it glues everything together in a pulsing way.”
Lostboy elaborates on how Kylie’s vocals were manipulated: “They're pretty heavily affected – there's the sidechain thing happening throughout and a lot of trickery with super long reverbs and automating them so that they cut quite harshly, so it'll be super open and then absolutely dry,” he says, consulting the session again on his DAW.
“The automation of the reverb send in the chorus is an eight second reverb, so super long, but it's just going on the one and the three and it fills up so much space in the track. It feels like part of the instrumental almost. Her lead vocal is quite heavily saturated – a bit crunchy – and it's also got a lot of widening effects on it.”
One of Lostboy’s go-to plugins, and one which played a crucial part in the making of Padam Padam, is Waves Audio’s Doubler (the other is Little AlterBoy by Soundtoys for pitch shifting).
“Waves’ Doubler is on the lead vocal in the chorus, which is pretty unconventional – and probably a mix engineer's nightmare – but that's doing the weird, wide, robotic vibe. It's basically acting as a chorus; it's pitching and delaying a vocal left and right from the lead vocal, so it's super tight still, but there is a little bit of subtle width there. It adds to the trippy vibe and it means you can get away with just one vocal as opposed to having Kylie do doubles. This is not what I would normally do – it's literally just shoved on before the compressor, the lead vocal, buss EQ,” he says.
“It's doing its effect, but then it's also being slammed through a Universal Audio 1176, so the compressor’s kicking up the little delay that the doubler is making and it adds more to the width of the vocal – just at the ends of the words. It won't be as obvious when she's singing through a word, but just right at the end, you hear it. It's weird to put it there before the compressor EQ and stuff,” he shrugs. “There aren't any rules though really. I think: just muck around until it sounds cool.”
On the Padamification of the internet, Lostboy has seen every meme going: “There was a petition to add it to the Oxford English Dictionary as well at one point, and people will say, 'That's so padam,’ which is so much fun. I love the meme where someone is picking up the phone and they say, ‘Padam?’ It's not the most creative meme, I understand that, but it's such a basic interaction that everyone does, and if that catches on, it's game over. I thought that was hilarious. I love all my memes equally,” he says diplomatically.
With another Kylie track in the works, is he feeling the pressure to produce another Padam Padam? “Not until you said that,” he laughs. “I try not to think about music like that because that's enough to drive anyone crazy. Padam was its own thing and it's lived its own life. The new stuff is so much fun as well, in its own way. We can't try and do Padam again, it just won't work. I'm just excited to watch Kylie continue to be an icon.”
Will Lostboy be watching Miss Minogue Padaming in person at BST Hyde Park in London this summer?
“If I'm not in L.A., I'll definitely be there. I'd love to see her on home soil. We'll have to get on the Rose in Kylie's honour!”