Here's another one of the good 'ol "how to" articles, this one from Keyboard Magazine. If your a Prodigy fan, then I'm sure you'll like it. It's not ground breaking, but interesting none the less.

Breaking Down the Beats

The main drum groove for "Girls" is a tough, modern take on the classic electro beat in the intro. The kick is beefy and tight, while the snare has a strong TR-808 flavor. Both are heavily compressed, with a touch of soft clipping or overdrive.

As the track progresses, there are subtle variations in both the groove and each drum’s mix placement. The snare locks down two and four, but the kick drum and hi-hats skitter around, lending an improvisational feel without distracting from the overall vibe.

As for processing, during several transitions, the snare effects change up for added emphasis. In one break, it’s uncompressed and bone dry. In another, it’s meaty with a touch of reverb. By doing this, Howlett keeps the drums in constant motion while subtly changing the character of the drum kit to emphasize each of the song’s sections.

Here is a view of the drum groove.

Fakin’ the Funk

In keeping with the electro vibe, the synth hook in "Girl"” is a greasy, funked-out lead punctuated with blasts of vibrato, à la Prince and Parliament-Funkadelic. Since Howlett relied heavily on Reason for composing many of the tracks on Always Outnumbered, I turned to the Reason soft synth Subtractor to recreate the lead. While the original has a more layered texture — Howlett replaced all the Reason synths with hardware synths — the replica captures the essential character of the sound.

This patch is straightforward to build. Check out Figure 1, then start with the Subtractor init patch, then turn on oscillator 2, and set its waveform to square and octave to 3. Adjust the value of the oscillator mix to 2 so that the slightest whisper of the second oscillator peeks through, adding a touch of lows. From there, lower the cutoff frequency to about 40% and add some filter envelope modulation for a dollop of brassy quack. After that, adding a tiny bit of pitch modulation will give the attack more flavor.

The real secret lies in the LFO vibrato, which is controlled via the mod wheel. Using the triangle wave on LFO 1, set the rate to 76, the amount to zero, and adjust the LFO section of the mod wheel routing so that its knob is at 2 o'clock. Now, when playing the D#-G#-A#-C riff, slam the mod wheel to maximum when hitting the C, then immediately reduce it back to zero for the rest of the riff. Once you get the hang of this playing style, you’ll probably have a hankering to revisit all those old funk records collecting dust in your garage.

Here’s a screen shot of the Subtractor settings for the funky lead synth in “Girls,” from The Prodigy’s Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.

Distress the Vocals

Another signature element in this track is the processing on the Ping Pong Bitches’ sassy rap. For starters, the lyrics are spoken in a fairly soft voice and are close miked. The basic track is then strongly compressed to give the vocal that upfront presence. After the compression, a classic overdrive effect is applied to deliver that nasty crunch. When using overdrive on vocals, start off gently and increase it until the voice is grungy but not swimming in a sea of distortion. Too much drive and that sexy voice could turn into Ministry-esque bombast, which isn’t really the effect we’re going for here.

For a variation, try inserting an amp simulator instead of a standard overdrive plug-in. Generally, amp models have a much more flexible set of parameters and an organic texture that imparts warmth as well as cojones. As an aside, I’ve become quite fond of placing a stereo-enhanced amp simulator on one of my effects sends, then routing select instruments and voices to the simulator for subtle warmth and presence. When using an amp model on your sends, exercise restraint and only use it on a handful of tracks in a mix, as a little goes a long way.

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