Blackbird Blackbird Tells Platinum How He Made His New Album ‘Tangerine Sky’

June 12, 2014, 10:00pm

Blackbird Blackbird, aka the Hawaiian-born, Bay Area-based producer Mikey Maramag, is one of our favorite indie-dance artists of the moment. His style beautifully connects the dots between hypnotizing electronica, dreamy pop and profound complex melodies that will work both your mind and your dancing sneakers. While Blackbird (we’re on a first name basis) has been on Platinum’s radar for some time, his latest LP Tangerine Sky totally blew us away, and we knew we needed to know more about how he crafted this opus. Luckily, Blackbird is a nice guy, with a high-quality camera and a super cute dog named Brisket. Read below to see the various pieces of hardware Mikey used on various tracks on the LP and maybe you’ll be inspired to enter the studio yourself! The “sky” is the limit!

Dave Smith Prophet ’08

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The Prophet is my go-to synth for anything and everything really. It’s got a beautiful analogue warmth and some very precise knobs. You can hear it blossoming and billowing in the intros of “Love Unlimited” and “Feel It In My Bones,” or arpeggiating between reverberated kick drums in “Tangerine Sky.”

Used in the following Blackbird Blackbird songs: “Love Unlimited,” “Grow Old With Me,” “Tangerine Sky,” “Rare Candy,” “Darlin Dear,” “Feel It In My Bones.” Orange Crush 35LDX

Used in the following Blackbird Blackbird songs: “All,” “Happy With You,” “It’s a War,” “Darlin Dear,” “Tangerine Sky.”

Oberheim Matrix-6

This synth is often a bit tricky to program mostly due to the dreadful shortage of knobs and buttons, but if you spend some time tweaking the settings and adding some effects processing it can be truly powerful and it is a classic analogue synth. This is the synth I used the entire time on “There Is Nowhere.” The Matrix-6 has a lot to offer insofar as making soft chords or light textures and is a great polyphonic synth. I wish I could take it on tour with me, but it near weighs about fifty pounds and I’m way too lazy too lug it around!

Used in the following Blackbird Blackbird songs: “There is Nowhere,” “Beasts.” Fender American Standard Deluxe Telecaster Tangerine Sky

Used in the following Blackbird Blackbird songs: “It’s A War,” “All,” “Happy With You,” “Darlin Dear,” “Tangerine Sky,” “Love Unlimited,” “Feel It In My Bones.”

Full Setup: