The choir sound on Blue Monday is one of those ear-catching moments in music, a sound that like a vocoder is both human, and inhuman in equal measure. And while it is relatively common knowledge that New Order sampled pioneers Kraftwerk, have you ever wondered in turn what Kraftwerk used to make that other-wordly choir?

In the video I explore the sampling rabbit hole behind this sound, and followed the rabbit as far as it can go. And I think, in the process, discovered some unpublished facts behind it.

The plugins and tools shown in the video are all widely available too, so if you want to follow along, or just create your own virtual 1983 studio, check out the links below!

‘That’ Choir Sound: G-Force M-Tron Pro Complete

The main thing here is GForce’s excellent M-Tron Pro Complete which contains ‘that’ choir, amongst so many other legendary well known sounds from the Mellotron, Optigan, Orchestron and Chamberlin, and especially lesser known sounds too, it’s an incredible library and instantly evocative and full of character.

Additional Featured Plugins

Chords and ‘Squidgy sound’: u-he Repro

The Sequential Prophet 5 was a staple in the New Order studio and I used u-he’s Repro plugin to recreate the squidgy intro sound, although I don’t show it in the video, the Prophet 5 makes those brassy stabs you’ll know from later in the track. The Prophet was a legend (and was used by Kraftwerk too!), this is about as good as a recreation as you can get in the software realm. Check out u-He Repro here.

Bass: u-he Diva

Diva is perhaps the most famous of all u-he plugins with good reason. It’s able to sound like so many different synths, and can do a very good impression of a Moog Source, which was the instrument used on Blue Monday. Just ensure you use the 24dB Ladder filter model and keep the oscillator count to two! Check out u-He Diva here.

Strings & Samples: Arturia Solina V & Emulator II

You need to ‘sample’ your choir into an E-MU Emulator sampler to shift the chord a semitone up (as well as impart further grit), and Arturia’s Emulator II is the closest we have available. It’s available as part of V-Collection 8, which also includes Solina V and so so many other fantastic plugins. It’s like having the keys to the most tricked-out 80’s keyboard studio you could imagine, available day and night! Check out V-Collection 8 here.

DAW: Ableton Live

I used a beta version of Ableton Live 11 Suite in the video, notably it’s the beta that runs natively on Apple Silicon Mac M1’s – which is working beautifully and there’s so much headroom to run plugins on even the basic M1 chip! Suite is the most comprehensive version of the award-winning digital audio workstation, and includes so many great extras, it’s a very friendly DAW for getting into music production. Check out Ableton Live versions here.

Keyboard: Arturia KeyStep 37

I love the Arturia KeyStep range, and the KeyStep 37 gives you the most amount of keys available, along with Chord mode, strum mode and best of all, it can constrain the keyboard to scales so you can’t play a duff note! Very useful in my case, but I must say, one of the most amazing things about Blue Monday is the parts are so simple, it’s incredibly easy to play, and yet despite that remains just one of the most satisfying and catchy tunes. Music doesn’t need to be complicated to be good! Check out the Arturia KeyStep 37 here.