Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

[JeffLittle]

Always DUG this song... loved the Shakuhachi - and revelled in Weird Al's usage in Waffle King! Secret World Tour probably has my favorite live rendition. Can't wait to work more closely with it. (And the bass is incredible... obviously.)

[strangeless]

I've spent about 3 hours playing with this track in the super-cool mixer tool. The song has come alive for me in a way that it never did during the thousand or so times I heard it on MTV and VH1 during my younger days. Thanks so much to Peter and everyone who had a part in putting this together.

I want to say: taken out of the context of the video, which as we all know features a goofy, smiling Peter Gabriel and the innovative animation, the song has a much more complex emotional tone than I had ever suspected. I especially enjoyed muting the drum and horn tracks and cranking up the Prophet-5. The rawness of the synth and Peter's vocal blend scarily well in several places. With the Prophet hotter in the mix the wail gets almost unbearable at points, but it completely changes the vibe of the song!

I'm a convert... all music should be released in this format! Oh, and if there's ANY chance of it happening if I mention it here.... RED RAIN MULTI-TRACK PLEASE!!!

[Brady]

That mixing tool was simple, but pretty fun to play around with. Never really noticed that haunting Prophet 5. This song reminds me of being a kid and playing outside in the summer.

[stepanpruch]

When I played with the levels I was floored by the guitar tracks. They're so delicate and intricate. Somehow they disappear behind the horns and thick base line. If you have a chance, crank up that track and make everything else quiet. So impressive.

I looked up who was playing guitar on the track and of course... Daniel Lanois.

[MadSchnauzer]

This song, in particular the video, really caught my attention when I was a kid. The animation captivated me, the interplay of the instruments began my education of thinking about music "in parts", and the lyrics, well, were my first introduction to suggestive intents in music.

[LaraWhitten]

Mini Schnauzers are the best! I used one in a short film I made and she was just...so professional and the best actress:)

[lfz]

This mixing tool put together with a song like this is really amazing. So many layers to the song, it just blows my mind and makes me wonder how someone could ever cram so many instruments and harmonies in a song and make it work!

[Ana_Karolina_Ca]

I muted all the other components and just left the Bass on so rich and It's so amazing all the layers to this song.

[vitormiranda]

Amazing! something i tried and turned into a discover for me is to pan guitars and piano to opposite left and right positions... it increases the volume so misteriously...!!

Amazing initiative. looking forward for the next modules!!

[rosy]

Does the mixing tool not work with Firefox at all? It just says "Loading Audio Assets...".

[ivanodintsoff]

Wow, Sledgehammer on that mixing tool is awesome! Loved to listen it in detail. PG voice alone is awesome too!

[Nehemiah]

I got it to load in Firefox but the mixing doesn't work quite right. Moving sliders basically ended up sliding the entire app until I released the mouse. It adjusted the track volume properly but was too distracting so I just launched it in Chrome and haven't had any issues.

[Nehemiah]

This definitely made me listen to Sledgehammer with new ears. Great song that I've been familiar with for a long time, but a close listening with quality headphones revealed a masterful use of sonic space. There are so many layers to this song, but it's engineered so well that they fit together beautifully without sounding cluttered.

[nicola]

I think that single track doesn't sound wonderful but the song sound wonderful.
I think this is the secret, every instrument have his frequency range. What do you think?

Also guitars and bass don't have perfect metronomic time, but the songs sound with superb groove!

Very Very interesting...

Fantastic SO album

[alexruthmann]

Firefox works intermittently. Please use Google Chrome if you can; our interface is optimized for Google Chrome.

[Alan]

It's amazing how rough some of the individual tracks sound on thier own but how they all work together so well. I noticed how the timing varies a lot so this must be before playing to a click track.

I wish it did'nt have so much reverb and that we could use effects on it to see how the feel of the song could be changed, also I never realised how sexual the lyrics are. It puts a whole new mood to the song, quite dark!

[glen_schneider]

@Alan I totally agree, it really surprised me to hear what the instruments are actually doing in there. Especially in those descending quarter notes during the chorus, I didn't really hear the harmony before and now that I can solo out the piano and the prophet a bit I can hear there's some real interesting stuff going on!

Also, those echonest click track plots are awesome.

[alexruthmann]

The musicians tracked to a Linn Drum. According to Kevin Killen, the Linn drum demo tracks were always in the headphones for tracking and overdubs.

[jkade]

The mixer is amazing. How long will it be left online?

Mixing it down to just guitar, bass, drum, and vocals was quite an experience. Playing with mostly synth and horns now.

[alexruthmann]

We are licensed to use the stems through the end of 2015.