Producing “Orange Juice” - Katsina

Orange Juice began life 3 years before being introduced to Katsina. It never found a place in the previous band so myself, Abi Hall and Ashly Young brought the song forward and introduced it to our neo-soul jazz project Katsina. Fin, our drummer, instantly took to the song and together we gave it a brand new lease of life.

After integrating the song into our live set, we decided it was only fitting for Orange Juice to be our debut single. We took to the studio armed with a guide track and set out to emphasise what makes our band unique. We recorded the track entirely at Hybrid3.

Production started with the drums, laying down a solid foundation for us to construct the rest of the song. Fin’s experimentation with the drum kit led to a unique drum style that featured on this recording from incorporating jazz elements to a varied and dynamic cymbal choice to really accent the different phases of the tune.

Following this, I tracked the bass parts, with my Ibanez Sr300, into a Darkglass AO900 amp. I wanted to really focus on sitting back within the arrangement to help carry the song along and leave space for the other members of the band to really shine through

The next step was to track the main keys part. For this we experimented by double tracking the keys and hard panning the signals to create a thick, wide spread. In the left channel is a Rhodes 88 key Mark 1, and in the right is the Nord Electro Sparkletop Rhodes model. These tones combined to create a lush yet defined character that gives the track its’ warmth.

Vocals then took the spotlight. After trying a wide variety of mics, ultimately we settled on the Electro-voice RE20. It really struck the balance between a strong defined signal while remaining smooth enough to just sit along the top of the track. After stacking lead vocals and plenty of BVs to thicken and provide depth, it was time to move on to post-production

In terms of post production, we got really creative, exploring a mixture of wild automated digital effects. Ultimately, alongside some synth layers, we ended up “reamping” certain elements of the live recordings through an Organelle. This allowed us to create dense, interesting layers while still feeling fundamentally part of the music.

Orange Juice was self-released on 14 July 2023, celebrating with a release gig at Make Noise Studios.