A Sonic Deconstruction of "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk

Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, or better known as in today's era, Daft Punk, have become a household name to most, but before the birth of this famous electronic duo in 1993 they were simply just two high school friends who enjoyed making music together. The iconic duo were raised around music and musical instruments growing up in Paris, France in the 80's, and in 1992 they formed a pop band called Darlin' with fellow musician Laurent Brancowitz (ThoughtCo, 2019). They released 4 tracks, and in that short time the band received a negative review from the UK magazine Melody Maker giving reference to the sound as "a daft punky thrash." Funnily enough the band broke up shortly after that, which lead to the convergence of Daft Punk as we know it (ThoughtCo, 2019). These guys have an unmatchable ability to seamlessly and effortlessly blur the lines between different genre's and era's of music, paving the way for electronic music composition from 1997 to the present day with 6 studio albums and 6 Grammy awards in 12 nominations (GRAMMY, 2019).

The reason I have chosen Robot Rock by Daft Punk to deconstruct is because it is the perfect example of how mixing old genre's with new ones can work efficiently to produce a timeless hit. This duo is famously known for their sampling ability and being able to include almost any genre of music into their production. In saying this, Robot Rock is almost entirely a sample taken from Breakwater's 1980 record, Release The Beast, which they have taken to use for their own, but we will talk about this a little later on.

Firstly, the specs....

Track: Robot Rock

Artist: Daft Punk

Album: Human After All

Label: Virgin Records

Producer: Daft Punk

Writer(s): Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo, Kae Williams,

Released: 11th of April, 2005

Tempo: 112BPM

Key: D

Signature: 4/4

Song Length: 4:47

Genre: Electronic

Okay, so the track is written in an ABC or VERSE-CHORUS-BRIDGE format, to explain this let's quickly break down the song structure for easier reference...

As you can see from the above image, there is only two other variations from the ABC structure; these are two, 2bar interludes or "drum fills" (Orange) and two, 8bar breakdowns (White). The overall structure is as follows:

Before we move onto the instrumentation in the song, I just want to mention and give credit to Breakwater for their original composition "Release The Beast" which was used for sampling in Robot Rock. You can compare the two below.

Daft Punk - Robot Rock (2005)

Breakwater - Release The Beast (1980)

Introduction -

The first 2 bars of Robot Rock is a quater bar loop that is repeated 8 times (0.25 x 8 = 2, simple right?), this loop consists of a kick, hi tom, mid tom and floor tom. The kick and hi tom have a very strong accent and notably stand out more than the mid and floor toms. It is apparent that both the floor and hi toms have added resonance to boost their high end frequencies, this grainy noise could be due to the original sample they used (which was recorded in the 80's) having lower microphone quality, or through their own processing whilst mixing their version. The overall sound for this short loop is played forte (meaning loud) for it's entirety and creates a very texturised atmosphere with slight reverberation, bringing in the track perfectly.

The introduction is a 2 bar loop that is repeated 4 times with the addition of a 1 bar, strongly accented fermata lead guitar chord that is layered with a Moog Synthesizer in the note of D; this strongly aids the transition into Verse A. The seamlessly incomplete loop for this section acts as a type of build, even though it doesn't enter a crescendo at any point, it instills anticipation in the audience who are awaiting some sort of drop. This is intensified as the 1 bar note at the end comes in. The instrumentation consists of a Bass guitar and lead guitar, both of which are playing the note of D (this is also the tonic note for the duration of the song). Both parties have strong accents, although it seems there is more reverb on the lead chords than on the bass guitar, making the lower frequencies stand out more. I also speculate that there is some sort of triplet delayed noise loop that is filling the sound gaps in this section. Without regards to how this has been added in, it is simply adding body and texture to the portion of the track. A snare and clap are also present, the snare is on every beat except the fourth, where it is played a quarter-beat after and the clap is only played on the fourth beat. These elements add to the overall dynamic of a build, the repetitive structure and slight swing leaves the listener in the unknown as to when or how the verse will come in.

Verse A -

Immediately my head starts to bop along with the thumping cadence, the most notable aspect of this section to me is the contagious synthesizer riff with an oscillator sync timre (Revolvy, L. 2019). This instrument is slightly panned to the left but with it's added reverb it fills out both left and right speakers nicely, leaving just enough room for the rest of the instrumentation. The overall tonality really emphasises the synthesised instrument alongside the strongly accented bass and lead guitars that are also present. Layered on top of the guitars is a very faint yet noticeable vocal track which repeats the words "Robot Rock". I believe this fits nicely in the background due to one of these two possibilities. The vocal track has a vocoder on it that is routing the lead guitar track (or a Moog synthesiser with guitar pedals) as an external modulator and the vocoder is almost completely open (100%), making the routing modulation more prominent than the vocals themselves. Secondly, they have simply turned the vocoded track volume down so it can come in at a later time (or both of these theories combined). Regardless of which one it is, the processing used on the vocals (which come in on a later verse) is where I gain most of my inspiration and reference for my project ATOM'S WRLD. This joins digital and live recording in a way that has become iconic to Daft Punks name.

The section of the drum kit which entitles no panning includes a kick, snare, open and closed hat. These bring the overall rhythm to the track, even though they are played in a repetitive loop and due to the variety of amplitude and swing, I believe this is the main reason why such a constant loop is listenable without loosing interest. The crash is played on the first beat of each bar, it starts in the centre of the stage plot (Image A) and is panned left in a sweeping motion after the initial strike is made. There is also a great deal of reverb added to this instrument as it sounds extremely far away and obviously sits behind all the other gear used for the composition. The clap on the other hand clearly sits to the far right of the speaker plot, but this item is extremely layered and is one of the most complex parts to the section. I notice layers that are panned to the left and some that sit in the middle, but the bulk of this instrument is definitely panned to the right. Completely filling out the frequency spectrum (Image B), this section has a dB peak of 1.3 above 0.0db and is sempre forte for the total length of verse A.

There is another short 2 bar drum fill at the end of this which includes a kick, snare, bass and lead guitar (Both playing the notes of C# and B in quarter note lengths) and the same one bar layered Synthesizer, again for transitioning into the next section.

Image A:

Image B:

Verse B -

Verse A and B are identical for the first 8 bars with an exception of the Vocoded Vocal track that was previously stated in Verse A, now being more prominent in the mix. The second 8 bar sequence is the same, with the addition of a descending acid-type Moog synth on the last half bar of every 2 bars. Although I theorised that the lead guitar stem was being used as an external modulator for the vocoder used on the vocals, there is a significant difference in their frequency ranges. The vocals stretch from 200Hz to 4kHz whilst the guitars range is close to 75Hz to 4kHz also. Cutting the vocals at 200Hz with a High Pass Filter (HPF) is essential in the mixing stage to help eliminate overcrowding the spectrum and preventing the track from sounding too "muddy" (Audio Issues, 2014). There may also be a subtractive hi-shelf EQ applied on the guitar track around 500Hz, this technique is used to allow the high end frequencies of the vocal track to have better articulation within the mix. Because human beings hear sound best within 1000-5000Hz (What sounds can people hear?, 2016) it makes sense to allow more room for vocals within this range.

Breakdown 1 -

This 8 bar segment consists of a closed hat in a 4/4 beat pattern, a kick on the 1st and 3rd beat, the vocal track and it's processing from verse B and the same acid synth with a descending melody from Verse B. There is a 1 bar riser on the 8th bar that has the same properties as the synths on the end bars of the introduction and the drum fills. The difference between this and the others that are used is, this one enters a short crescendo to build into Verse A again. Adding a break like this to the productions composition and rhythm acts as a way to give the audience a chance to breath before hitting them with the full force of the verses.

Verse C -

There is only one thing noticeably different about the production and composition of this section. Besides the fact that the first 8 bars have no vocal track on it, all the instrumentation in this section is side-chained to the lead guitar, all except for the vocal stem which is present in the second half of the verse. This has been done to highlight Daft Punks original content that they included into this greatly sampled piece of work. The side-chain compression used on this section has an extremely short attack and release, I came to this conclusion by listening to the synthesised melody and how its amplitude lowers and rises very abruptly and in fast sequence.

Breakdown 2 -

Ironically, the final section to breakdown is a breakdown (haha get it?). This section consists of a kick, snare, crash, lead guitar, bass guitar and a saw-wave synthesised lead. In true rock style, this breakdown really brings out the head banging in everybody with short snare hits, big open chords and crash hits. This section is quite stripped back in terms of instrumentation and composition but due to it's intensity, this sempre forte piece is just another example of how Daft Punks sampling work has become iconic to their name.

Sampling is something that has been present in many musical cultures (especially hip-hop), but Robot Rock is a perfect example of "less is more". By using reverse engineering and active listening techniques, it is possible to break down a piece of work to figure out what it is in that song that really attracts you to it. Maybe you want to figure out how a producer is able to create such texture in the atmosphere of a song? Maybe you simply want to understand the process of which an artist may go through to land on a hit single? This is evident in Daft Punks music, as they have taken punk music samples and turned it into a platinum selling electronic hit. I will use this information when attempting to complete my second project, ATOM'S WRLD; which is designed to blend the genres and styles of live vs electronic production.

REFERENCES:

The Daft Punk Story. (2019). ThoughtCo. Retrieved 29 March 2019, from https://www.thoughtco.com/daft-punk-profile-4144236

Daft Punk. (2019). GRAMMY.com. Retrieved 29 March 2019, from https://www.grammy.com/grammys/artists/daft-punk

Daft Punk | Album Discography | AllMusic. (2019). AllMusic. Retrieved 29 March 2019, from https://www.allmusic.com/artist/daft-punk-mn0000667669/discography

Daft Punk Song Tempos. (2019). Thedaftclub.com. Retrieved 29 March 2019, from https://www.thedaftclub.com/features/daft-punk-song-tempos/

Revolvy, L. (2019). "Robot Rock (song)" on Revolvy.com. Revolvy.com. Retrieved 14 April 2019, from https://www.revolvy.com/page/Robot-Rock-(song)

Benediktsson, B. (2014). 8 Frequency Viruses You Need To EQ From Your Mix's Immune System. Audio Issues. Retrieved 14 April 2019, from https://www.audio-issues.com/music-mixing/eq-viruses/

What sounds can people hear?. (2016). Discovery of Sound in the Sea. Retrieved 14 April 2019, from https://dosits.org/science/measurement/what-sounds-can-we-hear/