The album was mixed by Robert Orton (Lana Del Rey, Mumford & Sons) and engineered by Tony Lake (Sting, Shaggy). My Songs was produced by Martin Kierszenbaum (Sting, Lady Gaga, Robyn), Dave Audé (Bruno Mars, Selena Gomez) and Jerry Fuentes (The Last Bandoleros).
The album will also be accompanied by new liner notes written by Sting, in which he shares the personal stories behind each song and provides insight into how some of the most enduring songs of all time were written. It still manages to be both sinister and oddly comforting, which might explain its continuing prevalence as one of the most played songs on the radio.”Įlsewhere on My Songs, fans can expect to hear Sting’s own fresh approach to hits including ‘Englishman In New York,’ ‘Fields Of Gold,’ ‘Shape Of My Heart,’ ‘Roxanne,’ ‘Message In A Bottle’ and many more. Version 4 keeps Pianoteq at the vanguard of virtual piano design, where it holds its own with any sample-based or hardware alternative. “As most rock music is based on fourths, fifths and sevenths, the ninth chord opened up a different world of possibilities and gave this rather simple and strange song a tonal sophistication that it wouldn’t have possessed otherwise, effectively complimenting its lyrical ambiguity. The music was based on the ninth chords that I’d already used successfully in ‘Message In A Bottle’ and ‘Da Do Do…’, which had a become a sort of signature for me. “I was working alone at Utopia with the engineer Pete Smith. I’d already written the lyrics while staying at Golden Eye, Chris Blackwell’s house outside of Ocho Rios in Jamaica that had formerly belonged to James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming. Of the legendary ‘Every Breath You Take’, Sting says: “I brought into Utopia Studios in North London late one night in 1982.
Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, but all of them with a contemporary focus.” Trouble is, I can't get past the way Pianoteq sounds like it's coming from the back of someone'. It handles all of these admirably, with PTQ running, like James's, at the lower frequency (29.4khz).
Speaking on his approach to the album, Sting says: “ My Songs is my life in songs. I have a netbook loaded with Pianoteq 3.6, VB3 and MinimogueVA among others.