Heart of Glass (song) - Production

Production

The production of "Heart of Glass" was discussed in detail by Richard Allinson and Steve Levine on the BBC2 radio program The Record Producers that was aired on May 25, 2009. As explained in the program, the production of "Heart of Glass" was built around the use of a Roland CR-78 drum machine. The CR-78 was first introduced in 1978, the same year that Parallel Lines was recorded, and the use of this device on "Heart of Glass" was, according to the program, among the earliest uses of this device in popular music. As the program explained, it was also very unusual to use a drum machine in the context of a rock band. In deciding to use the CR-78 for "Heart of Glass," the choice was made to combine the sound of the drum machine with the sound of actual drumming. This reflected the hybrid nature of the song, the combination of a drum machine that was typically used in the context of dance music with the actual drum sound that was a traditional aspect of rock recordings. In combining these elements, the sound of the drum machine was first recorded on an individual track. To synchronize the actual drum play with the drum machine, the drums were also recorded on separate tracks, with the bass drum recorded separately from the rest of the drums.

Having combined the drums with the drum machine, another important feature of the CR-78 was that it could be used to send a trigger pulse to the early polymorphic synthesizers. This trigger pulse feature was also used on "Heart of Glass." The trigger pulse created by the CR-78 became a distinctive electronic/synth element of the song. The additional synthesizer portions of the song were played separately.

For the guitars, each guitar part was again recorded on separate tracks. For the vocals, a single track and a double track of Debbie Harry’s voice were combined into a single vocal recording.

In an interview in the magazine that is part of the collector’s edition for the ninth Blondie studio album Panic of Girls, Debbie Harry explained that band members Chris Stein and Jimmy Destri had purchased the CR-78 from a music store on 47th Street in Manhattan, and that this is how the device had become part of the production of "Heart of Glass": “Chris and Jimmy were always going over to 47th Street where all the music stores were, and one day they came back with this little rhythm box, which went ‘tikka tikka tikka’…And the rest is history!”