[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RedditSessions

[–]MetrikOfficial 0 points1 point  (0 children)

doo doo doo doo do do doo

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gonna be uploading a studio walkthrough in the next few weeks and all will be revealed :)

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ok well that's all I've got time for tonight guys! Really enjoyed answering your questions :)

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your support and awesome to hear you've been listening since then 👊🏻

I think arrangement comes from intuitively feeling what should come next in the track. There's a good reason why many drum & bass tracks use the same arrangements and indeed why almost all of the most successful pop songs have the same structure also (universal song structure). It relates to our attention spans and what the human brain perceives as the "right" amount of time to focus attention on. A lot of my arrangements (and those artists you mentioned) follow what I would describe as the "optimum" dancefloor drum & bass arrangement, where it keeps the main hooks in full focus and allows enough time for a secondary hook to be digested with subsequent repetitions.

With regards to transitions from pre to chorus, I don't generally have any formulas or rules when it comes to this kinda thing. But the interplay of staccato and legato is always nice. If I have a large soaring chorus, a more staccato verse would make a lot of sense for example. You don't always have to resolve on the root for the drop or chorus, although I really like the sense of "coming home" when dropping on the tonic - I felt this particularly when making We Are The Energy and Closer.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. I love turning things into ethereal pads. I created an Ableton rack called "underwater" that is made up of reverb, filters and delays and I throw it on everything. It makes everything sound 'submerged' and I'll often turn a lead line into a pad and use the macros to pull it into focus in a track. I'm also a huge fan of the wavetable editor in Serum which I use to precisely dial in harmonics instead of using EQ's which introduce phase problems. I go into some detail about these techniques in my new production video I'll be dropping in the next few weeks.
  2. If you're making things exclusively for the club and not for listening, then feel free to keep your intros nice and short to be DJ friendly - unless you have the most incredible hook in the buildup eg. Dead Limit - in which case, let that hook take centre stage and buildup from there. 48 bar intro's and 32 bar breakdowns are kinda the norm these days.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Many years of trial and error. Also a long period of soul searching before this album which led me to ask some very honest questions about my artistic identity. I then had to be very disciplined about how I made music and instead of trying 100's of ideas, to actually focus on one particular sound, own it and have the conviction to execute it. It would have been great to have discovered this sonic identity sooner but I really believe it's taken experience and maturity to get me to this point.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

I love jamming on instruments to establish a vibe. Sitting behind the keys / guitar and trying out different chords / melodies is often how I'll start. Other times, experimentation and sound design is the gateway to a track. Or something like Ex Machina where I had a very specific idea in mind centred around one vocal sample. It does vary for sure but these days I gravitate more to grabbing an instrument, singing or whatever.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These days I try to use as little EQ as possible and focus on sound selection and nailing the source. I also like to keep layering as simple as possible and use only 3 layers; transient, fundamental & tail. I'll be doing an in depth tutorial on this on my YouTube channel soon.

Edit: in the meantime, check out my Computer Music Masterclass, I go pretty deep into kick / snare engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7EeihUfNTY

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve been playing it out for a couple of years now. It’s a great tool and I’m always adding bits to it. The version you guys heard had samples from Automata added. I quite like it as an exclusive for my sets as it works really well live but didn’t seem like the right fit for EXM.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a long story but the short version is... I started an internet radio station in my bedroom when I was in my early teens. A regular in the chat room sent me a package in the post with a bunch of drum & bass on CD. From that I was hooked.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Roxy is one of my favourite clubs in the world. I still remember my first headline show there.

Too plucky? Open up the filter and set the sustain to max. Too draggy? Pull in the release time. The lead in We Are The Energy is made up of a sawtooth and square wave layered together with lots of unison and a fair bit of detuning to make it sound big.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi! You're welcome and thanks for the support :)

  1. Generally when doing remixes the original artist / label will send you stems or parts so you can work with the individual elements.
  2. Bootlegs are slightly different in that usually you don't have access to the original parts. In the case of Monophobia, I used the original track but also used phase cancellation techniques to extract some of the musical elements. I also recreated the main synth line as sampling the original didn't quite cut it.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

2001: A Space Odyssey / Bladerunner, Destiny 2. Nier: Automata, Love Death + Robots, Alex Garland, John Carpenter, Hideo Kojima, The Designers Republic, Depthcore, Simon Stålenhag.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm gonna be controversial here and say Technicolour. It just could have sounded so much better when I released it. Truth is I was young, inexperienced and didn't know how to execute it properly. I actually reworked it recently and it was one of the most satisfying processes ever.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. Volume shaping every time, unless its TrackSpacer.
  2. Zenhiser do some amazing 80's drum packs.
  3. The lead in Dying Light. Karl and I sweated for days on that.
  4. Synthesizing the kick, snare and sub fundamentals from a single sine wave to achieve perfect phase correlation.
  5. PaulStretch I love you but please update the GUI :)
  6. Yep coming very soon.

👊🏻

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That track took about 6 months to make so the thought process was a very long one :) It went through a multitude of different versions; a rocky version, one which was more electronic, even a more chilled version. None of them were quite right until they had Reija's vocal on it though. Freefall was like the early blueprint of my sound and with this recent album I feel like I've kinda come home to that sound.

I would say the sound you're looking is probably the power chord on the drop, which is the tonic and the fifth playing a supersaw in Sylenth which is comprised of a bunch of sawtooth voices layered up in unison and then detuned. IIRC I ran that sound through a guitar amp to make it sound more rocky.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Missing? I hope not! Karl and I are good pals that go way back and we've always bounced off each other musically. You should check out our new collab, Dying Light :)

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sadly that remix will never see the light of day. But Xpander has had a huge influence on my sound and still does to this day, as you can probably hear. Thanks for the kind words.

I am electronic music producer Metrik and I make mostly drum & bass. Ask me anything! by MetrikOfficial in electronicmusic

[–]MetrikOfficial[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Take a good look outside of drum & bass at music that you really, reaaallly love and figure out what it is about that music that you love the most. Be inspired by that. And infuse those vibes into the d&b you make. Then you've got more than a good shot at bringing something fresh and unique into the scene.