When so much of the industry these days emphasizes breaking the mold and bending genres so far past their midpoint that even the hippest of music snobs can’t find the appropriate niche to describe it as, there’s a deep-seated hype that simmers under the surface of my own editorial radar for music that leans into the conventions of a timeless genre and simply knocks it out of the park.

And that’s exactly what happened when I stumbled across Dave Leck’s latest album, which recently dropped on a new – but soon-to-be powerhouse – label, Emergent Properties. The album is an ode to all things progressive, with its soft melodies, dance-friendly percussions, and an emphasis on the imperfect soul that made progressive dance music so damn amazing in the first place.

So, with all that in mind, we want to invite Dave Leck on to see what plugins he uses to work the magic that he does, how he uses these plugins and other studio secrets he’s learned after making music as long as he has. So, as always, listen to the track below to acclimate your ears to the sauce he’ll be sharing before diving into the latest iteration of How It Was Made: Dave Leck – Indigo, which is out now on Emergent Properties.

u-He Diva 

My track Indigo on my newly released album Soul Motion [out now on Emergent Properties] has quite a few different synthesisers and effects used to make the overall texture of the track. Diva is one of them that makes a very characteristic saturated pluck sound that has a host of effects and automation. Diva is an all around software synthesiser that just sounds amazing. It has a classic rich analogue sound modelled from a number of retro synth hardware units. Also you can mix and match different synth model oscillators, filters and envelopes independently to create very unique results.

I love using Pluck type sounds that are quite simple in texture and heavily processing to find a sound I like. This could involve adding velocity and filter automation to bring out expressiveness. In this track I used a patch called ‘Simple’ from the melodic house sound pack by Bound to Divide (https://shop.basicwavez.com/collection/presets). I had quite a long processing chain on this sound including, H-Delay, Kickstarter, Pro-Q3 Eq, Soothe2, Gullfoss and of course the trusty low pass Auto filter from Ableton. I then map a few parameters, usually filter cutoff, filter envelopes, and dry/wet delay sends. From here, after the parameters are mapped to a hardware controller (I use the Allen&Heath Xone K2s) I jam it out and create and record the automation curves into Ableton.

The beauty of Diva is that is has a massive range of use cases. You could easily find or create some really fat analog bass sounds, pads, leads or plucks and anything in between. Sourcing good sound patches from other producers and then tweaking them is always a good and fast option to create some incredible sounds. Also designing sounds from scratch is another way to go too, which can be more time consuming but also more creatively satisfying. 

Baby Audio Parallel Aggressor 

Baby audio are a company that makes very high quality and also quite creatively original audio plugins. I purchased their complete bundle and use a lot of them throughout my productions.  This particular plug-in called parallel aggressor is an example of emulating a studio technique that was used in the older studios with hardware compressors and mixing desks. Audio signals were sent to a compressor and also a saturator, then routed back to mix in with the original dry signal. This then gave the engineer an ability to shape the mix with dry, compressed and saturated signals. 

The way I use this plugin is to put in on my group drum mix. So what I do is to group all of the hi hats, shakers, claps, percussion hits, snares, toms etc tracks into a single track and then apply this plugin over them all. I can then use the three faders to mix the ‘dry’, ‘spank’ and ‘heat’ levels to get just the right crispiness and fullness from my drums. It’s so quick to use and really does lift the presence and brightness of the drums without making them too overly thin and harsh.

You could experiment with this plugin on other mix busses or even individual tracks, but I personally think it shines on the drum group and is a staple in all of my house music percussive based tracks. 

Baby Audio Comeback Kid 

This is another amazing plugin from Baby Audio. It’s a great sounding delay that has a few more options that makes it stand out as a go-to delay plug in for me. You have the standard delay time and feedback controls with the ability to lock to the grid or independent time settings. You also have EQ controls (low cut, high cut, attach and sustain) so you can really shape the delay to your liking. Alongside stereo shaping controls you also have the ability to add colour via tape saturation, ‘swirl’ and ‘sauce’ parameters and last but not least a ducking setting.

With my track ‘Indigo’ I used the 1/8 dotted time setting with ping pong enabled and coloured with some tape saturation. I also dialled in the Ducker setting to about 4 on the knob to create a little dynamic pump that reduces the wet signal of the delay on the 1 count (similar to a kickstarter dynamic shaping plugin). I also dialled up the lo-cut string so the delay didn’t effect the lower frequency range and muddy up the lower end too much.

Baby Audio products have this ability to add really nice analog sounding saturation and pitch drift right in plug in settings that make your sounds warm and more human sounding. There are many options with this plug-in that I would encourage you to experiment, and with all of the colouring options this plugin not only provides a delay effect but also a way to add character and colour to your tracks as well.

Soothe2 by oeksound 

Soothe2, by oeksound, is a Swiss army knife plug-in that is super useful for a wide variety of applications. It is a dynamic resonance suppressor and identifies problematic resonances on the fly applying matching reduction automatically. This results in a smoother, more balanced sound and saves you from having to notch out frequencies by hand. The reduction only kicks in when and where needed, without affecting nearby frequency areas. This preserves the timbre of the original sound source resulting in a transparent treatment with minimal artifacts. 

I use this plug in on my drum buss and also individual drum tracks that I feel are presenting too harshly in the mix. I can hone in the eq curve around the exact frequency range I need, dial in the sharpness and depth to suit. Using this tool in combination with parallel aggressor you can achieve a present, clear, crisp and open top end without harshness and ‘thinness’.

What I really love about this plug in is that it is super intuitive and easy to use. When you are in the midst of a creative flow, these are the tools that are extremely useful. When you have a track that sounds a little harsh to the ear, you put this on the effects chain, dial in the eq curve and then play with the depth dial. I usually take it to the extreme whereby most of the mid / top content is taken out and then slowly dial it back to achieve the right amount of resonance and the tone that I like. 

Quick Fire Tips For Making This Genre

Tip #1: Make sure you tell an emotional story with your track. You should be able to strip the drums and percussion out completely and still have an interesting and engaging musical journey.

Tip #2: Shape your percussion around your main melodic, rhythmic and dominant themes  of your track. They should all work and glue together in the final mix.

Tip #3: Spend time with the small intricate and humanistic details in your percussion so that conversely if you mute the main musical elements the drum loop is still interesting to listen to over and over again.

Tip #4: Iterate the process of bringing and initial idea to a fully mastered mix over and over again. Over time you learn many different areas of the production process and this is how you grow as an artist.

Tip #5: Enjoy the creative process as much as you can and try not to get caught up in comparing yourself with other artists. 

The post How It Was Made: Dave Leck – Indigo (Emergent Properties) appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.