Pocket is a Scottish producer with one of the most unique sounds in the game right now. Some of the biggest acts in the industry are taking notice of his nu-old-school vibe. Acts like Fred Again and Overmono actively support his tracks in their sets, and even Disclosure gives his tunes a few rinses in their gigs.

So when I learned that he had a single recently drop and was curious about coming on to share the sauce on what plugins he used and how he used said plugins, I jumped at the chance to host him for the latest iteration of the How it Was Made series. As always, listen to the track below a few times to acclimate your ears to what this guy is doing before jumping into his words and production secrets on how Pocket made his latest UK Grime & 2-step RNB-inspired release, “Another Night In London” which features the vocals of London-based rapper GBNGA.

Operator

I used Ableton’s Operator as a layer in the main bass sound. Operator is an FM synthesiser stripped down to its bare bones. I’m not one to talk about exactly how it works, but it’s essentially four stacked oscillators, each modulated by the oscillator following it.

In this case, I used a very simple patch, using the second oscillator set to the second harmonic. This brings more life into the midrange of the sound and allows it to be heard on almost any system. I’m also using the low-pass filter within the operator to create a slightly high cut and resonance boost to emphasize this sound. It’s very simple stuff, but it plays a huge role in bringing out some tone and life in the sub sound.

FM is a great way to get the ‘UK’ sound. For decades now, it’s been at the forefront of many sound designs in UK Garage, Jungle House, and Techno. I would say that using it very sparingly and having your patches be as simple as possible is always the best way to go for this use case.

Place It

Soundly’s Place It is a cool plugin i came across randomly. It’s essentially a really simple convolution reverb device that lets you emulate different spaces and also different speakers that are outputting said sound. So it’s really handy if you want a sound to have a physical quality.

i used a tiny bit on the snare in ‘Another Night In London’. Often times I’ll really crank it and make a sound in a track pop out really crazy, or I’ll use it to give a drum or synth its own ‘physical’ space in the track, but in this case, it felt really apt to only use a little. Having a sound pop out on its own, separate from the rest of the mix, can totally change your mix. I love the idea of having a track that has a super tight mix, but one or two of the elements sound like they’re coming from a different source. I find in general using this plugin on drums is the best.

I’m a huge fan of burial and sometimes really want to recreate that DIY and odd soundscape texture, and using a plugin like this to get a kick or snare sounding like they’re booming in a small room or coming from the room next door can be a really cool way to get yourself out of processing your drums methodically. A trick I’ve found is throwing it on your percussion and then high-cutting it a bit to remove some of the rumble. It can give way more width to your drum groups and create a way more interesting texture.

Shaperbox 3

Shaperbox 3 is a multi-fx plugin. In this case, I’m using its module Volumeshaper as a sidechain, although you can use it for way more. I like using Volumeshaper as a sidechain because it’s easy to use.

It gives you way more control over your sidechain shape than using sidechain compression, and you can input your pre-existing kick as a trigger. In the case of this shape it was used and with a ducking that wasn’t so severe that it was noticeable, just enough to give the kick some space.

This is a great tool imo, it gives you heaps of control and can also be paired with all the other modules within shaper box to get creative with your sidechaining and volume shaping. It acts like an idea generator for me, you can throw so many different fx in at once and just see what sticks.

Learn More About This Synth Here 👈

Texture

‘Texture’ is a creative fx plugin by Devious Machines.

It’s essentially a noise and texture layering tool with filtering and modulation. Gives you loads of cool textural options to add to your channels that can bring a bit more life to the sounds you’re using. In this case, the bassline has a really small amount of white noise layered on top.

I barely touched the initial preset; I just found a volume level that didn’t feel too overwhelming for the sound. It was another way of bringing the sound a little more to the front and giving it a push to make it as audible as possible without having to overdrive the sub too much. I’d recommend using this as much as possible to varying degrees. You can layer vinyl crackle, noise, synth, and instrument sounds, and so much more, it’s just a really quick and easy way to bring the sound into a cooler space.

Learn More About This Synth Here 👈

The post How It Was Made: Pocket ft. GBNGA – Another Night In London appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.