7 Minutes Dead

Archit3ch_: What is your current musical setup and how much of it is portable?

Is there any production technique you use on every song?

7MD: Just a desktop PC, headphones and an M-Audio Oxygen 49 (and an electric drumset). Most is portable, except for that drumset. There's some tear down / setup time with that. Well, that and the desktop.

So really nothing is portable except for my headphones and midi keyboard, haha.

AUTOMATION! Do it as much as possible. Get good at it.

"YourEDM: Favorite plug-in?

7MD: LFO Tool"

Visible in this Instagram post by 7MD.

yonoober: What's your favorite synth/VST to use?

7MD: I don't really have one favorite. Though I do really love the transient capabilities of the limiter in Slate Digital FG-X mastering plugin. But then again the Fab Filter Pro-L limiter is also amazing. I don't know. I use LFOTool a lot for my ducking too, assuming the song is 4 on the floor.

Can I pick automation? Automation is my favorite tool ever."

yonoober: What's your favorite synth/VST to use?

7MD: I don't really have one favorite. Though I do really love the transient capabilities of the limiter in Slate Digital FG-X mastering plugin. But then again the Fab Filter Pro-L limiter is also amazing. I don't know. I use LFOTool a lot for my ducking too, assuming the song is 4 on the floor.

Can I pick automation? Automation is my favorite tool ever."

"I mix with nothing on the master. I just make sure things are turned down enough to not clip, and if something starts clipping, I'll usually hunt down the culprit and try to bring everything back into balance at that moment.

In the end, things tend to be peaking between -0.2 and -0.1. The peak doesn't matter though as, when it's time to master (even if things might be peaking very rarely), I'll be able to control the end result through compression and limiting.

What matters most is getting the mix perfect, or as perfect as your abilities can get it. This is one of those things tied closely to how much you've developed your ear and how good you are at knowing when things sound good and when they don't, and improvement only comes with time, excluding how incredible your monitors and room treatment are (I'm still on headphones).

I'm a big fan of very extreme cutoffs when that's the sound I want, because it's usually specific harmonics I want depending on the note being played (EQ8 in Ableton 9 made this fucking easy when they added in a spectrum), because it tends to open up the most headroom in my mix, and my mixes are very busy. But if it doesn't sound as good as a smooth cut off, then I'll do that. I just do what I believe sounds best for what I'm trying to achieve. But generally, I'm all about those 4x cutoffs.

And yeah, peaks can come from rogue harmonics shooting out for one reason or another. I'm the kind of guy who boosts specific harmonics +12 or more in the EQ, then catch it all in low threshold compression to get added effects. Also allows me to play melodies through automating the EQ curve, essentially playing the harmonics as their own notes. Crazy peaking if you do that without compression, and limiting doesn't really do the job in those cases. I'll often want those harmonics to push everything else out of the way in that particular instrument/channel, so a compressor does exactly that."

"Top 5 VSTs... hmmm.. Just some I've been using a lot, and in no particular order:

• LFOTool
• FM8
• Fab Filter Volcano
• Slate Digital FG-X
• Glue Compressor & EQ8 (Ableton 9 native plugins)"

"Top 5 VSTs... hmmm.. Just some I've been using a lot, and in no particular order:

• LFOTool
• FM8
• Fab Filter Volcano
• Slate Digital FG-X
• Glue Compressor & EQ8 (Ableton 9 native plugins)"

"Top 5 VSTs... hmmm.. Just some I've been using a lot, and in no particular order:

• LFOTool
• FM8
• Fab Filter Volcano
• Slate Digital FG-X
• Glue Compressor & EQ8 (Ableton 9 native plugins)"

"gutslyoir: Hey Alex! I'm a HUGE fan of yours, ever since the release of your first EP on Monstercat.

The Follower is my absolute favourite track of yours, and I wanted to ask if you could give me just some basic idea of how you made the main bass in it. I love your sound design, and that bass is so unique and layered. I'm not at all trying to perfectly mimic it, but I'd really like to have some idea of how you put it together just for the sake of learning and experimenting a bit.

Also, is there anything you do in your mixdowns that gives you that exceptionally crisp quality that you have in your tracks? Your high end sounds (plucks etc) are consistently very clear and open and it's just very sonically pleasing.

7MD: Thank you! I have a special place in my heart for the Follower, haha. One of my favorite tracks to make.

That bass was made with FM8, Vocodex, and lots and lots of automation and fine tuning to get the right sound. And I mean very fine tuning, because FM synthesis can be incredibly touchy with drastic changes from the smallest adjustments, and then further shitloads of automation through Vocodex.

Sound design is 95% sounding like shit, 5% stumbling upon something magical.

I try to balance my mixes as much as I possibly can, and I make sure my mixes sound as great as I can get them to sound with nothing on the master. Once that's done, the mastering is pretty simple. One EQ8 and Slate Digital FG-X, or sometimes EQ8 + Glue Compressor + Fab Filter Pro-L Limiter. But the most important thing is getting your mix perfect. You can't really polish a turd."