Marius de Vries

Marius de Vries is shown using the Arturia V Collection 8 in a user-uploaded photo on the Arturia website.

On this article, on the Arturia website, Marius de Vries claimed to use a Pigments.

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Marius de Vries

The Grammy Award-winner shares an immersive sci-fi pad for MASSIVE X. Share

Los Angeles-via-London composer Marius de Vries has had the kind of career most producers yearn for. Since the early-1990s, he’s helped shape the sounds of artists like Madonna and Massive Attack, overseen the scores and soundtracks for major motion pictures like Romeo + Juliet and La La Land, been nominated for more than five Grammys, and won two BAFTA awards. One of the secrets behind de Vries’ remarkable body of work? A workflow wedded to plugins and soft synths.

For our newest edition of Patch and Play, we sat down with the musical polymath to discuss how he uses Native Instruments in his music, how he creates film scores, and the inspiration behind his exclusive preset for MASSIVE X. Two Left Feet, blends bleepy sci-fi sensibilities with crumbling, crackling organic sounds courtesy of the synth’s two Noisetables – with a result reminiscent of an ambling robot exploring a mysterious planet’s rocky crags.

Listen to de Vries demo the patch and download it for yourself below.

You’ve been a Native Instruments user for many years – since the beginning. What was your first plug-in?

Yes, I was there from the start! I got really into Reaktor when it was called Generator in, I don’t know, 1997? Massive was a long way in the distance then. Back then, Generator was tremendously exciting; to have that complexity and configurability in the box was pretty unprecedented, and I’m really happy that 25 years later, Reaktor is still thriving and sitting there solidly underneath all the other great Native Instruments stuff. The Reaktor community is still a treasure trove of odd, imaginative, envelope-pushing goodness. It didn’t take long to meet some of the people involved in those early Native years, and I’ve enjoyed a wonderful friendship with the team and the product ever since.

The next thing that properly sold me was Absynth, which I was a fan of since I had it as a beta v0.1. I got to know Brian Clevinger, who invented it, and just loved the synth from the start. When Native Instruments picked it up – and didn’t mess it up – it was a sign of very good taste. I also used the B4 Organ II and the old FM7 all the time.

Yes, I was there from the start! I got really into Reaktor when it was called Generator in, I don’t know, 1997? Massive was a long way in the distance then. Back then, Generator was tremendously exciting; to have that complexity and configurability in the box was pretty unprecedented, and I’m really happy that 25 years later, Reaktor is still thriving and sitting there solidly underneath all the other great Native Instruments stuff. The Reaktor community is still a treasure trove of odd, imaginative, envelope-pushing goodness. It didn’t take long to meet some of the people involved in those early Native years, and I’ve enjoyed a wonderful friendship with the team and the product ever since.

The next thing that properly sold me was Absynth, which I was a fan of since I had it as a beta v0.1. I got to know Brian Clevinger, who invented it, and just loved the synth from the start. When Native Instruments picked it up – and didn’t mess it up – it was a sign of very good taste. I also used the B4 Organ II and the old FM7 all the time.

Yes, I was there from the start! I got really into Reaktor when it was called Generator in, I don’t know, 1997? Massive was a long way in the distance then. Back then, Generator was tremendously exciting; to have that complexity and configurability in the box was pretty unprecedented, and I’m really happy that 25 years later, Reaktor is still thriving and sitting there solidly underneath all the other great Native Instruments stuff. The Reaktor community is still a treasure trove of odd, imaginative, envelope-pushing goodness. It didn’t take long to meet some of the people involved in those early Native years, and I’ve enjoyed a wonderful friendship with the team and the product ever since.

The next thing that properly sold me was Absynth, which I was a fan of since I had it as a beta v0.1. I got to know Brian Clevinger, who invented it, and just loved the synth from the start. When Native Instruments picked it up – and didn’t mess it up – it was a sign of very good taste. I also used the B4 Organ II and the old FM7 all the time.

Yes, I was there from the start! I got really into Reaktor when it was called Generator in, I don’t know, 1997? Massive was a long way in the distance then. Back then, Generator was tremendously exciting; to have that complexity and configurability in the box was pretty unprecedented, and I’m really happy that 25 years later, Reaktor is still thriving and sitting there solidly underneath all the other great Native Instruments stuff. The Reaktor community is still a treasure trove of odd, imaginative, envelope-pushing goodness. It didn’t take long to meet some of the people involved in those early Native years, and I’ve enjoyed a wonderful friendship with the team and the product ever since.

The next thing that properly sold me was Absynth, which I was a fan of since I had it as a beta v0.1. I got to know Brian Clevinger, who invented it, and just loved the synth from the start. When Native Instruments picked it up – and didn’t mess it up – it was a sign of very good taste. I also used the B4 Organ II and the old FM7 all the time.

"Since working with Madonna and Massive Attack in the 1990s, I’m sure there hasn’t been a record I’ve made that hasn’t been full of Native Instruments’ plug-ins. Sometimes when a software is central to your process, you kind of forget it’s there – and that’s very true of me and Komplete/Kontakt. In some ways, I wish I used Kontakt a bit more deeply and could do scripting and stuff more fluently."

The original version of the Mac Pro can be seen behind him.

A Mackie Big Knob can be seen in the first photo, next to his mouse pad.

Seaboards remain a fixture in Marius’s home studio in Los Angeles. “I’ve moved into live-work mode,” he says. “My studio is also my home.” It’s an arrangement that helps maximize his work time amid travels that often takes him back back to the UK.

A Seaboard GRAND, Seaboard RISE, and Seaboard Block are all part of a setup that includes dozens of other synths and drum machines. “It’s the GRAND that I keep going back to. It’s what got me excited about the Seaboard before the serendipity of La La Land. I just loved the experience of playing it — the process of adapting keyboard technique to different expressive means.”

Seaboards remain a fixture in Marius’s home studio in Los Angeles. “I’ve moved into live-work mode,” he says. “My studio is also my home.” It’s an arrangement that helps maximize his work time amid travels that often takes him back back to the UK.

A Seaboard GRAND, Seaboard RISE, and Seaboard Block are all part of a setup that includes dozens of other synths and drum machines. “It’s the GRAND that I keep going back to. It’s what got me excited about the Seaboard before the serendipity of La La Land. I just loved the experience of playing it — the process of adapting keyboard technique to different expressive means.”

Roli Seaboard Rise 25 can be seen in the first photo, in front of the computer keyboard.

“The RISE is always plugged in, but front and center is the NI Komplete Kontrol 5 octave controller, with a big Kronos to the side of weighted key action — and an NI Maschine for pads.” His go-to DAWs and plugins include Logic, U-He, and Spectrasonics Omnisphere. He also has a collection of “old stuff like like EMS Synthi, ARP 2600, Matrix 12, MKS80, and MS20/50.”

For his sampling needs, Marius tends to use Logic Audio’s EXS24 sampler for simple jobs, deferring to Native Instruments’ Kontakt when a more complicated task is being undertaken. “The Logic sampler is a mainstay for a lot of my projects – because it’s simple and it does what it says on the tin. I’d go to Logic every time for straightforward sample playback. It’s less memory intensive and quicker than Kontakt, which is, however, fantastic for more sophisticated procedures. Kontakt is a far more serious instrument in terms of sample layout and manipulation, and offers much more sophisticated filtering and processing.”

Naturally, soft synths are also very important instruments in the Strongroom studio, and one of Marius’ favourites is the esoteric Supercollider audio synthesis programming language. “I still love it!” he says. “The only good version was the OS9 one, before they made it free, and tried to port it to OSX, and I think it’s stopped being developed now, so I have an old power book running OS9 for that. I did an electro acoustic ballet for the South Bank at the beginning of last year – Squaremap of Q4, with Spanish choreographer Rafael Bonachela – and Supercollider got used a lot for that. It’s still very much a favourite instrument. It feels vintage like the ARP feels vintage, but in a different kind of way."

Having launched his career in the music industry as a session keyboardist, the studio keyboard is very important to Marius. The Roland’s Fantom X8 is the instrument of choice, proving to be so favourable that he owns three of them! “It has a fantastic feel to the keyboard and the piano responds very musically. It has some great sounds onboard but, to be honest, it rarely gets used beyond the piano sound! I might under-use it, but I depend on it; it is a very comforting thing to have around. Keyboard-wise I am extremely loyal to Roland – they make the best synths and always have done."

“Most of my equipment is so standard now it is hardly worth talking about. I use Logic, although I haven’t quite made the plunge into Logic 8, which I am still finding very unfriendly as an interface, but that’s going to have to happen when they make 7 redundant. The bunch of softsynths I use are the usual suspects. I am heavily reliant on Native Instruments who have been very supportive. We have a bit of a partnership and I have everything they do and use it a lot."

“The Mackie D8B is a functional board, but I don’t do much mixing on it now. I do the first level of mixing ‘in the box’ then I might go to the studio of someone like my friend Andy Bradfield, if it needs to be finessed beyond my abilities. Even then, we don’t really use a big desk very much anymore. The last time we did an SSL mix was last year, mixing Teddy Thompson’s album. If you have the budget for it, it is still worth doing for reasons of sound quality and flexibility."

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

While the demands of the filming process forced the chopping and changing of the songs, Marius was in contact with London‑based composer Chris Elliott, who had the job of arranging many of the orchestral parts. "We were emailing back and forth," explains Marius. "This was before the Rocket Networks thing really happened, otherwise I'm sure we'd have been using that. But for a long time I sent him MP3s of the backing tracks and pencil sketches on score paper suggesting where I wanted to go, and he'd send MIDI files back to me which I printed out from Emagic Logic and fed into my JV2080 and S6000s to listen to what he'd done. We built up the orchestrations that way until he came out to Sidney. Alexis Smith was working over here in the UK as my programmer while I was in Sidney, and he would sending over grooves and ideas for drum beats and sound design. By the time we got to the shoot, we had everything developed up to a stage where the orchestrations were coming in a relatively realistic manner out of the JV2080, our rhythm tracks were pretty realised and our vocals were recorded to a stage where they were ready for lip‑sync."

While the demands of the filming process forced the chopping and changing of the songs, Marius was in contact with London‑based composer Chris Elliott, who had the job of arranging many of the orchestral parts. "We were emailing back and forth," explains Marius. "This was before the Rocket Networks thing really happened, otherwise I'm sure we'd have been using that. But for a long time I sent him MP3s of the backing tracks and pencil sketches on score paper suggesting where I wanted to go, and he'd send MIDI files back to me which I printed out from Emagic Logic and fed into my JV2080 and S6000s to listen to what he'd done. We built up the orchestrations that way until he came out to Sidney. Alexis Smith was working over here in the UK as my programmer while I was in Sidney, and he would sending over grooves and ideas for drum beats and sound design. By the time we got to the shoot, we had everything developed up to a stage where the orchestrations were coming in a relatively realistic manner out of the JV2080, our rhythm tracks were pretty realised and our vocals were recorded to a stage where they were ready for lip‑sync."

De Vries first cut his programming teeth on an Roland MSQ700, and then moved on to the Atari, initially running Hybrid Arts' Midi Track software, and then C‑Lab's Notator. A few years ago he finally switched to Macintosh and Digidesign, on which he still runs C‑Lab/Emagic software, namely Logic Audio: "I was quite slow switching from the Atari to the Mac, because I had experiences of working alongside people with Macs that appeared to be crashing all the time. But things are a lot better now, and I am really happy with my Macintosh, although admittedly the timing could be better on it. The timing of the Atari was probably more stable, but then, are you going to spend your whole life worrying about the fact that there is a millisecond delay on the bass drum, or are you going to listen to the music and try to make that sound good? The '80s ethic seemed very much to make sure that everything was very precise and glued to a grid, but there's room for things to be much sloppier now, and better for it."

De Vries first cut his programming teeth on an Roland MSQ700, and then moved on to the Atari, initially running Hybrid Arts' Midi Track software, and then C‑Lab's Notator. A few years ago he finally switched to Macintosh and Digidesign, on which he still runs C‑Lab/Emagic software, namely Logic Audio: "I was quite slow switching from the Atari to the Mac, because I had experiences of working alongside people with Macs that appeared to be crashing all the time. But things are a lot better now, and I am really happy with my Macintosh, although admittedly the timing could be better on it. The timing of the Atari was probably more stable, but then, are you going to spend your whole life worrying about the fact that there is a millisecond delay on the bass drum, or are you going to listen to the music and try to make that sound good? The '80s ethic seemed very much to make sure that everything was very precise and glued to a grid, but there's room for things to be much sloppier now, and better for it."

It can be seen in the fourth photo, which bears the caption "Three of Marius's monosynths: the physical modelling Korg Prophecy and Yamaha VL1 flank a classic OSCar."

It can be seen in the fourth photo, which bears the caption "Three of Marius's monosynths: the physical modelling Korg Prophecy and Yamaha VL1 flank a classic OSCar."

It can be seen in the fourth photo, which bears the caption "Three of Marius's monosynths: the physical modelling Korg Prophecy and Yamaha VL1 flank a classic OSCar."