Skrillex

In this interview of Skrillex, he explains how he uses FM8.

At timestamp 0:39, Skrillex states: "A lot of the sound comes comes from FM8 because Massive doesn't have a sine wave."

"I love Ableton Live but I use a ton of other plug-ins and soft synths along with it." - Skrillex interview with music radar

"I started with Fruity Loops back in the day, then Reason and then I learnt Pro Tools but I kinda hated it so I got Ableton Live, which is just so incredibly intuitive," says Skrillex in this interview.

In this Vine video clip, Skrillex is making some sounds using Ableton and Native Instrument's Massive Synth. He says, "Just makin/demoing some new fun soundz #ableton #massive" (clip is dated March 2013).

In a November 2011 interview with Music Radar, he says, "My two personal favourites are NI's Massive and FM8... I haven't really expanded too far off FM8 and Massive because I know them so well and can pretty much make any sound I want with them - especially with FM synthesis, which is so basic." The original source article can be found here.

This video shows Skrillex using his Macbook Pro in both Studio and Live contexts. At 0:35, he is seen using it to create a song and at 6:25 he is seen using on stage.

Skrillex is seen using the ATH-M50 headphones at 4:56 in the Regeneration Music Project: Skrillex and The Doors- The making of 'Breaking a sweat' video.

In the song, "Right on Time", 3 Vengeance samples are used (The main vocal sample "Right on time.") from Vocal Essentials Vol. 1. These samples are VVE1 Vocal One Shot 251, VVE1 Vocal One Shot 252, and VVE1 Vocal One Shot 253 and can be found in this directory:

\VVE1 Vocals\VVE1 Vocal Oneshots

The Focusrite Saffire PRO 14 audio interface is an integral part of Skrillex's mobile studio setup. When asked about it he says "I've got a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live with two little KRK monitors and a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 interface."

Skrillex is taking over the planet! We’ve been talking about him on our social networks and of course, he’s seen the light and used our vocal sample “Ruffneck Bass” for his huge hit anthem of the very same name. This sample comes from our “Urban & Dance Vocals” sound library.

Prime Loops’ distinctive collection of vocal samples have been used by numerous artists including Crookers (on the GTAIV soundtrack), Adam F (on BBC 1Xtra), Doctor P (on the “Badman Sound” anthem) and a whole dose more!

Via Prime Loops

Skrillex processes his vocals using Melodyne. He says "I don't do much vocoding to be honest. All my vocals are usually done with Melodyne and a ton of other plug-ins to make it sound weird."

In this Instagram photo posted by Skrillex, his KRK ROKIT 5 G3 studio monitors can clearly be seen.

In an interview with Music Radar, Interview: Skrillex talks production, plug-ins and power edits, he mentions:

I've got a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live with two little KRK monitors and a Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 interface.

The interviewer later asks:

Those KRK monitors of yours must endure some serious punishment?

To which Skrillex replies:

"Yeah... [laughs] When I did the last EP [More Monsters And Sprites] I did it all so quickly that I actually did the whole thing with the right speaker blown! I'm pretty happy with my sonics though so, if it does ever cause any grief live it's a good grief, for sure."

In this video at 1:45 on the master channel

At 5:59, Skrillex is seen using the MPK 49 as a performance tool.

According to this interview with Music Radar, Skrillex has used Fl Studio, Reason, and Pro Tools. Nowdays he uses Ableton.

When asked how he creates the mashed-up vocals in his productions, Skrillex responds "I do most of my vocals – aside from a couple of little one-shot vocal samples. I record everything into the Saffire with an SM58 then scratch it with loads of plug-ins."

At 1:10, Skrillex is seen using Pro Tools to track his Guitar playing.

This tweet from Skrillex states that he uses Sylenth1 among a few other soft synths.

In this photo of Skrillex performing, he can be seen wearing white Beats Pro headphones.

A pair of Barefoot Sound MicroMain27 Gen2 sit on a table downstairs in this video captioned "STUDIO FINALLY FINISHED". This video was uploaded by Skrillex to his Vine page on 27 March 2013.

In an interview with iZotope, Skrillex talks about some of his favorite features of Ozone:

"Ozone is just super-versatile. The Multiband Stereo Imaging is really nice, and you can bus a ton of things to it for different reasons. I'm actually next to [dubstep producer and DJ] Flux Pavilion right now, and he says it's fucking wicked for everything, really. Everybody uses it. I use it as a multi-band compressor on individual channels—I'll bus out multiple channels if I just want some stereo imaging, and the EQ in there is very nice too. I use the Multiband Dynamics and the Harmonic Exciter on a lot of shit, and the Maximizer too. I really use it all. It's just cool to have so many choices in one.

I think where it's really helped me is to create the illusion of a lot of stereo stuff going on, without getting the phase problems. You can use Ozone's stereo imaging and take frequencies above seven thousand [7 kHz], or even a little bit lower, and you can widen everything up there, so that the mix starts to sound a lot wider. In an environment where you're performing live, where a lot of times you have distortion and different high frequencies bouncing around the room, you don't necessarily need those to be as present, but when the higher end stuff starts phasing, because you've widened everything, it almost tightens up your mix. For how bright and how chaotic my mixes are, I think they work really well in the club because I've widened the stereo image. If you do that at a lower frequency band, you get phasing and lose the notation, or lose the actual definition of the synth line. But if you brighten things up at the very top of everything, it gives the illusion of a big wide mix."

The original interview can be found here.

In an interview with MusicRadar from November 2011, Skrillex says his mastering chain "literally consists of an iZotope Maximizer, maybe with a little bit of EQ and harmonic excitement, but that's it." The Maximizer is part of the complete Ozone software package.

In a reddit AMA, redditor cyberforte asks Skrillex how he processes vocals. Skrillex says ¨Im using lots of stuff! Depends on the sound, song... there's no right way. But WAVs CLA vocal is nice to throw on to get that pop sound...¨

In this photo, The Blue Yeti USB Mic can be seen to the left, under the studio monitors. Photo is from this Forbes article.

In the first 5 seconds of the video, you get a clear look at two of Skrillex's hardware synths, the top one being the Moog Subsequent 37.

You can see that he uses the Pro-L 2 at 1:21

Skrillex's former live setup included an M-Audio Trigger Finger MIDI Controller. As of 2012, he switched to using CDJ's.

During Skrillex's Instagram Live stream on March 26, 2020, at the 1:00:15 mark, he uses the Vengeance Essential Clubsounds VOL 3 sample pack while producing a track from scratch. This session was uploaded by Skrilluminati on YouTube.

A pair of MiniMain12s were spotted in Skrillex's new studio from a Vine he posted.

A MixCube speaker can be seen on Skrillex's studio desk in this photo.

In a Rolling Stone interview with Katie Couric, Skrillex is seen using the Shure SM7B microphone for vocal sampling at the 0:36 mark.

Skrillex has a folder within his samples shown off in this livestream at 39:00