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."

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.

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

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 video at 1:45 on the master channel

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

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...¨

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

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.

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

You use some very twinkling piano sounds in “Equinox.”

"That is the stock Ableton piano on everything; then I just compress the crap out of it in Ozone. It really squashes the sound, almost like resampling."

Ohmicide is one of Skrillex's favorite distortion plugins, alongside iZotope Trash. Regarding Ohmicide he says "It's an absolutely crazy multiband distortion, compression, EQ and filter, which pretty much lets you do anything."

When asked about his favorite gear, Skrillex talks about the iZotope Trash plugin:

"...these days I really like iZotope's Trash, actually. It's pretty cool. I've been using it on random things. It's like, here's a sound and I don't really know what to do with it, and I throw it on and start fucking with it, and it becomes something else. It's one of those plug-ins that I'm not totally familiar with yet, but I like messing around with it because it can change an interesting sound into something more random... Trash is something I'd like to explore some more."

In this tweet, Skrillex tells us which plugins he uses. "most of my go to VI's are pretty standard.. Massive, FM8, Sylenth1,Vanguard,Pro53, Gladiator. Nothing too fancy"

Channel 110 in Skrillex's Ableton Project file for Fuji opener has an instance of Nexus 2 open.

"@nynex Ableton Live and most of my go to VI's are pretty standard.. Massive, FM8, Sylenth1,Vanguard,Pro53, Gladiator. Nothing too fancy"

In this video, Skrillex is seen performing a radio mix with Diplo. If you look very closely at 0:12, you can see one of the signature virtual turntables on the Macbook Pro screen. Diplo is seen performing a 0:12, However since Skrillex is seen using the same equipment at 0:28, It's Implied that he's using Serato DJ.

In a Heavy Mellow Instagram livestream on July 25, 2020, Skrillex is seen using the Soundtoys Little Alterboy plugin at the 07:20 mark.

Skrillex shares a rare screenshot of his session for KLIPTOWN EMPYREAN, and Elysium is seen on track 15.

In this interview, Skrillex says "Rob Papen Albino Red is another I like; it’s an old drum-and-bass synth that everybody likes to use."

Another one of the few software synths in the Skrillex arsenal.

The WOW2 page on the Sugar Bytes website says, "Get WOW2 now! (Skrillex, Boys Noise, SiriusMo, Modeselektor, MouseOnMars already did)"

In this Vine video, Skrillex is seen using Ableton's EQ Eight Plug-In.

At the bottom of the page, it says "Recommended by BoysNoize, Skrillex, Peaches, Modeselektor, SiriusMo, Mouse on Mars, Biohazard."

“Auto-Tune EFX is always my go to when it comes to working on the fly with artists!”

– Skrillex / Sonny Moore

Your tracks cover so much ground; they’re dynamic both in the material and in the production. Even down to the fine details, such as the string machine pad at the end of “Equinox.”

"Kontakt, baby! I am like a Native Instruments commercial. Their samples are great. Those strings are one-shot audio samples. Just little bits in an extended line you can bring in as sample players or in audio and crossfade and do different things to extend them longer if you want to build pads."

Insight by iZotope is seen throughout the whole video.

"Native Instruments are pretty standard, and for good reason – Massive, Reaktor and FM8 are all amazing."