How It Was Made: Exstra – Frozen (Enormous Chills) – Magnetic Magazine

Magnetic • Jun 13, 2024
Enormous and its sister labels are among the few labels in the industry that can launch an artist’s career into the stratosphere. So whenever a new face from their labels crosses my radar, I will be sure to take an extra special note of who they are and what they’re doing.
Extra is an up-and-coming producer who fits this bill to a T, and his soft, driving, club-friendly melodic house tracks have a certain magic to them that’s hard to put your finger on but have some incredible potential that keeps me listening and relistening to his entire discography while I’ve been working.
And since his new track recently dropped on Enormous Chills, I wanted to take the opportunity to pick his brain about what plugins he’s using in the studio and how he uses them to work his magic. So listen to the track below to acclimate your ears to what he will be talking about before diving into the latest iteration of How It Was Made: Exstra—Frozen.
I make a majority of my synth leads in U-he Diva. Diva makes getting an analog sound effortless. There’s a ton of embedded instability and subtle variation on pitch and filter cutoff that can bring a sound to life.
I love combining modules inspired by different classic synths to create a truly unique sound.
In this case, I combined the Dual VCO (Roland Jupiter 6) with the Bite filter (Korg MS-20). I love to automate filter cutoff, the envelope amount attached to the filter, and the decay on the filter envelope to keep a sound moving and breathing. Despite the built-in effects sounding quite nice, I tend to do all of my processing outside of the synth for more control. I love to use Decapitator for some edge, echo boy for delay, and vintage verb for reverb.
In browsing presets and watching videos over the last few years, I feel like the Bite filter doesn’t get enough love! I’ve been gravitating towards it as it has a bit more presence in the upper mids, allowing the sound to cut through still when the filter is closed. Another tip is to use a touch of cross-modulation (or even automate it) to get some subtly unique sounds.
Learn More About This Plugin Here
One of the newer plugins in my toolkit is the Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor. This is a really versatile compressor with tons of color. The distortion modes are awesome and can really make sounds pop.
In this track, I used the Distressor for a technique called “rear bus compression” by the legendary mix engineer Andrew Scheps. To do this, I sent all of my bass, synths, and drums (minus kick) to the compressor in parallel. I used a 2:1 ratio, the internal side chain to avoid pumping in the low end, and the Dist 2 distortion which adds a ton of character.
I really like using the Distressor because it has an “in your face” sound that can bring out tons of character and texture from existing material. The trick above works beautifully when you have vocals to keep them up front and personal. One thing to be mindful of is that the release is slower than 1176, so in some cases, I may opt to use a transient designer to tighten things up. For dance music, I also think it’s key to side-chain this return to the kick to keep things grooving.
Learn More About This Plugin Here
The Black Box Analog Design HG-2MS is an incredible tube saturation with M/S processing. This plugin version has filters to tailor saturation separately for each channel which is really nice. It also has add an added air knob which really helps add some sparkle to the top end.
I used this on my mix bus to glue everything together and add harmonics that increase the perceived loudness without meaningfully altering the peak level. I used both the Pentode and Triode tubes at just a hair over 50% and roughly 30% saturation on both the mid and side channels. I opted for the alt tube setting, which is brighter, to really bring out some of the tiny details in the record. I also used the internal high-pass filter on the mid channel to avoid muddying up the lows.
As mentioned above, I’d definitely suggest being careful with how much saturation is applied to the lows / low mids, as it can quickly clog up the mix. The HG-2MS is fantastic for managing this, as you have a lot more control over the filters to hone in on that sweet spot for your record. You can also try pushing it to the limit on some individual sounds, such as basses or leads, to get some really aggressive and powerful sounds!
Learn More About This Plugin Here
#1 – Being deliberate about the intended listening environment for your song can inform critical mixing decisions. For example, if it’s going to be a club record, keep any pads in the drops pretty low in the mix to keep things driving.
#2 – The kick is king in melodic house (and house music generally). I sidechain almost every element to the kick, with the only exception being vocals. That being said, even vocals can sometimes sound subtle sidechain to get them grooving as well
#3 – If you listen closely to some of your favorite records, you’ll notice they have mastered the art of tension and release. The impact of a drop is often dependent on what comes right before it, with silence being one of the most powerful tools available to you!
#4 – A lot of lead melodies in this genre are hypnotic and repetitive — try automating every detail of the synth you’re using to keep it as fresh and evolving as possible to prevent the listener from getting tired of the sound. I also love to use Soundtoys PanMan to very gently move a lead in the stereo spectrum to prevent fatigue from it hitting straight down the middle of the mix the entire time.
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