Dutch producer Pythius has spent greater than a decade blurring the road between cinematic sound design and high-intensity drum and bass. His music balances chaos with management, combining distorted percussion, darkish melodies, and detailed atmospheres that really feel each mechanical and alive. Through the years, he has constructed a robust repute for pushing boundaries throughout genres, acting at main festivals together with Let It Roll, Rampage, Lowlands, and Beats for Love.
For his latest EP, a two-tracker from Blackout Music NL known as Inquisition / The Stranger, Pythius seemed to the grim sci-fi universe of Warhammer 40,000 for inspiration. The monitor was constructed across the concept of the Inquisition, channeling its pressure and menace into an aggressive but immersive sound. To convey that imaginative and prescient to life, he used Native Devices’ Pharlight and Heavyocity: Injury libraries. Collectively, they gave him the textures, impression, and cinematic depth he wanted to form a monitor that feels as heavy as it’s expansive.
Leap to those sections:
- How Pythius constructed the world of his newest single
- Why Pharlight suits heavy drum and bass
- Discovering motion inside cinematic textures
- Preserving readability in dense, aggressive mixes
- Letting atmospheres breathe with out shedding precision
- Strategies for including edge, anxiousness, and scale with out overcomplicating the combo
Pharlight, in addition to the total model of Kontakt, which hosts these libraries and extra, can be found as a part of Komplete 15 Final or the NI 360 subscription.
Your new single blends aggressive drum work with enormous cinematic textures. What was the preliminary artistic imaginative and prescient that pulled these worlds collectively?
I like having a little bit of drama in my intros, and I actually attempt to make the listener really feel like they’ve entered one other world.
With this monitor, the theme was the Inquisition from Warhammer 40,000, which is fairly darkish, so I attempted to go for an ominous sci-fi sound. I had to verify the stress was there proper from the beginning, so these libraries had been a superb match.
Professional tip from Pythius: Depart a little bit of overlap between parts when equalizing. Having every part sound too clear and scientific sucks the life out of a monitor. A little bit of overlap makes it really feel extra alive and actual, so to talk.
What drew you to cinematic libraries like Pharlight for this launch particularly?
Merely put, I actually like the way it sounds, and it’s quick to work with. After a little bit of enjoying round, you possibly can have a fantastic-sounding environment with pads that lend a definite and polished vibe.
It’s preferrred for menacing and massive intros, and also you don’t need to spend ages creating one thing from nothing. In case you’re into full sound design, working from the bottom up is nice. However I’m attempting to complete a tune right here, and having these sounds able to go is nice for my workflow. It retains the creativity within the air.
Pharlight has a really distinctive movement and depth. How did you form its textures to match the tempo and aggression of your drums?
This sounds loopy, however I began by pushing it into the subsequent photo voltaic system utilizing intense multiband compression. Dance music has a really excessive vitality, and utilizing aggressive compression like that basically strikes the cinematic sounds in that route. Afterward, I changed my preliminary processing with a spectral compressor as a result of I preferred the sound of it a bit extra.
After that, I sidechained Phralight with the drums to go away room for the kick. That creates additional layers of rhythm because the sidechaining provides motion to the cinematic layers.
Professional tip from Pythius: With multiband dynamics, attempt to experiment with upward compression, or hold the downwards compression at round 3% or so. That provides you a whole lot of vitality.
How do you preserve headroom and readability when layering dense atmospheric devices inside high-energy preparations?
As I discussed earlier than, I exploit heavy compression, however that additionally means it’s important to be a bit extra heavy-handed with equalizing as effectively. You’ve bought to take a look at what frequency vary is essential for a sound to shine by, and provides it the house it wants for that.
Which means having one synth devoted to the sub and eradicating that very same sub vary from each different layer. The identical goes for the low mids. Solely the sounds that truly want that vary hold it, and I scoop it out of the others with bell equalization strikes. I keep away from slender notches as a result of they take out an excessive amount of and make issues sound unnatural.
After that, I’ll add some saturation. That may add a whole lot of vitality to a sound.
I’m additionally working at fairly excessive LUFS ranges today, usually between -2 and -3, so headroom isn’t as a lot of a priority because it was.
Professional tip from Pythius: Attempt to shock your listener with sudden, higher-pitched sound results like bowed strings or metallics to maintain their consideration.
Drum & bass depends closely on precision. How do you let atmospheric layers breathe with out shedding the tightness of your groove?
Utilizing sidechain compression and setting the ducking curve to make room for the kick and snare actually helps. You need to let the curve return up quick sufficient that it lets the monitor preserve its id.
I additionally equalize loads and hold frequencies which are essential to sure teams. For instance, on my drops, I exploit a excessive minimize on all synths and bass sounds above 12 or 13 kHz, as a result of the hats and cymbals give sufficient excessive finish info there. With out that, every part would get too smeared, and also you’d have messy, unfocused highs. With it, you possibly can clearly hear your cymbals, however the listener perceives the synths and basses as having that very same excessive finish.
Professional tip from Pythius: Placing ring modulation on a sound and automating the speed can yield very cool outcomes. It will possibly make a transition actually attention-grabbing.
For producers experimenting with cinematic layers for the primary time, what recommendation would you give to maintain vitality excessive whereas increasing the environment?
Use heavy compression and saturation to provide it an aggressive edge, however hold equalization in thoughts.
Use drums to intensify the vitality through the use of libraries like Injury with its huge industrial percussion. Libraries like that often have some good loops which are already processed a bit. That may give your half a fast enhance in depth.
You may also use a high-pitched layer on high to create a sense of slight anxiousness, like a noticed wave with some additional voices and a little bit of pitch modulation. Sidechain that closely and voila – extra vitality.
Professional tip from Pythius: Mess around with frequency shifters together with different bizarre results like comb filters and ring modulators to get some cool, surprising results.
Wrapping all of it up
Pythius continues to indicate how cinematic manufacturing can coexist with the depth of recent drum and bass. His work merges element and aggression in equal measure, with libraries like Pharlight and Injury offering the textures and motion that push his sound into new territory.
Through the use of cinematic instruments to drive the vitality of his preparations somewhat than sit behind them, he turns environment into rhythm and pressure into groove.
The result’s a sound that feels highly effective and targeted, rooted in storytelling as a lot as engineering. For producers seeking to convey extra scale and emotion into their very own heavy music, exploring these libraries can open that very same artistic house.
The submit Inside Pythius’s workflow for fusing metallic and drum and bass first appeared on Native Devices Weblog.
