Atom stops by to discuss his creative process for writing dubstep. He talks about the importance of time management and improving your skill set. Lastly, he gives some great tips for building your tracks.
Episode Links:
Atom The Creator: https://linktr.ee/AtomOfficial?fbclid=IwAR1cjYKn81CGIyWU6ZWgOGcD-CjQdVv59eXbNJSoatlan9LCH748hAqlU0w
Native Instruments: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/
Cymatics: https://cymatics.fm/
Episode Summary:
Atom started his musical journey in high school and went on to study audio engineering in college. Atom loves the sound of ‘dirty’ dubstep and some of his favorite artists include Jane Cicada, Liquid Stranger, and Taboo.
Atom is also influenced by house and is currently working on a collaboration with artist Golden Goddess. He was able to connect with her through Facebook. Atom heard her on Spotify and reached out to Golden Goddess by sending her a track he had stashed away.
Atom and I discuss some the differences between house and dubstep. This includes the driving 4/4 kick of house as well as a lot of chords. Dubstep is heavily influenced by gritty basslines, atmospheres, and the grimy sound of south London in the early 2000s. Atom loves bass music because there is total freedom to make whatever sounds and effects he wants. Anything goes in this style.
Some of his favorite plugins include Serum, Vital, and alchemy. In particular, he finds Serum very useful for creating a modern bass music sound. He also loves Native Instruments libraries and Maschine. He finds the ‘hard bass’ presets from NI as an excellent starting point for his style. Some of his favorite sample packs come from Cymatics.
Atom mentions the term ‘riddim’ as he discusses his style. He likes to define it as a repetitive bassline over a drum beat. The term comes from the early Jamaican sound systems that used to add beats to ‘dub plates’ for DJs.
Atom finds different methods for starting his tracks. Sometimes it’s the drop. Sometimes it’s a melody. His focal element as he writes is to get an idea of what the beat is in his head and then adding a melody or bass over that. He then likes to move into a chorus and a drop. He likes to include a subbass, synth lead, and also some arpeggios for the chorus. For a bass drop, he suggests going all out looking for one-shots, loops, and complimentary synth bass. He takes an exploratory approach and loves to find complimentary sounds.