Berlin-based artist Dante Tom released his brand new EP ‘Down Together‘ on Husky’s Random Soul Recordings with both tracks flying on Beatport and Traxsource! Dante revealed his, 5 essential production tools that he used for making this a deep classic house feel EP with a fresh modern touch.
When I went through both projects I realized that I used very few plugins. I actually used a lot of samples for both tracks. I made sure that every chosen sound is top quality and it fits the vibe. You know what they said. You can’t polish a turd. And it applies to music production more than to anything else. The right sound choice is the key!
Prophet 5 – Arturia – (“Dub Bass” preset)
My go-to bassline. I really like Arturia plugins and Prophet 5 is especially one of my favourites. To be totally honest, I have never been too good at creating my own sounds from scratch. Luckily enough Prophet 5 has some good bass presets and “Dub Bass” is just simply working very well for me. I used it on both tracks on the EP. I would usually tweak only the parameters in AMPLIFIER and FILTER sections to make sure that the bass is fitting nicely to my drums.
Prophet 5 is a part of the Arturia V Collection which also includes some other amazing classic synths. I recommend to check it out.
https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/prophet-v
bx_subfilter – Brainworx (Free plugin)
Simple, effective and for FREE! This little bad boy has changed my entire game when it comes to treating the low end. With just a few quick adjustments, you can bring your bass to life. Apart from fatting up your bass, it also brings a necessary clarity and definition to your low end. You can really feel the difference when you A/B (bypass the plugin). Try it yourself!
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/bx_subfilter.html
Kickstart by Nicky Romero
I am sure that many producers are aware of this famous plugin created by a Dutch EDM star Nicky Romero and Cableguys. But if not, I would definitely recommend to try this one out. It’s possibly the quickest way to sidechain a house track. It’s my obvious choice mainly for sidechaining my bass to the kick. But quite frankly, I also use it on other instruments and especially on the effects or foley running in the background of the track to fill up space for a more organic feel. There are good presets to start with and with just a few tweaks, you will get the result you are looking for!
https://www.kickstart-plugin.com/
Ozone Imager (Free plugin)
Another freebie! Everyone knows that Izotope make some brilliant mixing and mastering plugins and some of them can be also a bit pricy. But luckily enough Izotope have released this “Free instant audio imaging” plugin to easily widen or narrow your sounds. It’s incredibly simple and effective. They are just two parameters inside, “Width” and “Amount”, plus everything is nicely visualised right next to it with three different vectorscope meters to help to check your stereo width and see how wide you are making your sound. Don’t grab it!
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/downloads/ozone_imager2.html
Btw during writing this article I found out that there is an upgrade to the version 2! And it’s still free, so no need to worry:).
HornetSongKEy MK3
A key detection utility that finds the key and tempo of a song or sample in realtime. Personally, I only use it for finding the key of a sample or a track I am working on. I usually try to be mindful in what key I am producing but it’s never bad to do a little check. Especially if you are not a classically trained musician like me. Also, not all samples are properly named and if that’s the case, HornetSongKey can come in handy. It saved me a lot of time on numerous occasions.
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-songkey-mk3/
Conclusion:
After making music for almost a decade, I realized that you don’t have to own the most expensive and the fanciest plugins on the market to get the result you really want. Of course, they are top-notch VSTs and plugins which are worth to pay for but before you get stuck in buying everything (I used to do it haha), consider trying some of the FREE available options. Sometimes you will be able to find a magic. And remember, it all starts with the right sound choice.
I would like to know if you found any of the above useful in your production. Don’t hesitate to hit me up on Instagram and ‘Down Together’ is now available on all the platforms – https://rsr.lnk.to/downtogether/