How It’s Made: MOLØ – Balo (Vivrant) 

Jeremy Olander’s Vivrant label has been on fire and has really set the gold standard over the past few years for texturally dense, melodically forward progressive house music that steps outside the typical genre conventions. What I’ve always respected about Vivrant is how community-driven it is, which aligns with the ethos we’re striving for at Magnetic Magazine Recordings. I highly respect the small-label family Jeremy fosters, builds, and supports through his imprint.

MOLØ is a producer who has long been part of the Vivrant family, and it’s no surprise. Her production quality is second to none, consistently pushing the boundaries of her sound. And I mean that literally—each of her releases is fresh, exciting, punchy, and overall, just super dope.

With that in mind, we wanted to take a closer look at how she created one of her latest tracks, “Balo.” We’ll explore the synths she used, the studio tricks she employed, and her favorite plugins. As always, listen to the track below to get a feel for the sauce that MOLØ is about to share before we dive into the details of how “Balo” was made.

Diva 

Diva is an incredible plugin that brings out an analog warmth in all sounds. It’s easy to navigate and features finely modeled oscillators, filters, and effects, making it easy to design your sounds exactly as you want, whether it’s a smooth pad, bass, or arpeggio.

I use Diva to create most of the sounds in Balo, including pads, leads, and bass. One of my favorite leads is this preset called LD Pisces, which gives off a warm analog feeling with its sawtooth wave. And playing around with the cutoff filter throughout the track really makes it shine. As for the pads, I blend a sine wave with a sawtooth to add some richness to the smooth foundation. Afterward, both elements go through processing with EQ, compression, Soothe2, ValhallaSupermassive, and other effects.

I’ve found Diva to be a game-changer in my productions. Its ability to capture that classic analog warmth has really brought my tracks to life, whether I’m working on basslines, pads, or leads. Just explore the presets, tweaking parameters to create sounds that truly fit your vision. I began using Diva quite early in my production journey and found it remarkably easy to navigate, even without extensive knowledge of synthesizers.

SketchCassette 

SketchCassette is a tool to give your track a nostalgic feel. It’s inspired by 4-track cassette recorders, adding a touch of vintage charm. You can adjust settings like flutter, saturation, and noise to customize the effect and sound.

I love using SketchCassette on my mix bus because it adds this lovely warm, vintage feel to the overall sound. I prefer using Type II because it really brings out the highs much better than Type I. Usually, I don’t tweak many other settings that much because it already adds much color on its own. And can we talk about how cute it looks? Definitely a bonus!

I recommend trying out this plugin on your bus tracks to blend sounds and enhance the overall warmth. It really adds that extra punch to your songs. Experiment with different Tape and Saturation settings, as well as playing around with the Wow + Flutter feature. Also, the Flanging knob is interesting because it blends the modulated Wow and Flutter signal with the dry signal, giving you a fun flanging effect. 

Soothe2 

Soothe2 is a dynamic resonance suppressor that identifies and tackles problematic resonances in real-time. With it you can fine-tune various parameters like frequency cut width, attack and release times, depth, etc. This gives you complete control of the shape without having to sacrifice the original sound.

I use it on basically everything – on drums to reduce sharp frequencies, pads and vocals to clear muddiness, bass to lighten up sub-resonances, and more. Most of the time, I use soft mode for gentle corrections, and I can slow down the processing with the attack and release parameters.

I recommend trying the sidechain effect. Place Soothe on the track where you want to apply the ducking and feed it with the signal you intend to use for triggering. This allows precise frequency separation and creates additional room for your sounds by reducing those particular frequencies.

Crystallizer 

Crystallizer is a creative effect that combines pitch shifting and reversed echo. It’s incredibly user-friendly and easy to explore. It adds depth and color to your track, transforming basic melodies and chords into shimmering, textured soundscapes.

When I want something to feel grander, like you’re going somewhere, I blend it subtly using automation. This adds a bit of sparkle, movement, and presence to the mix. I particularly favor the ‘Crystals’ presets, with ‘Wet Pad’ being a favorite. My usual process involves setting the pitch and delay, then automating the mix controle for the dry/wet signal.

I recommend using it to add extra texture to a sound, preferably a long pad or something more subtle like an FX or something. Also, play around with the Recycle knob, which acts as a feedback controller that allows you to route the effect signal back into the input with adjustable intensity. This is a nice feature creating repeating spiraling patterns.