Hailing from the heart of Detroit, a city renowned for its musical legacy, DÊTRE stands as a dynamic force in the realm of bass music with a distinct and compelling hip-hop influence.
His success has landed him on festival stages like Infrasound along side tours with some of the best in the game, Tape B being one. He was recently tapped by renowned bass artist Skysia, to provide a remix for “Emerald Bay” off of Skysia’s forthcoming ‘Overture Remixes’ EP – due November 15.
Signed to CloZee’s Odyzey imprint, DÊTRE’s remix of “Emerald Bay” pairs an enticing introduction brooding with atmospheric depth. He masterfully builds tension into a drop that seemingly transports the listener into a dystopian dimension with its haunting, yet powerful synth sounds.
In this feature, DÊTRE takes us behind the scenes to offer a peek behind the curtain on how he created this remix. Let’s unpack this a bit further in the latest iteration of How It Was Made: Skysia – “Emerald Bay (DÊTRE Remix)”.
Sampler
Since this was a remix I tried my best to use sounds that were provided to me ‘via stems’ and rework them into something that sounded like I made it from scratch. This led to me using Ableton’s “Sampler” quite often. This is a super powerful tool, which has way more to it under the hood than “Simpler” in my opinion. The modulation matrix within sampler allows you to attach LFO’s to a ton of parameters like; volume, pitch, filter, panning etc. The pitch and oscillator tab are also very useful tools, you can use the oscillator function to inject some AM/FM into your sound as well as utilize a pitch envelope for various techniques.
I used a bass sound that was in the ‘Bass Group’ of stems provided and identified the root note which is key to using sampler. This allows you to freely play or draw in notes without the burden of transposing the original sample, which is super helpful when using Ableton’s midi function Scale Mode. After that, I used a single sustained note for the phrase and automated parameters (Pitch, and Pitch Envelope Amount). The pitch was controlled by setting a LFO to 1/12 notes and mapping it to the pitch within the modulation matrix, which gives the sound some vibrato towards the end of each note. The second parameter; pitch envelope amount, gives the sound a quick pitch downwards or upwards creating a bit of punch or swell.
I think that using sampler allows you to do a ton to a sample and make it unrecognizable to the original sound without using external plugins. When remixing tunes, try using the source material you’re given as much as possible. This allows you to keep the original tune in mind while being able to put enough of a twist to it on your own without having to do a ton of post processing. With bass music, it doesn’t have to be over-complicated, choose your root note and automate a ton to help keep the idea moving/interesting.
Vocal Weird Thing Rack
This is an ableton rack designed to take staccato sounds and add short swelling delays to them. The main engine of the rack is using Ableton’s stock delay, which has short delay times that are slightly offset to give some interesting stereo qualities to the source material. There are a few more plugins within the rack itself, but they are mainly for boosting amplitude and slightly coloring the sound. The main way this operates is by automating the dry wet of the delay after a sound has passed to create plucky delayed swells which fill out space in the track nicely.
I use this rack in a ton of my music and I seem to go to it whenever I’m stuck on an idea. I used a short blip from the stems provided and put them into a sampler with a very aggressive pitch envelope to create a punchy pluck that would cut through the mix. I then automated the dry/wet of the delay itself to create the swells in between the retriggering of the sample. I also teased the sound using a high-pass filter paired with some reverb which always helps create that “something’s about to happen” feeling that bass music is driven by.
When making trappy bass music at lower tempos, I think it’s very important to keep the track changing over time. A simple use of reverb on sounds can become boring pretty quickly so challenge yourself to fill in the space between hits in other creative ways. This rack does just that and I love the way it utilizes space.
Fuse Compressor (Minimal Audio)
This has slowly become one of my favorite plugins in the past few months. Fuse compressor is exactly what it sounds like, a compressor. However, it does some things that others do not. It has the ability to split sounds (up to six bands) which is super helpful for being precise with what frequency ranges you’re compressing. It also has mid-side capability which was unique to me the first time I used it, and can yield some pretty interesting results. Last but not least, this compressor has a built-in soft clip limiter, which allows you to push the hell out of the source material. When the icon at the bottom right of the plugin is purple, you get some gentle saturation and limiting which prevents you from going over 0 in your mixer, but when toggled to orange, you get hard clipping which introduces distortion at the end of your compression which can lead to some aggressive gritty tones.
I used this plugin a ton in this remix. The stems I got were gain staged very well and left me with a ton of room to work, which gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted with them. I use this compressor much like Ableton’s OTT preset on their multiband dynamics module by pushing the source material hard with both upward and downward compression. As you can see in the photo attached, both the upward/downward threshold and ratios are maxed out which really brings in the quiet part of the source material to life but squashing the loud parts all together to create a very glued sound.
Over the top compression is probably one of the most used techniques in bass music and for good reason. It can really help bring sounds to life and keep them aggressive yet tight. Be experimental with your use of the plugin, with the UI being so clean it makes it very easy to try different things which can lead to a variety of tones you didn’t think possible when first opening it.
Newfangled Saturate (Newfangled Audio)
Newfangled Saturate is a spectral clipper that does an amazing job of keeping the source material intact. Clippers that are native to DAW’s are commonly designed to be low in CPU usage and with that comes some sacrifice in terms of quality coming out. Although this plugin is more CPU intensive, it preserves the original source material better than anything I’ve had my hands on before. It has soft and hard clipping capability paired with a very easy to use UI.
I put this on EVERYTHING. This spectral clipper has completely changed the way I produce, and I mean that whole heartedly. I use it on drums to help bring them up in the mix but not exceed 0 on the mixer. I also used it on a variety of bass sounds to help add some warmth to them and bring out a bit of high end. This plugin just really helps me keep my mixes loud but balanced, I know for a fact that I can push my source material and not add a bunch of unwanted artifacts which is awesome.
In modern day bass music I think clipping is one of the most important techniques you can utilize. It gives you peace of mind that you’re not clipping the hell out of the sound once it reaches the mixer and you get a bump in “perceived loudness” which really is the name of the game. Louder isn’t alway better when it comes at a cost of quality but this plugin doesn’t sacrifice the source audio like a lot of others do. Try clipping your kicks and snares as well as your main bass sounds in your tracks with this plugin and you’ll have louder punchier mixes without destroying the original intent of your audio
