How It Was Made: Alexis – Me (Headroom Records + Electronic/Hyperpop)

“Path” is Alexis’s most personal project to date, blending alt-pop with high-energy club production. The focus track “Me” dives into envy and imposter syndrome, pairing vulnerable lyrics with a bouncing, emotionally charged arrangement. With early support from BBC Radio 1, NTS, Rinse FM, Dazed, DJ Mag, and Clash, Alexis continues to carve out a sound that feels equally suited to headphones and the dance floor.

For this How It Was Made feature, Alexis walks us through the plugins and techniques that shaped “Me,” sharing insights into Serum presets, vocal processing, and chopped samples that give the track its sharp yet personal edge.

Serum

Sooo I used Serum a lot on not only this track but the whole EP. I really loved this synth preset, it’s so crazy sounding. I built the track around this and the melody I wrote with this as a starting point I’m pretty sure. I loved the kind of detuned sound it gives and the glitchyness.

Once I found this sound, I wrote down an initial melody, I can’t fully remember whether I wrote this main melody line or the bassline. But those were definitely the core of the track. The preset is called SQ Destroided and on my end I didn’t do too much to change it because I loved the sound so much. I EQ’d out some of the super high frequencies and a lot of the low end because it was muddying too much with the bass.

I’m a big fan of using presets as a starting point for creativity, I think when you find a sound you really like the melodic ideas kind of slot into place a bit more. It’s just a really good jumping off point in my opinion. The fun can then come from going crazy with plugins and effects if you want to really put your own stamp on it and make it mould into the track you’re working on.

OTT Compressor

This is the OTT compressor, I also used it a lot for this EP.

I used this on pretty much every vocal channel in the track I think, I wanted the vocals to sound super pushed. When I worked on the track with Jennifer Walton I think we put this plugin on tracks multiple times to make them sound as pushed and distorted as we could. We also autotuned the vocals on top of this but it’s not too obvious as the track is pretty much spoken. I wanted the vocals to sound pretty dry.

If you want that super compressed and distorted sound this is a really fun plugin to play around with, I heard about it through listening to an interview with A G Cook and have been using it ever since. I think this kind of effect works in pretty much every genre of music too so it’s easy to fiddle with the balances on it and make it sound exactly as you want.

Logic Quick Sampler

This is the Logic Quick Sampler! You can use it to sample audio of any kind and chop it up and play it with whatever notes you like.

I really love vocal chops, as you can see in this EP! They’re pretty much in every track. I like this sampler because it’s pretty user friendly. I added in the first vocal scratch sample from this track and spliced it up with the slice feature – I usually fiddle around a bit with the transients or just put them at random for a kind of glitchy sound which I really like. For this track I used these vocal chops in quite a rhythmic way which was deliberate because the drums etc are pretty sparse in the song.

There are endless possibilities on how to use this plugin tbh, you can use pretty much whatever audio sample you want and change it a million different ways!

Quick Fire Hot Takes

Hot Take #1
I feel like we’re having too many microtrends in music now and they move on very quickly.

Hot Take #2
[Needs to be filled in – two sentences with a production-focused opinion or observation.]

Hot Take #3
Artists, myself included, should always be looking to find their community within their music, having a scene with you or behind you is so important.

Hot Take #4
I really think less is more in terms of gear or even software, it forces you to get creative with what you have – at least in my experience!