Waxman (@waxmanmusic) returns to Magnetic Magazine Recordings with his remix of Olendo’s “Folklore,” and this one dropped at a pretty meaningful point for the label as its 60th signing. He keeps the emotional core of the original in place, then reshapes it into a progressive house record with a slower sense of development and enough room for the melodic parts to unfold, which is such an ethos of his approach to production as a whole. It feels considered at every turn, especially in how the remix builds toward its larger moments without rushing through the sections that get it there.
Snag The Track On Beatport Here
That approach lines up with the way Waxman has been talking about production lately.
He would rather spend extra time on a record he cares about than push something out to stay visible, and you can hear that patience across the arrangement. The track comes from experimentation too, with live parameter control, old hardware brought back into the setup, and vocal edits that started as loose ideas before becoming central parts of the remix.
For this edition of the How It Was Made series, Waxman breaks down the Korg Volca Bass behind the lead arp and the custom Ableton Instrument Rack used to rebuild the original vocal into a playable sequence.
There is a lot of processing involved, but the bigger lesson is fairly simple: try things, record the results, and give yourself enough uninterrupted time to follow an idea before deciding where it needs to go.
Korg Volca Bass
I used my Korg Volca Bass for the lead arp in this remix. I’m a big in-the-box guy, but have been doing more and more midi-mapping and controlling parameters with live run-throughs of my tracks, and I’ve been loving how that’s been feeling. So I cracked out my old trusty Volca and messed around with it. I was really happy with how it was sounding and how it fit into this remix.
But I still had to do plenty of processing afterwards to get it exactly how I wanted it. Some compression, reverb, and eq to really get it sitting in the pocket combined with timely sends to help with transition and points of emphasis. Lots of fun!
Ableton Simpler Instrument Rack
Probably my favourite bit of DAW mucking around on this project was chopping up the lead vocal from the original and putting little parts of it into 5 or so Simplers in Ableton. Then I grouped all of those simplers in an Instrument Rack and did some decay and gain mapping so I could program a sequence with the samples, but also have control over their duration. Turn them from percussive stabs into a more flowy, melodic vocal chop.
Again, lots of processing to get this right after that stage but nothing mind blowing, just the right eq, compression and reverb for the most part. Maybe some delay here and there and again use of sends and returns at the right spots. Nope I lied. I went back to take a screenshot of the processing after the instrument rack and it’s a lot of stuff. Hey, that’s cool though! Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. I included a screenshot of it, or almost all of it cause it was too many to fit all on the screen at once!
Playing around with grouping instruments and mapping your own parameters so you can automate and adjust multiple parameters together and see how they play can be a lot of fun and create some really organic and fresh sounds.
Quick Fire Tips For Making Progressive House
Tip #1: Mess around with plugins and sounds and synths and samples and different things and find out what happens! Might lead to something truly awesome and unique.
Tip #2: Go for walks with headphones on before a session. It’s a great way to jumpstart your inspiration. Also do it once you’ve started a track. Go for a walk and listen to that track. It’s like the car test. But nicer if you walk somewhere nice.
Tip #3: Listen to reference material and get inspired! Don’t copy but get excited by something and then start into your own stuff. Whenever I do this I tend to go down a completely different road then what inspired me but the flavour usually gets me started!
Tip #4: Try making a totally ambient track that builds to a climax. Then if you’re really happy with it, try adding drums and structure. You may end up with two cool versions of a track. And if you have a cool ambient/electronica tune that you’re feeling it isn’t always a far leap to make a club version of it.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
