How It Was Made: Jewel Kid – Explicit Behaviour EP (Rekids + House)

After two decades of releases across house music, Maltese producer Jewel Kid (@jewelkid) makes his Rekids debut with Explicit Behaviour, a three-track EP arriving August 14. The record follows releases for Abode and Toolroom alongside his work running Alleanza, and finds him leaning heavily on hardware across “Explicit Behaviour,” “In The Dance” and “The Tribute.”

Much of the EP starts with the Moog Sound System, specifically the DFAM, Subharmonicon and Mother-32, with the DFAM handling everything from kicks to basslines, sequences, noise and FX. Jewel Kid then brings the Elektron Octatrack MkII into the process for sampling, sequencing and manipulating recordings from his synths, while Soundtoys and iZotope Ozone cover key processing and mastering duties.

With Explicit Behaviour now landing on Radio Slave’s Rekids, Jewel Kid explains the hardware and plugins behind the EP in his own words.

Moog Sound System

All the sounds in the 3 tracks found in this EP were mainly done with the Moog Sound System, which is made up by the DFAM, Subharmonicon and the Mother-32. The possibilities with this setup are endless and every day is like having a new piece of hardware because they never sound the same. Even slight change in studio temperature changes the overall sound.

I would say that the initial ideal always stems out of the DFAM. This Drummer From Another Mother is everything but a drum machine. I mean it’s a great drum machine, because even my kicks are all made with it, but this little machine is the gift that keeps on giving; Basslines, synth sequences, noise, fx – you name it. This machine does all.

The magical thing about having the Moog Sound System is that when all 3 machines are joined together, you don’t just have 3 machines anymore, but tons other because when connected to each other different sound designs start coming to life that could not be achieved by just having one.

Elektron Octatrack MkII

Where do I start? 🙂 This little machine here is probably one of the most versatile piece of equipment ever created. So much so that for the first time in my career I had to read the manual, not once but 3 times. It’s a sampler, a sequencer, an effects processor, a mixer and probably a few other things which I still haven’t discovered.

I’d say that the most beautiful thing for me about this machine is that I can spend days just recording my synths into it, build a whole library and then spend years with those sounds, chopping them and manipulating them into a whole idea. There is quite a learning curve with this machine, but once you climb that, you will open a whole new world.

Having 8 audio tracks and 8 midi tracks which control most of my gear, I can build a whole project in the Octatrack. Once you think you’re done, you can then record those tracks seperatly into your DAW and even play your project live at your shows like some are doing to great success.

Soundtoys

Ever since I got the Soundtoys package, there has never been a project that I worked on that does not include a handful of these. I think for the price you pay you get most of the effects you need to add character, movement, distortion and unusual processing to your tracks. It’s definitely worth every penny.

One of the plug-ins in the Soundtoys package is called Decapitator. I use this in all my tracks to bring extra grittiness and saturation to my sounds. I find the “T Style” to be my go-to model as it adds a special character to any sound.

Apart from sounding great, Soundtoys have a great look to them that somehow give you that hardware feel which many producers like me pursue. I’ve been using these plug-ins for many many years, and I still feel that I’m just scratching the surface. Every module is unique and always very straightforward to use.

iZotope Ozone

This plug-in right here has saved me a load of time and many headaches when it comes to mastering my tracks. When you are making 50-60 tracks a year like me, it doesn’t make sense to have all your tracks mastered professionally by a mastering engineer. I just need a good master to test out in the clubs and send to record labels. Izotope’s Ozone does this job perfectly.

Before putting this plug-in on your master always make sure that your track is already sounding great, balanced and not peaking more than -6db in most of the track. Then slap this bad boy on your master channel, let it analyze a part of your track where most of the main sounds are playing. When its done, I like to raise the Maximizer ceiling of the True Peak to -0.1db and the main Izotope’s Input Gain to around +4db. And just like that you’ve got yourself a solid master that you can easy test anywhere.

Another way that you can use Izotope to great effect, is to grab just the Imager and put it on your drum bus. From there move Band 1 to around 175hz and slide the width all the way down to -100. Then grab another band, move it to about 800hz to grab most of your mids and highs and slide it’s width up to your preference. By doing these 2 bands you have created a mono low end with Band 1 and a nice wide stereo field with Band 2. A perfect way to have bigger and sharper drums.