PRODUCE LIKE ILS

Breakbeat and bass music badman ILS is a master of baleful bassline building. Here he hips us on how he transformed Prof Green's 'Remedy' into a low-end beast...

“A recent ‘killer sound’ I used was in my remix of Professor Green's ‘Remedy’. I put together all the angriest and twisted basslines I had accumulated over the past few months and ran them through Reason, cycling the basslines against a loop of the original ‘Remedy’ track. I used a very simplified backing track of the original, just to give me an idea of the key and any changes. I found three bass loops that worked with the original ‘Remedy’ tune, and by the time I had imported them into Logic, only one bass loop had managed to really stand out.

“The bassline I put together for that remix was a killer sound because it also served as a great mid range lead melody too. A good example of this is the bassline that is also the main lead hook in ‘Show Me love’ (Robin S). The bass for ‘Remedy’ had a very distorted mid-range riff. I layered up the sub-bass part in Logic and then bounced off several different versions of the bass, run through filters and stutter FX so that the bassline could really evolve in different parts of the track.

“The final touch was taking it for a mix-down with Wizard at the Jamm in Brixton. He pointed out that the killer sound of the remix was the bass, and that we should strip some of the sounds away to make it stand out more. It is great to have a second set of ears and input on mix ideas, especially when you have heard the track a lot. He simplified the beats a bit, too, and the main sound stood out even more.”