WHAT’S ON YOUR DRIVE
Mason
The producer behind the Nite Rite series and Fashion Killa likes his plugins to go… way out there
APPLE LOGIC X “I can still remember the first time I ever saw audio being recorded into a computer; I knew it was the future. It was 1999 and I was doing music production course at university. They used Logic, so I immediately switched to Logic. The first six months of X were very buggy – I think there were over 400 of them – but now it’s settled down, it’s perfect.” ARTURIA ARP 2600 “I like to work fast. If you have to spend time working out how to get what you want from a synth, you lose that important energy you need when you’re creating a new song. The 2600 is, of course, a classic synth with a classic layout. It might look a little daunting, but everything’s there in front of you. It’s one of those few synths that will do almost anything I want it to.” XFER RECORDS SERUM “I have been pretty loyal to the synths that I’ve been using for about five or six years, but I was very charmed by this one. When it comes to lead sounds, you need something that’s really going to cut through… that’s what Serum offers you. And the stronger you can get your original sound, the less time you spend trying to EQ it into position in the mix.” WAVES GOLD BUNDLE “Yes, I know everyone uses Waves, but it adds so much to quality of a song. Some of their tools – like the C4 multiband compressor – have been on my computer since the beginning of time and my settings have hardly ever changed. I’m not sure what city their headquarters are located in [Tel Aviv], but they ought to put up a Waves statue in their honour.”
“They ought to put up a Waves statue in their honour”
SONICCHARGE PERMUT8 “Obviously, a vocal has to fit the song. If it’s a nice pop song, you have a nice pop vocal, but I like to get a bit dirty, funky and screwy, so you need a dirty, funky screwy vocal! Permut8 is the perfect tool. Although technically it’s a delay, the options are so vast that you can go completely crazy. But the real beauty is that, even when you go way out there, it never sounds cheesy or gimmicky – there’s always a touch of class.”