Producer Masterclass

The tropical house hitmaker invites us into his north London studio to break down the creation of his track Casual, produced in Logic Pro X

The tropical house star deconstructs his cutting-edge studio techniques

Keeping it Casual Propelled to fame by his 2015 smash Make Me Feel Better and remix of Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud, Londonbased producer Alex Adair is known for his sunny, tropical house sound, which he produces almost entirely in the box. We caught him in his home studio on a rare day off, for an in-depth look at the production process behind floor-filler

Casual, released last year on Island Records. So, where did it all begin…?

AA: “I actually made MakeMeFeelBetter at uni, for a course. It felt like the first thing I could try and push out, so I sent it to some YouTube channels and blogs, it got picked up by TheSoundYouNeed, and went from there. It was really organic but it happened quickly – quite literally overnight. It’s weird when I look back at it now; it seems like that wouldn’t happen at all today.”

: Would you recommend that same approach to young producers now?

AA: “Yeah, I definitely recommend sending things into BBC Introducing and things like that. At that time all the labels were looking at Youtube channels for breaking artists. I also did remix competitions before that, which was good for meeting people. And being able to get hold of stems from professional songs – great for learning.”

: You studied piano while at school. Keyboard skills are, of course, useful for any producer, but do you play the instrument ‘seriously’, as it were?

AA: “I did my grade 7 piano when I was 13 or 14, but then I just stopped. Everyone says it’s like riding a bike, but it’s not. These days, I can dabble, but I actually write a lot of stuff on piano, as that’s how I started off musically – I don’t write stuff in with the pencil tool. Every single I’ve ever done I can play on piano.”

: Your studio is very streamlined and software-centric…

AA: “Yeah, that’s how it started for me – the classic bedroom producer story. It’s pretty much all software.”

: And Logic Pro is your DAW of choice. Have you always been a Logic user?

AA: “Pretty much, yeah. At uni, it was a very varied, sound design-based course, so I used Logic out of personal preference; Ableton for sampling, messing up live recordings and things like that; and Max/ MSP – although I’m not going claim to be a master in that at all. Definitely, in terms of making music, Logic just visually connects with me. At the end of the day, a lot of them all do the same thing, so it’s whatever you find visually easiest for you.”

: Tell us a bit about the track you’re walking us through today.

AA: “I’ll be going through one of my more recent singles, Casual. It’s a good one to go through, as I’m quite proud of the sound design. I really spent time on the vocal cut in the drop and things like that. At the time, that was something I hadn’t really done before. And it’s not a four-on-the-floor drum pattern – I hadn’t released anything that wasn’t like that before, either.

“It started as an acapella, which came from Future Cut. They’d sent me another track that I worked on, and really liked it, so they brought me into the studio. I wasn’t signed at the time. They played me a ton of songs, and Casual was one. I can’t remember what it sounded like before – probably just piano and vocal. They’d been sitting on it for years and years, and the writer was Caroline Ailin, who’s gone on to do Dua Lipa’s NewRules, and writes for Sam Preston from Ordinary Boys. It sounded like an absolute banger.

“I think I sat on it for about nine months, until it clicked in my head what it was going to be like. It actually happened on a flight to Jakarta, so I did pretty much the base of the whole track on a 16-hour flight. Yeah, I said I don’t write anything with the pencil… [laughs]. Then, obviously, I took it into the studio and changed a lot of the sounds, because you can’t really hear what’s going on on a plane.”

“I don’t use the pencil tool. Every single I’ve ever done, I can play on piano”