Creating Hands Up’s pumped up intro in Live

Joe and Matt create a hypeinducing vibe right from the off with processed vocals and synths...

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“This project came from Joe, he came up with the idea of the original sketch for the track, which was based around a vocal,” reveals Matt. The stuttered, repeating vocal is accompanied by a chugging eighth-note synth pluck from Arturia Analog Lab.

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The Analog Lab layer is doubled with a more phasey, modulating synth patch from Serum that gives the resulting composite synth sound a constantly swirling motion. “It’s quite a horrible phasey old synth sound with a kind of beaten, time-stretched vocal... but it’s cool,” enthuses Joe.

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“On the vocal we used a Delay with the delay time and Dry/Wet automated, which gave us like a crazy, grain-style delay which we used to build up to the sixteen-bar section before the drop,” explains Matt.

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In the next section, a pitched-down version of the word ‘jump’ from the vocal plays on every bar. This is run through Live’s Overdrive, the infamous Multiband Dynamics OTT preset, and Amp effect to beef it up. An EQ Eight is also in the mix, subduing the mids and high frequencies slightly.

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This version of the vocal is layered with a copy that’s bandpass filtered, delayed and reverbed, creating a lo-fi, dubby wetness. This fills up the space in the bar where the vocal isn’t playing. “The nice thing about filtering the feedback from a delay is that it doesn’t get in the way of the original source,” Joe notes.

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Just before the drop the full hook is played one more time, though this time it’s doubled with a version pitched down an octave. “This version has been totally destroyed by Overdrive, OTT, and a bit of EQ, so nothing crazy, but it sounds barely recognisable!” laughs Matt.