Amp//Xist might be a new name, but the producer behind it has been involved in electronic music since the 1980s, moving between hardware, live drumming and various incarnations of studio technology along the way. His debut EP, Shadow Jerk (Ya Body), brings that experience together across two contrasting tracks, from the heavily processed hand percussion of Resodrum to the stripped-back, hypnotic electronics of Diffusion Network.
We caught up with him to talk about his longstanding love of Ableton, free plugins, the benefits of throwing away hours of work and why sometimes a dying laptop can make creative decisions for you.
What does your studio setup look like these days? Are you still drawn to hardware, or have you embraced working mainly in the box?
My set up currently is Ableton, Mac book, Focusrite Clarett + and a load of microphones and drums. I’m producing in the box right now, using everything Ableton has to offer plus a few select third party plugs. I have gone through many iterations of hardware over the years, from an Atari ST based set up with Akai 950, Juno’s, Sequential synths, outboard comps etc, various hardware sequencers, a Fostex digital 8 track in the 90’s, which was a really fiddly slow frustrating bit of kit to use. My life has been fairly nomadic and unattached to stuff in the past, when I came back to the U.K. in the late 90’s from Amsterdam I was more into my drum stuff and playing live with acts, and I offloaded all my hardware. By 2012 ‘ish I was playing a hybrid electronic acoustic drum set up and had a Mac book to run Superior drummer and other softwares on stage, and the dubstep band in Bristol I was playing with at the time shared Ableton (8?) with me as I was curious and had seen what they were doing with it. As soon I started playing around with it I fell for it, the workflow, the power, the automation, the quality, the getting ideas down easily, I’m a simple fellow and having it all in one laptop was and is right up my street, it just suits how I work. I love Ableton. I’ve gone through Cubase, Logic etc at home and at certain studio’s i’ve worked at, a bit of Cakewalk, but Ableton is the one for me.
That said, I am now looking at all the amazing hardware that is available and can see integrating some pieces into my studio, and actually I intend to perform my music live so hardware will part of that process at some point.
Are there any particular drum machines, synths or effects units that you’ve kept coming back to over the years? What makes them difficult to replace?
As i’m currently ITB, all the drum machines I use are softwares or Samples. Obviously 909 is a stalwart of dance music, proven by Roland releasing their recent Tr1000. The sounds just work, why fix it if it ain’t broken. So I use those samples a lot. Sorry gear heads, I can hear you tutting haha. But seriously, as far as productions go, the listener does not know or care whether i’m using a hardware machine or sample in a DAW. As i’ve said though, for live a real drum machine is the way to go. Or a sampling groove box… but then we’re back to samples! It’s more the control these units offer that’s important for live I guess.
As for as synths and FX i’m just using Ableton’s offerings and a few third party softwares. Half of my third party are free ware actually, i’ve got some amazing stuff for zero money (not cracks), really powerful great sounding unusual plugs, Baby audio,PSP, Minimal etc and I use them a lot.
When you’re looking for inspiration, do you tend to dig through old records, experiment with equipment or listen to what other producers are doing? What’s been getting your attention recently?
I’m rarely listening to old records to be honest, much more interested to hear what new fresh sounds are happening, and there is an ocean of amazing new music out there. I listen to a few select dj’s and their mixes, Ron Trent being a regular. I’ve said before that I am not producing anything that he would play but I find that his sets give me the juice to produce. I’m into jazz and funk, rare groove, brazillian vibes etc as well as house and techno, and listening to Ron is always a huge pleasure. And I have listened to Gilles Peterson for ever as well.
Also, yes, I will just play around with a noise or groove or drums i’ve recorded in my studio to give me somewhere to go, I don’t think I have a focused sound in my head that i’m trying to extricate, but as I work then that sound in my head takes form and the goal appears. I’ve been a bit insular since my drumming gigs stopped during covid, and i’ve been away from the dance floor and club culture for a while, hiding and writing in my studio, only recently have I really opened up my ears to lots of new music. I can mention a 1000 producers, so two are Nicole Moudaber and Danny Wabbit, very different producers that i’m revelling in.
There’s some pretty interesting percussion processing on Resodrum. Can you talk us through a particular technique or piece of equipment you used to transform those original recordings?
For Resodrum, I close mic’ed a drum with only one microphone, one mic removes any unwanted phasing issues. There are several audio tracks of the recordings running through a buss and on the buss i’ll have a glue comp, i’m using smooth operator to bring up certain frequencies, a subtle EQ to tame any resonance and a clipper (Mesa lite free, it’s awesome). On the first audio track I have a quite drastic stock EQ, a peak comp and a mutli-band comp all going into another freeware which is Beam Haze, which is a crazy good bit of software that does weird verb delay stuff. On the second audio track there is more drastic EQ, next Ableton resonator which is what is giving things that ethereal ‘non drummy’ vibe, as well as the track name, again into a couple of compressors (one is Klanghelm) then into Baby audio Magic Switch and finally into a mult-iband compressor. There is a simple AUlowpass apple plug in at the end for the filtering. The third audio track starts with another different EQ setting into a Focusrite compressor, then into Ableton vocoder messing with formants into a multiband comp into another different Resonator into a vibrato chorus and finally into Baby audio Magic Dice. Actually all those things are giving it the ethereal vibe…
Gosh, that’s the first time i’ve analysed what’s going on in this track, that’s quite a lot isn’t it.
All the above occurs by trial and error over many days until i’m hearing the ‘right’ thing and it sits. Plugins will have been added and removed, order changed around etc, bit of resampling then finally the low pass to give the rising and falling of the audio in the track movement.
How much of your production process is planned out, and how much comes from accidents? Have you ever built an entire track around something that initially went wrong?
Nothing is planned out. I just start with whatever, a drum, a synth riff, a low end groove i’ve played with, and parts and ideas present themselves, some don’t work and they are thrown out and some work and make the core of the track. I don’t have an issue with the old ‘stuck in an 8 bar loop’ problem that I see on so many YT content channels. Once I have a good solid section I will duplicate it many times so i’ve got 6 minutes or whatever of the same thing, then I will set about removing, rather than adding, until an arrangement is formed, and that only takes an hour or so for a basic arrangement, much like a sculptor hacks away at a block of stone I find it much easier to hack away at a block of sound than to try and add bits on. subtractive production I call it, I recommend any producers out there try it if they are stuck with a great 8 bar loop but don’t know what to do with it. When that basic arrangement is formed then I will delve in and spend time detailing the sections and changes which can and does take me a few weeks or longer. I don’t think i’ve built a track around a mistake but I certainly integrate mistakes if they improve a track or add something I had not for seen. I opened a file last night to find all my samples were missing (i’ve found them now thankfully) so I honed in on some bars of something that was going on in what remained and it gave me an idea to produce a brand new track, so in that sense i’ve been inspired by, not a mistake, but a hiccup.
Diffusion Network has quite a different sound to Resodrum, particularly in its drums and electronics. Did you approach the production differently, or did the two tracks develop from similar starting points?
Resodrum I came up with earlier this year using Ableton 12. Diffusion Network i’d written a year before, in a different laptop with Ableton 9 (I only upgraded at the end of 2025) with fewer plug in options. They started entirely independent of each other in time and space. Also Resodrum started form me recording a hand drum whereas DN I started with the filtered synth line and a hard kick and there are no recorded drums on it (not all my tracks incorporate such). Here is a little hot take for you, the old Mac that had DN on it was starting to die, one day I opened it and Ableton was suddenly huge and magnified on the monitor screen and I could not access many of the important sections… the track was kinda mixed, not mastered, and I had a few bits in my head that I though I wanted to add or change in the track. So I was suddenly presented with only being able to, by the skin of my teeth, export what I had, without finishing the mix or making any changes or’ improvements’ …AAAGH!
I accepted this reality, set about putting the export into the new Mac and Ableton, got to work with Sonnox inflator and limiter and some careful EQ, and that has ended up being the version I am releasing. So definitely not after perfection with this track haha. Sonnox really did get me out of a hole with this one…
Having made music across several generations of technology, are there any older production techniques you think modern producers are overlooking? Equally, is there anything about today’s software that you couldn’t imagine working without?
I can not imagine working without Ableton’s automation, you can go crazy with it in the stock plugs. I can’t speak for how modern producers are working, if they are finishing and releasing then who am I to say anything! I do think that using mic’s, i.e. re amping is a great technique to add flavour or depth or colour, i’ve no idea however who does or does not use this method, but if you’re not then definitely give it a whirl.
What’s one production habit, technique or piece of advice you’ve picked up over the years that’s made a significant difference to your music? And is there anything you’ve had to unlearn?
Don’t be precious and get attached to something you’ve toiled over, if the better option is to chuck a load of work away and strip back to rebuild then do it. Don’t try and make something work just because you’ve put the hours in. In fact if you’re putting too many hours in with no progress that’s a sign to bin something, i’ve had to learn that for sure. And just get out of that 8 bars quickly, don’t massage your ego and listen to it for days to get that dopamine, move on quick time, duplicate it and chop away.
Chop chop.
Also, don’t copy, bring out your internal self and what it receive’s from the aether of ideas that surround us all.