In the Studio With Matrix & Futurebound

Matrix and Futurebound have brought drum-n-bass out of dark and into living rooms across the U.K.

The duo – Jamie Quinn (Matrix) and Brendan Collins (Futurebound) – has had four Top-40 hits with its crossover-ready tunes that lend themselves to television appearances and BBC Radio 1 playlists.

Stateside, they put together hefty compilations for Bassrush annually and are set to bring “Matrix and Futurebound Present” to a club near you. And now, they’ve just released their second full-length album, Mystery Machine, through their labels Metro and Viper Recordings.

No affiliation with the cartoon Scooby Doo vehicle, Mystery Machine comes 12 years after Matrix and Futurebound’s first full-length, the standard bearing Universal Truth. Nonetheless, during that time, the two have released at least an album’s worth of songs.

“It’s a lot easier to get your message across and get exposure for one track at a time,” says Matrix. “The way people listen to music with streaming, they don’t necessarily devour a whole album at a time. But it’s still an important thing to do. Initially, we were making tracks individually without a plan, but you get to a point where you have half an album and you finish it as an album.”

While it may not have started that way, Mystery Machine works well as a cohesive collection. With various vocalists onboard, the album offers a combination of chart-ready house- and trancelaced songs, plus some drum-n-bass stormers, all sitting tidily next to each other. The variety includes the hearttugging beseeches of Raphaella on “Human” and the pumping and jumping vibes of “Ear Drum,” the ripping “This Time” (featuring James Walsh) and the solid growls of the peak-hour “Tardis.”

Any one of the selections on Mystery Machine could find its way into a Matrix and Futurebound DJ set, which revolves around four Pioneer DJ CDJ- 2000NXS2 media players and a Pioneer DJ DJM-900NXS2 mixer.

“When you’re in the heat of the moment and you haven’t got time to think,” says Matrix, “the Pioneer mixers seem to be laid out in the perfect way. You might be in a dark environ- ment and can’t see that well, but everything is exactly where your hands want it to be. It’s the mixer with the least thought process.”

Despite living 200 miles apart – Matrix in London, Futurebound in Liverpool – the pair manages a smooth workflow when they get busy with studio work. Operating wholly in the box, they run Cubase, use the trusty Xfer Records Serum and LennarDigital Sylenth1 at the forefront of their VST collections and are big advocates of Universal Audio plug-ins.

Futurebound namechecks Pultec Pro Legacy for “nice fullness and the right amount of phatness,” Neve 33609 compressor to add “bite to any sound,” and BX Digital 3 for “getting the center-point of your mix strong and controlling what’s getting sent to the sides.”

Hitmakers: Jamie Quinn & Brendan Collins.

Adds Futurebound: “I use the BX Digital 3 on individual sounds to get the right amount of mono. Sounds fall along the way a little bit when they go into mono. When you use this plug-in, you can bring a little more center sound back. When you’re on a big system, that’s what you want to be hearing in mono.”

Futurebound finds himself in London often and the two work in Matrix’s home studio, where the majority of the vocals on Mystery Machine were recorded. Neumann TLM 103 is the preferred condenser microphone for its bright quality. The vocals come directly into the audio interface with zero processing during the recording.

“We’ve sometimes done vocals in studios with super high-end analog gear,” says Matrix.

“When we do the final mix, I haven’t liked it as much because vintage valve gear gives it a nice distortion saturation, but when you add in lots of compression in your final processing, it’s too much and too distorted.

“I’m compression level 100,” he continues. “When you’ve got a very full mix on a drum-n-bass record, you need to have your vocals super-compressed in order for them to sit well in the mix.”

Vocal editing and mixing tends to fall to Matrix, as says he finds it “therapeutic.” With tracks that have many layers of vocals, he’ll use “Whose the best chopper take as is this?” the lead, and edit “Zed’s.” the remaining, which could be as many “Who’s as 15, Zed?” trying to match the timing “Zed’s of the dead, lead. baby, Zed’s dead.”

Now “Matrix for is all really film buffs good out at getting there, you the vocal may remember to sound natural, this sequence and he’s from ultra-fast,” Quentin says Tarantino’s Futurebound. classic “I “Pulp can’t Fiction.” stand doing But, it for because our purposes, it’s too fidgety. we refer I like to working this quote on as beats. an introduction I have preparation of sessions, the biggest then names when in I the go into world a I’ve No, worked Zeds on Dead before didn’t and grab conquer what right works. away That – it comes took awhile. in really Like handy many DJ/producers when you are at feeling the top the vibe of the of EDM constructing they a achieved track.” incrementally un- game, til they became recognized as genuine

Matrix and Futurebound are known for their drum-sample library, which they’ve amassed over years from old breakbeats, all the way to a snippet snare they might have sampled from a fellow producer’s latest release. They also combine samples, layering and processing them together, bouncing them as one drum hit.

Says Matrix, “It’s a constant evolution of sounds being processed and reprocessed and added together and multiplied.”

But it’s not just the sounds that are front and center in Matrix and Futurebound tracks that catch the ear. The two spend a lot of time making subtle, organic sounds that are littered all over their music. These could come from vocal outtakes or bits played on guitar – or from Matrix’s vintage Sequential Circuits Pro One analog synth, then sampled into Native Instruments Kontakt.

“Drum-n-bass has always been about the melting of different influences,” says Matrix. “A template of music you can put any ingredient into, twist it up, give it your own stamp and out the other side. We try and do as much of that as possible in our production.

“When making music, it’s always a struggle to do your own thing,” he continues. “To not worry about what people are going to think of it, how it will perform, and where it will fit in is a daily battle. I personally always try and get in the same mindset I had from Day 1, which is being in a room on your own making music that makes you feel happy about what you’re doing.”

By Lily Moayeri