KSHMR | My Best Life Production Tutorial

KSHMR is known to one of the top geniuses when it comes to music production skills. In a recent 10-minute tutorial video released by the Indian-American producer KSHMR, he showcases how he made his track “My Life” with an Australian singer Mike Waters.

DAW used: Ableton 10 

VSTs/Plugins used : 

• Kontakt
• Sylenth1
• Nexus
• Spire
• Stock Ableton plugins

Intro & Verse

KSHMR starts off the tutorial explaining how he processed a vocal sample from his sample pack, ‘Sounds of KSHMR Vol. 3‘  which laid out the base of the track. He then chops the vocal sample and uses these small chops in the verse to give an illusion that the vocal sample is still there at the same time not colliding with Mike’s voice in the mix. KSHMR then went through Kalimba sounds that he used from an Omnisphere patch. He also emphasized how he manipulated this kalimba sound after bouncing them to audio and applying various effects such as reversing the sample and pitch bends. Moving onto the drums where he uses just a kick and a clap in addition to a muted guitar which provides the grooviness to the track. (Kontakt library used: Strummed Acoustic 2). The bass in the verse is made with the help of a Sylenth1 patch. To spice things up he adds a few elements such as fills and hits to keep things interesting and to ensure a smooth transition between 2 segments of the track.

Buildup

For the buildup, he uses pads and filters to provide the much-needed excitement to highlight that the track is progressing towards the peak emotional moment. In addition to that, he uses strummed acoustic guitars and brass sounds. The strummed acoustic guitars coming from Ilya Effimov Guitars provide the rhythm whereas the brass sounds(Kontakt library: Bravura) provide the funkiness to the buildup. For the drums, he utilizes clap sounds, snares rolls, and orchestral drums to build tension.

The Drop

The drop follows the melody which was introduced in the buildup section. Using nexus and spire patches he adds various layers to make things sound fat and big in the mix. For the drums, he adds various percussion loops to provide grooviness and new energy to the drop. The vocal sample introduced in the intro plays a bigger part in the drop gaining support from the saxophone which plays the same melody as the vocal sample.

The Bridge

For the bridge, he uses vocoder(iZotope Vocal Synth 2) to provide a new flavor to the vocals. Then he goes onto showing how he utilizes little elements to keep things interesting and different from previous sections of the track.

Catch the full tutorial of KSHMR – My Life feat. Mike Waters down below.