Martin Garrix reveals collaboration process in latest episode of ‘The Martin Garrix Show’

The newest Martin Garrix collaboration alongside Dean Lewis; ‘Used To Love’ is off to a hot start, already amassing more than 34 million streams on Spotify. While Lewis’ vocals and Garrix’s production make quite the team, one element goes flying under the radar. Featuring live instruments in a number of his tracks, Garrix teamed up with talented Dutch musician Frank van Essen to include some sensational strings on his latest single.

Discussing their process, Martin Garrix gave viewers an insight into the duo’s workflow and how their collaboration happened, despite being on the road so frequently;

“It’s nice, we work very directly. It’s literally voice notes of us humming melodies for the melody lines of the violin, or if there’s one note that could be different, or seeing if the chord can be played different until the very fine details, and what is nice, is, I work with MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) and Frank also works with MIDI, so we go back and forth on the MIDI part and when we’re happy with all the notes and placement, then we lock it in, and then Frank does his magic and makes it sound like a full orchestra.”

Martin also revealed that he and Frank have worked together on a number of occasions. The 52-year-old was responsible for the string composition in tracks such as ‘Scared To Be Lonely’, ‘Pizza’ and ‘Yottabyte’. Furthermore, the episode also delves into Dean Lewis’ contribution to the track. The song was one of many firsts. Dean explained how he began writing the lyrics to the song the very first time he heard the chord progressions, going on to say “the first thoughts have just worked and it’s very rare when that happens”.

Check out the 6th episode of season 4 of the ‘The Martin Garrix Show’ below!