Morgan Page

From tracker software beginnings to top ten hits, James Russell finds out what makes EDM’s hardest-working producer tick. After dispensing production tips on Twitter, what’s his advice for actually working in the industry?

- James Russell

It’s 2008, and EDM is beginning to explode in the USA, where acts like Deadmau5 and Avicii will soon be household names. After years of toiling away, staring at blank screens and slaving away on tracks and remixes for little reward – a feeling most of us are familiar with – all that Morgan Page needed was one spark to ignite his career. Fast forward to 2020, and the spark has been and gone, leaving Page as one of the seminal acts of the EDM explosion, with an enviable string of achievements under his belt. So how did it all happen? We talked with Morgan to try and pin down the roadmap for a journey to stardom…

We’re talking just after one big release in the software world, reFX Nexus 3. You’re on the record as a big Nexus2 fan: are you liking v3?

“To me it’s all about the workflow with this update. I guess they’ve added some new sounds, but that’s really not the draw. It’s more the color-coding, the timbre, the sounds… everything’s in a better layout. Also some really cool stuff they’re doing with the effects – you can add impulse responses and tails to sounds, which is really interesting. The effects weren’t that innovative in Nexus before. The arpeggiator is a big improvement. Now it’s almost a DAW within a DAW – this is a long time coming.

“One big thing for me is that all your presets are saved in the cloud. I have a mobile setup and I have my studio setup, and it’s usually such a pain to keep two versions of your favorites for your synths and stuff. That was always a big headache when it came to the Nexus expansions.”

You can’t get far in dance music without seeing another producer or DJ raving about Nexus2…