Pythius Auxiliary

Blackout Music, 2020

Utrecht resident and Black Sun Empire affiliate Hylke Klazema aka Pythius has taken the drum & bass scene by storm with his dark and deadly dancefloor workouts, with releases on Cause 4 Concern, Eatbrain and Blackout Music. We found out more about the granular approach to beat and bass construction used in Auxiliary from his recent Upheaval EP.

You take a very technical approach to drum and bass sound design in Auxiliary, for example creating your own snare transients. Is that the kind of approach you take with all your tracks?

“Most of them yes. I like to use these digital transients because it gives you depth, much more control of the tonality and the punch, and lets you decide the whole expression of the snare instead of having to rely on either a recorded sample or something that someone else made. So I like to have that kind of level of control of the sound.”

You used Sonic Academy Kick 2 to make your snare transients. How does that differ from a kick transient?

“It’s one or two octaves higher than you’d have the kick, so it will go down to about 200Hz rather than like 90Hz, and I used a triangle oscillator for the snare in Auxiliary.”

You use both Native Instruments FM8 and Xfer Records Serum to make filthy bass noises in the video. How do you decide which synth to use?