Ignition Sequence is my first track in 18 months and hopefully the first of a string of releases for 2025.
It’s a Drum & Bass tune leaning towards the liquid style of the genre. Peppered with NASA-style ground control dialogue, sharp beats & a pulsating electronic bassline to drive things along.
It’s available exclusively via BandCamp and there are NO plans to add it to streaming platforms in the future (the reason why is a story for another day).
I’ve also cunningly priced it at £0.83 so if you’re buying it from the UK the added VAT should make the full purchase price a nice round £1. If you’re in the US, 83p should convert approximately to one dollar.
Check it out in the player below.
Ignition Sequence, a deep(ish) dive
The first version of this tune existed all the way back in November 2022. Back then it was titled “Edison” (I have no idea why) and was a breakbeat style track. I think I was trying (and failing) to channel the Stanton Warriors. The intro and the main riff was largely the same back then as it is now. I liked both those elements but I got to a point in the track where I didn’t know what to do with it. Below is an mp3 of that original version (well, as far as I got with it). It’s weird hearing how fast that arpeggio is now compared to how it plays out in Ignition Sequence.
In the end I shelved Edison away in my “Basic Ideas” folder. Every 6 – 8 months I would re-visit it, give it a listen and then put it away again. I think it was in late December 2024 when I wondered how that intro and riff would sound in a DnB track. Suddenly I had a project to get stuck into.
Adding some DnB flavour
I loaded up “Edison”, renamed it with the working title of “Sci-Fi Dawn” (a pretentious name inspired by the tone of the intro) and set about turning it into a Drum & Bass tune. When it comes to Drum & Bass my own preference is towards the more Jungle end of the genre (I just love a good solid Amen break). With this track however I felt that the synth-based intro and riff would work better in more of a Liquid DnB style, something like Metrik. Easier said than done seeing as I’d never made a track in that genre before.
First up was re-tooling the existing elements. The arpeggio synth speed was turned down so it would fit better at the increased track tempo and the rhythm of the main riff was adjusted to provide the right momentum for the track.
*As I type this I’m looking back through the track elements, I now see that the main riff was played using a synth sound titled “Edison”. That’s the title mystery solved.*
Little Bit of Bass…
Next up, the bass. I wanted to make an energetic bass line playing on every 16th note (less so on the kick) to give the track that high energy. There’s two elements to the bass, an upper bass tone with a soft sound but turned into something grittier with a touch of Bitcrusher and a free plugin called FuzzPlus3 by AudioDamage. There’s also a lower, softer version of the same sound playing underneath to provide some thickness.
…Little Bit of Drum
Drums were a bit trickier, I tried building something from scratch but it wasn’t happening so I plumped for a couple samples made up of the main kick/snare combo, a filtered break and some hats. I figured that the beat is there as the backbone rather than the main focus so samples were the quickest fix.
Whilst I found myself stuck with knowing what to do with Edison, here I was able to come up with a “middle section” of sorts to keep the track going once the main riff needed a break. The little bubbling synth line that filters in is from BPB 64, a fun (and free) little chiptune style plugin based on the Commodore 64. It’s also running through a filter, a delay and a volume gating plugin.
With the middle section in place it was then a case of repeating the initial breakdown of the track but with a twist to the main riff sound which in the end pushed it more towards a rave vibe. Things were starting to take shape in terms of structure but there was still something missing.
“Ignition Sequence Start”
Something about the sound of the synths gave off a sci-fi or space vibe so I wanted to add a vocal element that worked in that kind of context. I recalled having some samples of an announcer saying numbers (almost like a “Speak & Spell”) which I laid out in the track like a countdown. Some Bitcrusher and Tape Delay were added to give it some character.
The countdown on its own wasn’t enough. I found a Nasa audio recording from a Sample platform but the recording was swamped in background noise. Once dropped into the track it was impossible to make out what was being said. To fix it, I ran it through a Stem separator program that I use for Traktor and it did an amazing job of cleaning up the audio. The recording itself was a minute long, far more than what I needed. Right in the middle of the sample, I found the one line that would fit perfectly, “Ignition Sequence Start”.
And just like that, the track now had a new title.
Mixdown and Master
Honestly this is the part of the process I have the least experience with. Dodgy Pixel is a one-person, DIY, next-to-no-budget project so I don’t have the means to pay someone to do a proper job of mixing and mastering. For my previous tracks I basically did some rudimental mastering on the output of the track itself (and crossed as many fingers as I could). For this I took the step of bouncing the track down into stems for Drums, Bass, Synths, FX and Vocals and mixing it within a new DAW session.
I own a couple of mastering plugins that work in a “one-click does all” kind of way. I know it’s not the best way to work but it had done a good enough job before (remember, it’s a DIY project). For this track though, it just wasn’t cutting it. Every bounce down came out sounding boxy or lacking presence. In the end I ditched the flashy mastering plugins and put the stock Logic Pro compressor on the stems and the main output. I shaped the tracks with a Pultech EQ and kept the Compressors under control with just the lightest touches happening on each track. It’s an understatement to say that doing it this way made all the difference.
After 8 bounce downs and countless listens to the track it was finally ready to go (or “launch” if you’ll allow me a lousy pun).
So that’s how Ignition Sequence came about, before writing this post I had completely forgotten that the original idea had occurred so long ago. Here’s to the benefit of going back through those abandoned ideas.
If you want to check out my other tunes you can find them all in the Discography section on this site.