Mightyfools

Mightyfools (Jelle Keizer & Andy Samin) use FL Studio to create their banging club tracks. We caught up with them to learn more about their work…

 

Tell us about how you got into music ?

Jelle: Being from The Netherlands, house music has always been around. Instead of a rockstar or rapper, I wanted to become a DJ since I was like 12 years old and bought my first DJ set of all my savings at the age of 14. To make my sets more special I wanted to produce something of my own and the first DAW I stumbled upon was FL version 3. It was very basic at the time, but perfect to roll into as a youngster without any production knowledge. Youtube tutorials weren’t available yet so I discovered most of the program myself and it actually took a few years before I found out there was a world of samples, presets, and tutorials out there haha.

Andy: I always was a big fan of heavy metal and rock bands but wasn’t really fond of house music/dance music, until I discovered hardstyle/hardtrance and techno. There was this similarity in loudness and energy, so I was listening to it non-stop literally and at some point I just wanted to make it instead of listening to it! FL Studio 5 was the first DAW I started out with, and back then it looked the most easiest in my opinion. Watched a lot of tutorials how to make basic beats and I’ve never changed to any other DAW since then.

Tell us about Footrocker

Footrocker is probably the track most people know us for. It was premiered by our friend Hardwell at Ultra Festival 2013 and by this day is still being heard on festivals like Tomorrowland, EDC, etc. It was a Buzzchart #1 and Beatport #3.

It has been fully produced in FL Studio 10, in a timespan of about 2 months. The first version we’ve started with, the basic idea, was completely different than the final track. First, we didn’t like the drop so we changed that. Then the break didn’t really fit anymore so we changed that as well. The only part of the first version is the buildup in the long break (the chords). The bass sound is self-made in Massive and the break comes from Nexus (yes, the Magnatron patch). The kick is home made and most other sounds come from various Vengeance packs.

How did you start using FL Studio & what does it mean to your productions?

In the past years we’ve compared many DAW’s but always went back to FL. It’s probably a cliche by now, cause every power user says this, but it’s definitely the speed and ease of working on projects. As both of us know all the ins and outs of the program, a basic beat, sketch, melody or idea is done in minutes. Being the impatient, lazy and chaotic people as we are, this is a huge advance to any other software. By the time we clicked ‘load plugin. start sampler. search kickdrum.’ we already forgot the idea we started up the studio for in the first place.


 

Tell us about your production environment & toys?

Both of us have the same set up at home. Monitor speakers, plugins, and most of our sample banks are in sync so we can send projects back and forth without any difficulties. Whenever we start a project we usually start from scratch, we prefer to always start fresh and new, instead of re-using a certain ‘signature sound’ or something. In the production process however we have a bunch of our own made presets that come back every once in a while, like the typical Footrocker clap, of which the mixer bus we use quite often in other tracks as well.

Also we have our own mastering preset made in T-racks that always gives that little extra. It’s one of the first things we load, so we can A/B between a version with and without mastering. No surprises to a final master that way. There’s no external hardware in our studios anymore, for the simple fact they are not flexible enough for the way we work nowadays.

A track usually takes a day for the basic idea, a few days for a clear layout of what it should be, and couple of weeks until the final product, it mostly is a few months as we test our tracks on the road. Most time goes into details, like the mixdown and tiny effects supporting the overall vibe.

Do you have any links you would like to share?

Web – http://www.mightyfools.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/mightyfools

Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/mightyfools

Soundcloud – https://www.soundcloud.com/mightyfools

 

 

Mightyfools