Robbie Bronnimann likes his music hard and fast. A child of the trance generation, his mixes and collaborations embrace artists from Chicane & Ferry Corsten, to Howard Jones. Known for his classy remixes, Robbie's work under the dba and tektonik monikers has featured on myriad dance music compilations, including the ubiquitous Euphoria, Ministry of Sound and Hed Kandi series. He's also had a number of individual releases on established trance and electronica labels such as Platipus and Dtox. Today Robbie is one of the most respected producers on the dance music scene, gaining commissions from both independent and major labels for his uncompromising approach to mixing and mastering. And the quality of his mixes, he believes, can be attributed (at least in part) to his use of Sony Oxford's plug-ins.

'I use the Sony Oxford EQ and Dynamics on every track,' he says, 'and ever since the Inflator came out for Powercore, I've been running it on my master output section, so that features on every mix too.

'With the Inflator, as long as you don't slam it too hard, it adds perceived presence to the track. If you've got a really clear mix, and you use the Inflator, then you get a clearer mix still. It gives you an extra two or three percent of level, which is crucial when it comes to my mixes standing up alongside other commercial offerings. In short, Inflator is a tool that won't make a bad mix great, but will make a great mix sound better.'

Keen to emphasise that, while being a dance music producer is about getting mixes hot and loud, Robbie states that he isn't necessarily a lover of excessive compression.

'I'm not into slamming and squashing everything to oblivion,' he insists. 'I like to do things in moderation. Using the Inflator in the right way ensures that my mixes are of a high enough calibre to be put out by the major labels.'

To clarify this Robbie cites a time, recently, when record label Sony wanted to take the latest album he had produced and mixed for new signing Industrial Salt and master it in its own multi-million pound suite. But Robbie was against the move. He persuaded the company to let him master the album in his own studio using, among other things, the Sony Oxford plug-ins. When he had finished, the results spoke for themselves.

'I mastered that album, and the executives at Sony were over the moon with what I gave them,' he says. 'I ran the Inflator as part of my chain right across everything, and it delivered the desired level of intensity and clarity they were looking for. In a way, Inflator is a subliminal marketing tool. You don't hear it in the mix, but it's there making everything sound bigger and deeper.'

Robbie has also had the chance to use the Trans Modulator, which he has applied to his mixes in a number of interesting ways.

'I've used the Trans Mod a couple of times,' he says. 'I used it on Howard Jones's Stir It Up, which features on Revolution of the Heart. We were going for a really slamming, pumped up, almost Daft Punk-sounding compression on the overall mix. But because we were being so forceful, the track lost a bit of life, especially on the drums.

'By itself, the track still sounded pretty good, but in the context of the whole album, compared to the other mixes, it was lacklustre. So that was when we decided to use the Trans Mod to resurrect them.

'It's not a device that you can use on everything, but as a specialist tool, used on specific elements, it provides just the right kind of response. On Stir It Up, it brought the drums to the fore so you could really hear them again.'

Adds Robbie: 'I've also used it on bass guitar quite a bit, usually when there's a lot of presence in the track and I need to inject a bit of extra life into the takes.

'Trans Mod can also work a treat on percussion loops, tambourines and shakers, and sometimes I find it useful for exaggerating the dynamics between percussive hits.'

Back to the mainstays in his bulging box of software and, along with a bunch of TC Electronics plug-ins that Robbie uses with Powercore, the Sony Oxford EQ and Dynamics are two smooth operators that find their way into most of his mixes.

'The EQ is wonderful because it's so transparent,' he enthuses. 'It doesn't gnarl and twist the sound if you crank it up. It's more of a surgical instrument, and it gets used a lot on lead and backing vocals. By the same token,' he adds, 'the Dynamics provides a really transparent compression, innocuous and delicate so you never get that uncomfortable pumping and rasping effect with it. It's very clean and functional.

'For me, both the EQ and Dynamics are high-end workhorse tools; they're not what I'd describe as glamorous, they're just incredibly high quality.

'In fact, when it comes to the Oxford plug-ins, my only regret right now is that I've still got to wait for the Reverb and Limiter to be made available for Powercore.

But if they're anything like the plug-ins I've mentioned so far, which in the case of the EQ and Dynamics are exact replications of the corresponding elements you'd find on the Sony Oxford desk, I'll be using them all of the time!'



Interview and editorial provided by Matthew Pigott Public Relations. +44 (0)7903 723898

<<< Back to User Profiles