Create Raw Hypnotic Techno Like Silent Servant

In memory of Silent Servant, let’s create a beat inspired by the EBM-driven, darkly hypnotic techno of M-00, taken from his final release.

A true pillar of the techno and EBM communities, Juan Mendez, also known as Silent Servant, co-founded the label Jealous God, alongside Regis and James Ruskin. He was a core member of the band Tropic of Cancer and Regis’ legendary Sandwell District collective. Over his career, the visionary musician and designer lent his distinct sound in remixes for notable artists like John Carpenter, Matrixxman and Drab Majesty.

In this Edition of Beat Dissected, we’re interpreting ‘M-00’ from his deeply personal 2023 Tresor Records EP, “In Memoriam”. Each track on the EP was a memoir, touching on a special era of musical history, spanning his over three-decade-long musical career.

Instead of a direct replication, we hope to share inspiration through music production techniques and create a beat that pays tribute to his last works.

Here’s the original track:

Here’s what we’ll be making today:

And here’s how the beat sounds with melody for context:

Step 1: The Kick

First, we’ll create a new MIDI track and load in a Drum Rack. Set the channel’s Track Volume to -14.0 dB.

Load in ‘Kick-909.adg’ from Instruments to the chain. Change Tune to +10 st and Decay to 333 ms.

Now, insert an empty MIDI clip. Program in the following four-to-the-floor pattern. 

Insert ‘Drum Pumper.adv’ after the kick. Adjust the settings to Crunch 0.0%, Boom 57%,  Damp 6.77 kHz, Freq 49.0 Hz and Transients 0.79.

Insert the standard ‘EQ Eight’ and adjust the settings to match the custom ones.

Top Tip: For easier mixing, click on the Show/Hide Chain List icon that looks like a bullet point list. This is where we will do our panning in the next steps.

Step 2: Hi-hats

Now let’s create some grooves. Load in ‘Hihat closed 909.aif’ onto two drum pads. Shorten the samples like in the image to get this signature Tresor clicking style. 

Program the MIDI patterns from the image for both hi-hats.

On the second hi-hat, change the Play note to B2 for some added down swing. Pan both to 7L and bring Vol up to -10.0 dB.

Load in Reverb onto both hats. Set Density to High and Dry/Wet to 25%.

Add the ‘Gentle Vintage.adv’ EQ Eight and slightly boost band 5.

Drop ‘037 HiHat.wav’ into the Drum Rack. Transpose up to +4 st and lower Vol to -13.0 dB. Shorten the sample like in the image or as you feel sounds good. 

For your rolling hi-hat, program a beat onto each step.

Insert ‘Hat EQ 2.adv’. We want tension in this track, so we’ll keep Pan at C (center).

Step 3: Snare and tom drum

Add ‘Snare-909.adg’ to your Drum Rack.

Let’s program in a beat on every 5th and 13th step of the four bars.

Next, let’s adjust the settings to: Snappy 14, Tone 275ms, Transpose +4st and Pan to 7R.

EBM is thematic to distorted dystopia. So let’s insert ‘Snare EQ 1.adv’ and ‘Distortion Army Knife.adg’, and copy the settings.

This track doesn’t showcase a tom, but to create a more 1980s atmosphere, we’ll add one just for fun!

Pop in ‘Tom Electronic SP 1.wav’ to your Drum Rack, bring Vol down to -16.0 dB and copy the MIDI pattern. 

Sweet! Now that we’re done with our programming, let’s add a mastering chain onto the Main track.

Step 4: Master bus

This is our Main channel, where all of the audio tracks are routed to. First off, let’s bring the Main Vol down to -6.0 dB, so we have enough headroom to send our pre-master to our mastering engineer, for instance.

Now, let’s add ‘Master Wide & Warm.adg’. Select Heavy Comp, bring down High Gain (M) to 0.50 dB and lower Comp Dry/Wet to 90%.

Insert ‘Multiband Compression.adv’ and set the amount to 70%. Set Input to High 2.00 dB, Mid 3.00 dB and Low 4.00 dB. Set Limiter Gain to -6.0 dB.

Let’s add Glue Compressor, to ‘glue’ and balance out our mix and copy the settings.

Next, add the ‘Lookahead.adv’ Limiter so we can prevent any unwanted audio peaking. Unless you’re at a noise show, you probably want to avoid your audio signal getting too hot and going into the reds. Green and yellow on your mixer are really the goal!

Lastly, let’s group together the mastering chain and save it as a preset if you fancy.

Top Tip: To more easily deconstruct a track, you can select Warp in the audio clip and slow it down by clicking on ‘2x’ under BPM.

Here’s the final beat:

Here it is with some melody for context:

Vamp Acid is a music producer, live techno artist, and co-head of Hrdwre.io based in Berlin. Find Vamp Acid on Instagram.

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