Keeping It Simple with Scarr.

Scarr. is the brainchild of Yash Salvi. Pune based electronic music producer and one half of Feeling Sunsets, with friend & partner Sachin Menon (aka HAEN). Together they both also co-founded Soule Studios - a production house & mastering agency.

Yash was doing his undergrad in Media & Communications when he realised music was his way and dropped out to pursue a career in music. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Ford, Kina, Kasbo, Eden, Tourist and the likes, Yash’s music can be described as easy going, emotive-ambient electronica. 

2020 was a milestone year for Yash, with a slew of independent releases as 'Scarr.' and his & Sachin’s debut EP - Moved as Feeling Sunsets got picked up by Silk Music (now known as Monstercat Silk), receiving high praise from listeners the world over.

Currently, Yash is working on an EP and live set for his solo project, a second album for Feeling Sunsets and a second EP on Monstercat Silk, that just released a day ago. We caught up with him in the middle of all this to get an insight on his production workflow and process.

“My production process is very simple. It’s all about using the right sounds & samples to make everything fit than over-processing any of it later on. I’m always on the lookout for sounds that I like and then experiment using them..”

He shows us one of the tricks that he does on most of his tracks using the stock Ableton reverb and its freeze function to create big sustaining atmospheres that fill up space and sets the ambience to his tracks. 

Here’s how you can do the same:

1. Add Ableton’s stock reverb on to your channel
2. Set the Dry/Wet signal to a value between 20-30% based on your taste
3. Enable automation for the Freeze function and draw your automations on to the clip channel as shown in the video
4. Enable the Reverb unit’s Device On/Off automation and draw automations where the reverb turns off just before the end of each clip and starts again with the next clip

You can do the following technique with any audio sample. Check it out -

1. Double click on your audio sample to open clip view
2. Under the clips Warp settings, go to Preserve & select 1/16th duration to start with
3. Enable No-Looping ( -> ) for the preserve setting
4. Adjust the envelope box amount to your liking as shown in the video. This acts like a gate
5. You can further play around with the same 3 settings to get different variations from the same sample

1. Duplicate the audio sample you want to another channel
2. Hit Ctrl/Cmd + R to reverse the clip
3. Layer it with the original sample clip to get more harmonic textures

1. Go to the clip automation section on your audio clip
2. Under Envelopes select Clips & Transposition to enable automation on your clip
3. Mark your automation points for the clip to pitch up or down as per your liking

Creative Auto Filters with HAEN

Sachin Menon, who goes by his artist name HAEN, is a rising star in the Indian electronic music scene. He is also one half of electronic duo - Feeling Sunsets with Yash (artist name - Scarr..), who together also run Soule Studios in Pune, a production house and a mixing and mastering studio.

Within a year of inception of both projects, Sachin has released a plethora of music independently and on some of the top labels in the world as both Haen & Feelings Sunsets. His and Scarr’s debut EP Moved was released on Silk Music (now known as Monstercat Silk), followed by releases on Songspire Records, ​​Traum Schallplatten, Elliptical Sun & Mango Alley Recordings under his HAEN moniker, and a whole lot more signed & scheduled for release later this year. Having a good ear for emotive music, production skills he’s polished over the years and having no boundary for genres is what makes him a very talented, very versatile artist and one to definitely keep an eye (and ear) out for here.

We had a word with him about his production techniques and his favourite tools to use on Ableton Live. Here’s what he’s got to share with you..

HAEN’s go-to plug-in is Ableton Live’s Auto Filter, which he uses in his own unique way to create grooves, rhythmic melodies, chords and pretty much anything else under the sun. “I happened to stumble upon this trick on my own while I was experimenting with Ableton and now I use this on pretty much anything to get interesting ideas. You can try this with anything - midi & audio. The LFO feature is super useful, plus amps, reverbs or delays post the auto-filter helps me build unique sounds. It all starts with the auto filter though..”

In this exercise he’s shared with us how he uses the auto filter creatively to come up with different ideas for his tracks. Let’s have a look.

Here’s how you can get creative with bassline grooves using both midi clips and audio samples.

• Open a midi channel and drop your favourite VST plugin, select a bass preset
• Open a midi clip and draw a simple note for your bass
• Load up the auto-filter and cut the frequency to around 400 hz
• Open up the LFO amount all the way to 100% and select an LFO shape. Over here we use a triangle wave
• Adjust the rate in beat mode and find a rate that generates a groove you like
• You can further enable quantize and select a quantize setting. Each setting gives you a different groove
• Add some phaze to your sound. Please note, if you’re using Phase on a bassline make sure you use an imager or stereo modulation to control/prevent phase cancellation in the low end
• You can additionally change the filter mode and increase the drive. Here we use a MS2
• You can automate the filter for modulations

Voila! You now have a crazy sub/bass groove going on from a simple single note bassline.

You can do the exact same process with an audio sample too. Play around with the parameters till you get something that you like.

• Load up a bass loop from your samples and add the auto filter to the channel
• Reduce the frequency range to approximately 100-300 hz. In this example we want the low and mid low range area of the bass sample
• Enable the LFO - open up the LFO amount
• Adjust the rate to your liking. You can start hearing a new sequence forming
• Further fine tune this by activating quantize and choosing a quantize setting
• Play around with the LFO, rate and quantize settings to come up with really fun & unique grooves

• Drop a melodic audio loop that you like and select a small section on that clip
• Add an auto filter on the same channel and adjust the frequency to your liking
• Open up the auto-filter LFO all the way
• Select ‘beats’ on the rate and adjust the rate to your liking
• Enable quantize and choose a quantize option that you like
• Add a reverb to the same channel to enhance the sound
• You can further play around with the Auto Filter frequency, quantize options and the Reverb decay to get really interesting sequences and rhythms

• Select a chord loop that you like. Make sure Warp is enabled on your clip and select complex or complex pro
• Pitch down audio sample by an octave or to your liking
• Add an auto-filter. Adjust the frequency, open up the LFO and adjust the rate to your liking
• Enable quantize
• Add a delay/reverb to give movement to your sound
• Play around with the LFO, Rate and filter settings to get really interesting rhythmic chord variations