London‑based, Australian‑born producer and Grammy Award‑winning multi‑instrumentalist Samuel Dixon has worked with some of the finest contemporary artists in the pop and rock field. His production and songwriting credits include Adele, Kylie Minogue, Sia, Christina Aguilera, Carly Rae Jepsen and Paloma Faith, to name but a few. Asked to pick a favourite sound from the records he’s made, he focuses on Australian singer/songwriter Meg Washington’s track ‘Switches’.
“This song came about kind of differently to how Meg and I had been writing songs up until that point, where we’d normally sit around the piano or guitar and kind of work a song up that way, and then start thinking about production once the song was written.
“So, this song was unusual for us at the time, as it started by us messing around from more of a production angle, but we still managed to kind of keep it organic by only using Logic Pro as a sequencer to control a few analogue synths and a drum machine over MIDI. That let us focus on writing and jamming instead of staring at the computer screen. The arpeggio that starts the song and is central to it comes from one of the recent Korg reissues of the MS‑20, the pad/swell sound is a vintage Rev3 Sequential Circuits Prophet‑5, and the drum machine is an Elektron Analogue Rytm.”
Teeny Tiny
'Switches' is taken from Meg Washington's 2020 album Batflowers.“What I really love about this track is the synth sound which comes in at bar five, which we made using a Teenage Engineering OP‑1. We were going for something along the lines of the way Art Of Noise used to use the Fairlight CMI, with a vocal sample sound in homage to that, but at the same time finding a way to make it very ‘Meg’. The OP‑1 has an in‑built microphone which is similar to those old Casio keyboards that had limited sampling capabilities. So, we basically had Meg sing a note into the OP‑1 mic and then we were able to play a part using her voice as the sample source.
“The OP‑1 has some really cool effects on board, and we used one of its delays and its spring reverb simulation. It was then recorded mono, as we were working in my small writing room, and my other inputs were busy with the other instruments and vocal chain.
“It went into a Tonecraft Tube Direct Box, which is a fantastic valve DI — effectively a B‑15 [Ampeg] Portaflex amp in a box minus the speaker. From there into one of my vintage Neve 1066 channel strips for a hair of high‑end boost, and then into an Inward Connections TSL3 VacRac for the tiniest bit of limiting. So, we had the drum machine and sequenced synths looping what became the verse chord sequence, and on top of that we were able to jam along with Meg playing our new sound on the OP‑1 and myself playing guitar.
Samuel Dixon: I love how the OP‑1 in this track is kind of old‑but‑new‑sounding, and the fact that it’s Meg at the heart of it: not only her playing the synth but with the actual sample source being her voice.
“We then comped what we had both just played into parts that made sense compositionally. I love how the OP‑1 in this track is kind of old‑but‑new‑sounding, and the fact that it’s Meg at the heart of it: not only her playing the synth but with the actual sample source being her voice. This also helps the part sound more like a real‑life, tangible instrument as opposed to a plug‑in or something that was messed with for ages in the computer. Also, I think the fact that the part was performed as opposed to sequenced — like the other synths — creates something extra for the song, giving it character and personality which we wouldn’t have got if we had just sequenced a soft‑synth or the like.”