UK duo My Friend are back on Last Night On Earth with Fast Times, a three-track release that pairs their melodic instincts with a bold, club-focused edge. The EP kicks off with a collaboration alongside Steven Weston, a producer and engineer who has carved his path through Anjunadeep and Bedrock with his distinctive touch on synths and songwriting. Together, they deliver a record that feels direct and dancefloor-ready, balancing emotion with precision.
Across the project, James from My Friend explores different angles of their sound. Fast Times moves with entrancing vocals and sparkling melodies that unfold into a powerful bassline. On their own, they offer Face Lift, a widescreen progressive cut built around expressive stabs and evolving textures, and Dave The Rave, a trance-leaning track carried by sweeping pads and indie-inspired vocal work. Each cut brings a different shade to the release while staying rooted in the duo’s melodic sensibilities.
In this feature, James and Archie break down the production behind the release, highlighting the five-layered bass approach built around SubLab XL and the Behringer Model D, the shimmering delay and reverb sends that give transitions their lift, and the quick Pro-Q 3 trick that adds punch to the low end. It’s a practical look at how their workflow translates into the evolving, high-impact sound heard across the EP.
My Friend: Instagram – Soundcloud – Beatport
Steven Weston: Instagram – Soundcloud – Beatport
Sublab XL
We ended up using 5 layers of bass in the track which sounds a bit extreme! However, these different bass sounds come in at different times within the record which we think keeps it interesting, especially as the main sections are only drums, bass and vocals. We started with an analog layer from the Behringer Model D and then mainly used the SubLab XL for the layers which is an amazing and powerful plugin for bass. We highly recommend it!
Ableton Spatial Effects
One send that we use in pretty much every tune we write is a delay/reverb send. This is perfect for spot automation spikes on the ends of vocals and synths. It creates an atmospheric tail to anything you send it to. We find it most useful for transitions in a track, for example, creating a luscious delay/reverb tail off a vocal leading into a breakdown. We use these settings:
Pro Q 3
A lot of the time, when you come to the end of a mix, you might find that the kick feels like it could do with a bit more UMF in the overall balance. Low end is by far the biggest struggle when it comes to mixdowns. A super quick fix is the use of the Pro Q 3 on this setting.
Set a bell curve push of dynamic compression at around +1.5db roughly where a kick drum would sit in the frequency range.
Then at the bottom of the vst you can see the piano keys, select the key of your track and move the bell curve to this position using the frequency knob. You’ll be nicely surprised with how much extra punch this can give your kick if it’s sounding a touch weak!
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