Dutch producer Pythius has spent more than a decade blurring the line between cinematic sound design and high-intensity drum and bass. His music balances chaos with control, combining distorted percussion, dark melodies, and detailed atmospheres that feel both mechanical and alive. Over the years, he has built a strong reputation for pushing boundaries across genres, performing at major festivals including Let It Roll, Rampage, Lowlands, and Beats for Love.
For his newest EP, a two-tracker from Blackout Music NL called Inquisition / The Stranger, Pythius looked to the grim sci-fi universe of Warhammer 40,000 for inspiration. The track was built around the idea of the Inquisition, channeling its tension and menace into an aggressive yet immersive sound. To bring that vision to life, he used Native Instruments’ Pharlight and Heavyocity: Damage libraries. Together, they gave him the textures, impact, and cinematic depth he needed to shape a track that feels as heavy as it is expansive.
Jump to these sections:
- How Pythius built the world of his latest single
- Why Pharlight fits heavy drum and bass
- Finding movement inside cinematic textures
- Keeping clarity in dense, aggressive mixes
- Letting atmospheres breathe without losing precision
- Techniques for adding edge, anxiety, and scale without overcomplicating the mix
Pharlight, as well as the full version of Kontakt, which hosts these libraries and more, are available as part of Komplete 15 Ultimate or the NI 360 subscription.
Your new single blends aggressive drum work with huge cinematic textures. What was the initial creative vision that pulled those worlds together?
I love having a bit of drama in my intros, and I really try to make the listener feel like they’ve entered another world.
With this track, the theme was the Inquisition from Warhammer 40,000, which is pretty dark, so I tried to go for an ominous sci-fi sound. I had to make sure the tension was there right from the start, so these libraries were a brilliant fit.
Pro tip from Pythius: Leave a bit of overlap between elements when equalizing. Having everything sound too clear and clinical sucks the life out of a track. A bit of overlap makes it feel more alive and real, so to speak.
What drew you to cinematic libraries like Pharlight for this release in particular?
Simply put, I really like how it sounds, and it’s fast to work with. After a bit of playing around, you can have a fantastic-sounding atmosphere with pads that lend a distinct and polished vibe.
It’s ideal for menacing and big intros, and you don’t have to spend ages creating something from nothing. If you’re into full sound design, working from the ground up is great. But I’m trying to finish a song here, and having these sounds ready to go is great for my workflow. It keeps the creativity in the air.
Pharlight has a very distinctive motion and depth. How did you shape its textures to match the pace and aggression of your drums?
This sounds crazy, but I started by pushing it into the next solar system using intense multiband compression. Dance music has a very high energy, and using aggressive compression like that really moves the cinematic sounds in that direction. Later on, I replaced my initial processing with a spectral compressor because I liked the sound of it a bit more.
After that, I sidechained Phralight with the drums to leave room for the kick. That creates extra layers of rhythm as the sidechaining adds movement to the cinematic layers.
Pro tip from Pythius: With multiband dynamics, try to experiment with upward compression, or keep the downwards compression at around 3% or so. That gives you a lot of energy.
How do you maintain headroom and clarity when layering dense atmospheric instruments within high-energy arrangements?
As I mentioned before, I use heavy compression, but that also means you have to be a bit more heavy-handed with equalizing as well. You’ve got to look at what frequency range is important for a sound to shine through, and give it the space it needs for that.
That means having one synth dedicated to the sub and removing that same sub range from every other layer. The same goes for the low mids. Only the sounds that actually need that range keep it, and I scoop it out of the others with bell equalization moves. I avoid narrow notches because they take out too much and make things sound unnatural.
After that, I’ll add some saturation. That can add a lot of energy to a sound.
I’m also working at pretty extreme LUFS levels these days, often between -2 and -3, so headroom isn’t as much of a concern as it used to be.
Pro tip from Pythius: Try to surprise your listener with sudden, higher-pitched sound effects like bowed strings or metallics to keep their attention.
Drum & bass relies heavily on precision. How do you let atmospheric layers breathe without losing the tightness of your groove?
Using sidechain compression and setting the ducking curve to make room for the kick and snare really helps. You have to let the curve go back up fast enough that it lets the track maintain its identity.
I also equalize a lot and keep frequencies that are important to certain groups. For example, on my drops, I use a high cut on all synths and bass sounds above 12 or 13 kHz, because the hats and cymbals give enough high end information there. Without that, everything would get too smeared, and you’d have messy, unfocused highs. With it, you can clearly hear your cymbals, but the listener perceives the synths and basses as having that same high end.
Pro tip from Pythius: Putting ring modulation on a sound and automating the rate can yield very cool results. It can make a transition really interesting.
For producers experimenting with cinematic layers for the first time, what advice would you give to keep energy high while expanding the atmosphere?
Use heavy compression and saturation to give it an aggressive edge, but keep equalization in mind.
Use drums to accentuate the energy by using libraries like Damage with its big industrial percussion. Libraries like that usually have some good loops that are already processed a bit. That can give your part a quick boost in intensity.
You can also use a high-pitched layer on top to create a feeling of slight anxiety, like a saw wave with some extra voices and a bit of pitch modulation. Sidechain that heavily and voila – more energy.
Pro tip from Pythius: Play around with frequency shifters in combination with other weird effects like comb filters and ring modulators to get some cool, unexpected effects.
Wrapping it all up
Pythius continues to show how cinematic production can coexist with the intensity of modern drum and bass. His work merges detail and aggression in equal measure, with libraries like Pharlight and Damage providing the textures and movement that push his sound into new territory.
By using cinematic tools to drive the energy of his arrangements rather than sit behind them, he turns atmosphere into rhythm and tension into groove.
The result is a sound that feels powerful and focused, rooted in storytelling as much as engineering. For producers looking to bring more scale and emotion into their own heavy music, exploring these libraries can open that same creative space.
The post Inside Pythius’s workflow for fusing metal and drum and bass first appeared on Native Instruments Blog.
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