English producer and four‑time Grammy Award‑winning mixer Robert Orton, aka The Hitmixer, has worked with million‑selling artists including Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesias, Backstreet Boys, Sting, Lana Del Rey and Robin Thicke. Asked to pick a sonic highlight from his hugely successful catalogue, he chooses the bass in Charli XCX’s ‘Boom Clap’.
“One of the most important elements of ‘Boom Clap’ is the sub‑bass sound that comes in on the chorus, and the trick was getting everything to fit around it, because it’s huge. It’s absent in the verses, but lands on one of the choruses with the word ‘boom’ when it first comes in.
Robert Orton: When you hit the chorus, this all‑consuming bass sound takes over. I had to figure out how to make that sound as big as possible without taking over everything.
“The verses have got this much smaller‑sounding bass part, but when you hit the chorus, this all‑consuming bass sound takes over. I had to figure out how to make that sound as big as possible without taking over everything, to allow for all the other things that are obviously really important for the chorus to work.
“The song has this sort of odd, stilted rhythm made up of all these different...
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