How I Got That Sound: Samuel Dixon

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...