The Making of… ‘Supercharged (Energy TV Spots)’

Happy new year!! We’re hugely excited about our first release of the year, Gothic Hybrid’s ‘Supercharged (Energy TV Spots)’. Perfectly crafted high-octane tracks with incredible energy and searing intensity. We spoke to Sigurd Jøhnk-Jensen, Amadeo Lopez, Andrii Yefymov & composer duo 2Hooks about how they created these exciting, overdriven hybrid trailer tracks.

What music inspired you whilst writing your track, was it something from a specific musical world (trailer, games, soundtrack, commercial)? Was there anything from the EDM/Hip-Hop commercial world that inspired you?

SJJ: I have been doing a lot of writing and producing for artists lately, so for this I drew a lot of inspiration from modern electronic production.

AL: I think what inspired me on this track was the nice low end sense an 808 could give you, so in terms of genre definitely some elements from Hip-Hop.

AY: I’m rarely inspired by any music when writing such tracks, I try to stay more focused on imaginary worlds fitting targeted movie campaigns.

2H: In this case we rely a lot on action movies like: Fast and Furious, Mission Impossible and some superhero movies. It also helped us a lot to listen to some more electronic songs by Brian Tyler.

Is there a type of usage you could imagine your track working well with. A certain kind of high-octane promo or trailer perhaps?

SJJ: I had a darker almost thriller action in mind, when writing the track.

AL: Well, my track could work pretty well specially on action/sci-fi promos.

AY: My cues were made with some hard hitting action with elements of sci-fi in mind, so hopefully it could fit a wide range of modern action film campaigns, from superhero stuff to Fast X saga.

2H: We think our tracks would be great for quick, fast-paced promos, with lots of action and lots of cuts. Incredible chase and fight scenes… Any movie with all that would be great.

The percussion and hybrid drum patterns are particularly important for drive and energy in this album, how do you go about writing these patterns? And at what stage during the composition do you create them?

SJJ: I have no rules ir “go to” stuff when it comes to drums. I’m a drummer myself, so I can wip out and record almost anything within minutes. So I mostly go on intuition, and what I’m naturally drawn towards for the track.

AL: The patterns are the core and the essential part of these kind of cues… That’s the first thing I did, choosing nice and groovy rhythm patterns, and the way I do it is combining different figures and call-response patterns without making it too complex.

AY: Usually I start with sound design elements and setting the sound-world of my cue. Then always comes the energy motor. I start with imagining a trailer cut in my head and then I try to “feel” and “catch” the rhythm. I sketch some basic patterns on the keyboard and then work on accents, stops, breaks and other stuff. I always go by “feeling”.

2H: We initially created them to structure the track. We like to visualize the entire track with the percussion in broad strokes. On that we already started to compose the whole song.

How did you maintain originality whilst composing your track? Was it a certain signature sound or melody that helped?

SJJ: I don’t really tend to think about tracks having to have a certain sound. But I do a lot of original sound design from the ground up, which in itself acts as a signature sound.

AL: Originality comes from how cool and driving is the structure and patterns plus the right selection of signature sounds, and in this case I choose strange sounds and making it work as part of the rhythm of the track.

AY: Signature sounds. That’s the biggest part of my track-writing process, I really pay a lot of attention to this. If the signature sound is working for me, then the track just writes itself. And of course one can’t maintain originality by using stock sounds as “signature”. So doing something bespoke and unique is really important here.

Did you have any go-to instruments (real or otherwise) that you used in your track that worked particularly well?

SJJ: REAL DRUMS!

AL: Yes, mainly an 808 combined with other kick sounds and some cool alarms/sirens I made from scratch.

AY: Go-to instruments?… hm… my DAW template! I have everything I use gathered in one big template, so these are my go-to tools. I can’t really pick one go-to tool, depending on the context… But probably something from Damage 2 is always present in all of my cues (at least somehow partially).

2H: In this case to reinforce those percussive hits, we added the sound of a car door closing. Along with some big hits that gave it that extra punch it needed. It also gives it an extra touch of realism.