Founded in 2007 as a solo project of Ryan Lott, Son Lux is now a trio that includes Rafiq Bhatia on guitar and Ian Chang on drums. Son Lux is intense, cinematic, experimental, and virtuosic. The vocals are powerful yet shifty. The guitar is dynamic and not always what it seems. The percussion is complex and unpredictable.
Son Lux’s latest work, Remedy, was released May 12, 2017 with all proceeds donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of American society.
We asked Ryan how Soundtoys was put to work to help create their signature sound:
“In creating Son Lux’s music, we make regular use of every Soundtoys plug-in. In just one song, Dangerous, here’s how we gave Little AlterBoy a workout: The guitar part, prepared with a strip of a fabric slip mat, forms the backbone of the song. To add an additional fuzzy thickness and harmonic complexity to it, we used two instances of Little AlterBoy in two different modes, each on its own send from the guitar. The formant shifts on my vocal in various places throughout the song are also thanks to an instance of Little AlterBoy on the vocal track. Even the violas get an extra boost of weirdness from Little AlterBoy. A send on the viola bus triggers Little AlterBoy in Robot Mode, tuned to a common tone among all chords in the song. The same instance of the plugin also provides the saturation.” – Ryan Lott
