COPYCATT on Bass Music Sound Design, Waveshaping & Ableton Workflows

Australian producer COPYCATT breaks down his track Butterfly, sharing honest thoughts on clipping vs limiting, waveshaping tools, and how he builds movement and character into bass music.

Australian producer COPYCATT (Andre) sits down to pull back the curtain on his production process, breaking down his track Butterfly and sharing the tools, habits, and thinking that shape his distinctive bass music sound. From drum bus limiting to waveshaping experiments, this is a candid, hands-on conversation about how he builds character into every element of a mix.

What It Covers

COPYCATT has built a cult following around 90s hip-hop-inspired grooves, hard-hitting snares, and bone-rattling sub basses. In this episode he opens up his session for Butterfly, released on Night Our Collective, and walks through the decisions behind the sounds. The conversation moves naturally between technical detail and the broader creative instincts that drive his work.

A recurring theme is the tension between clipping and limiting on the drum bus. COPYCATT has long been a vocal advocate for the free W1 Limiter, a reverse-engineered recreation of the Waves L1, praising its transparency and the amount of volume it delivers without murdering transients. He also shares a neat parallel-chain workaround for dry-wet blending a limiter that has no built-in mix knob, compensating for the latency W1 introduces by running a second, neutral instance of the plugin in a parallel chain.

Waveshaping gets serious attention too. COPYCATT talks through his use of the MWaveShaper from Melda Production, explaining why the ability to draw and smooth Bezier curves in real time makes it such a tactile and musical tool for sculpting distortion and fuzz into bass sounds. He also touches on feedback experiments and a handful of Live 12.4 devices that have found their way into his current setup.

How to Use These Ideas

• Parallel limiting on drums: Place your limiter (such as the free W1) on one chain and a second, neutral instance of the same plugin on a parallel chain set to no threshold. This compensates for the latency the plugin introduces and lets you blend the affected and unaffected signals without phase issues.
• Waveshaping for textured bass: Load MWaveShaper, feed your bass sound into it, and move the control points while listening. Use the Bezier handles to smooth out harsh corners in the curve and find the sweet spot between character and cleanliness.
• Clipping the master bus: COPYCATT runs his master with minimal processing, leaning on clipping rather than heavy limiting to maintain punch and dynamics at the output stage.
• Melodic and dirty in the same track: The breakdown of Butterfly shows how melodic arrangement and genuinely gritty drops can coexist. Build harmonic interest in the verses and let the sound design do the heavy lifting in the drop.
• Use feedback as a design tool: Routing signal back into itself, even briefly and in a controlled way, can generate movement and unpredictable harmonic content that static processing cannot.

Why It Matters

COPYCATT is one of those producers whose tracks have been played by Pretty Lights, Haywyre, Tipper, and Excision, not because he followed a formula but because he developed a genuinely distinctive voice through hands-on experimentation. The tools he reaches for are often free or affordable, and the techniques he describes are repeatable by any intermediate producer working in Ableton Live. The value here is not in the gear list but in the mindset: listen to what is happening, trust your ears, and use the interface to explore rather than to confirm what you already know.