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Alice Ivy has been on a roll. The ARIA-nominated producer from Naarm/Melbourne has racked up over 80 million streams, toured with the likes of Billie Eilish and Foster The People, and landed her track “In My Mind” on a global Apple ad. Her 2020 album Don’t Sleep earned nods for ‘Best Dance Release’ and ‘Engineer of the Year’ at the ARIA Awards, making it clear she’s not just making music—she’s shaping the future of electronic pop.
Her latest track, “Do What Makes You Happy,” pushes her sound even further. It’s packed with lush live instrumentation, including drums from Sean Hutchinson (Bleachers), acoustic guitar, and bass, all woven together with her signature flair for experimental synths. The real MVP? The Hillwood Blue Comets 73—a rare ‘70s synth that Alice leans on for its weird, psychedelic tones. Combined with plugins like Echo Boy and Enigma, the track has this epic mix of vintage character and modern punch.
In the interview below, Alice dives into the gear and techniques behind the song. Whether she’s bending pitch faders on the Comets or dialing in Cradle’s God Particle for demo mixes, her process is a goldmine for producers. If you’ve been curious about how to blend retro vibes with cutting-edge production, this one’s for you.
Hillwood Blue Comets 73
The Hillwood Blue Comets 73 synth is a single oscillator monophonic synth, incredibly versatile and super weird sounding, very 70s psychedelic.. It’s one of my favourite synths in the studio because there is nothing else that sounds quite like it, it keeps me on my toes! It can be modified with 7 presets and offers sawtooth and squarewave which you can select individually or combined with wave 1, 2, 3 or 4.
“Do What Makes You Happy” has heaps of live instrumentation on it; acoustic guitar, bass, live drums courtesy of Sean Hutchinson from Bleachers, I wanted to really elevate the choruses and there is just something super magical about the combination of big drums, chorus bass and soaring 70s synth tones. The Comets is super handy because it’s super versatile, I use it for big bass lines and lead synths but particularly in this song I used the comets to create those big atmospheric synths you hear in the choruses, using the pitch faders, messing with the portamento and bend features to create those wonky synth sounds! Running them through a verb before a Decapitator and microshift is also fun!
This synth is so badass because it’s so versatile! It’s perfect in electronic music for big synth leads, risers, and atmospheric stuff drenched in verb. But it’s also super cool in indie/ pop / rock genres as well. If you need a big bass sound to open up sections or arrangements it’s incredible! You can make it feel super 70s, but also 90s rave, and you could create a new sound everyday..
I love it.
Echo Boy
Dare I say, this is the best echo / delay on the market? Echo Boy, is an echo, verb, delay made by soundtoys. What I LOVE about echoboy is again how versatile it is, incredible for sound designs, vocal treatment, pretty much everything. It also has built in saturation which is super cool.
I would say the biggest use of Echo Boy for me is I always have it living as a return track in ableton, so I’m always sending different things to it! Here it works as an echo, I have it dialed in on this preset called “Forbidden Planet Echo” which I absolutely love, especially on vocals. It gives it this real 70s echo tone to a sound. Having echo boy sit before a saturator is also baller especially on synth sounds or sometimes vocals. I’m always trying to tap into different worlds in production and Echo Boy is a gateway.
Echo Boy is a versatile plugin and can suit all genres. One thing that’s fun is automating the feedback on sounds to create swells and dialling it back down. This kind of stuff can be super handy for transitions in a song and helping things build.
Enigma
Enigma is somewhat of a mixing and creative plugin made by Waves. It combines comb filtering, modulation, filtered feedback, time delay and a reverb like processor to create unique sonic webs around anything! You can use it on guitars, synths and vocals to create a unique ever moving sound.
Enigma is what created that distinct “Phaser” like vocal tone on Sam’s lead vocal during the start of the chorus. The decision to use this effect was done more so in the mixing process of the track. I think what led to it was wanting the vocal to build in a way to that big drop. I really love how much movement it creates in Sam’s vocal almost making it sound super liquidy. We had this effect run into a couple vocal compressors, a Fairchild 660 and extra microshift to open up the track more.
I love using Enigma on sounds because it’s so easy to use to give movement to a sound. I’m always striving to create sounds and synth tones that you can’t create again, and are super unique to the song you are working on. Enigma definitely helps with that! It’s also a plugin that is buried within the waves bundles, not a lot of people talk about it so I wanted to express how cool this plug in is.
The God Particle
The God Particle is a plug in made by one of my favourite plug in companies, Cradle. It’s a plugin that adds depth, clarity and details to mixes. You can have it live on your master bus, individual tracks or any kind of groups.
I really wanted to shoutout this plugin because honestly it’s been such a game changer for me as a producer with my demo mixes, My mixes have definitely levelled up and although I was lucky enough to work with Andrew Dawson to mix this particular record, God Particle definitely came in handy during the demo stages. Especially when working with feature vocalists, sharing demo mixes with labels and teams, you want demos to sound the best as you can. I love using God Particle dialling it into 160% and adjusting from there depending on what feels right.
I would try utilizing this plug in across your session, not just living on your master bus, to see whether it gives your mix more clarity. All up this sort of stuff is worked out by feel, God Particle is super easy to use with pretty much the one main dial so it isn’t super difficult to understand.
Tips For Music Producers
1.As a producer, having everything all patched in ready to go before the artist rocks up is key! I usually rock up a little earlier to get a good mic chain and headphone mix going, tune the guitars and mic up anything necessary! You don’t want technology getting in the way of a recording.
2. Sometimes the best idea is the first one. Try not to overthink things when you’re in the studio and just let this progress naturally.
3. Mess with the bpm of the track! It’s wild how much bumping or slowing the bpm to a song can make a real difference in mood and feeling.
4. Work fast and keep the momentum going in a session especially if you have other writers in the room with you! 9/10 for me when a session slows down is when you are thinking of a word to fill a line, move on, put in a placeholder and come back to it and it.
5. Leave your ego at the door, learn from the other people in the room, that’s the best way to get better at songwriting.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
