Joris Voorn: Tools that Serve the Idea

His experiments soon began to bear fruit: the Mute Track EP, then the Lost Memories series, whose piano-led standout “Incident” turned heads in clubs from Amsterdam to Detroit. “That was my breakthrough,” he says. “Suddenly everything went fast – from hardly any bookings to a full schedule within a year.”

Detroit roots

Voorn’s early records clearly reflect his influences. Detroit techno, deep house, and the hazy textures of dub techno immediately come to mind. “I was very inspired by Detroit,” he says. “Carl Craig was my all-time musical hero. I also tried making music like Jeff Mills – more of that ‘Purpose Maker’ groove,” he laughs. “But I found it very difficult. For me, the melodic side of Detroit is what pulled me in – the chords, the stabs, those big harmonies. That’s what really fascinated me.”

Since those beginnings, Voorn’s sound has evolved across a spectrum of sub-genres. His albums can span anywhere from ambient meditations to peak-time anthems. He’s not an artist you can neatly categorise – just as comfortable in the underground as he is in the mainstream. That range, and his instinct for speaking to different corners of the dancefloor, goes a long way toward explaining his enduring reach.

Serotonin: A personal record

Voorn’s latest album, Serotonin, is one of his most personal. “I lost both my parents in recent years,” he reveals. His parents were also musicians, his father a respected composer, his mother a music teacher. “We had to sell the family house,” he says quietly. “When it was almost empty, I brought a few synths – a Moog One, a Korg 2600, my laptop – and set up where my dad used to write music. I made sketches there, mostly one-takes. Some of those became the core of the album.”

He pauses before continuing. “I always plan to make an album in three months. It never works that way,” he smiles. “In the end, Serotonin was a lot of years’ work. But that’s OK. I’ve never believed in making an album that’s just bangers. Maybe that’s a bit old-school, but I grew up on albums that felt like a complete world, not just a playlist of tracks.”

Serotonin was also an opportunity for collaboration: “I did a writers’ camp with Armada Music. It was the first time I’d ever sat in the studio with singers, writing together in real time. Some of those recordings ended up on the album, which was really cool – it brought a different energy.”

Clips, Control, and the Ableton Live Mindset

Voorn migrated to Ableton Live in the early 2000s. “The puritan look of Live was disorientating at first,” he admits. “But once I understood clips and automation, it made sense. It’s a different way of thinking about music; more modular, more alive.”

Before his current workflow fell into place, he first had to find his footing within Live’s architecture. “I wanted to be able to open all my effects with one button, then reset everything to zero just as easily,” he says. The solution came when he realised he could program controller positions into a clip using automation. “Automation curves were there, but I wasn’t drawing any. I’d just drop in a single point so the clip stored the exact controller value. When I launched the clip, Live would instantly update every mapped parameter – filters, sends, effects – all at once.”

Voorn began controlling his Live Sets with a Behringer BCR2000, “a classic,” he says, prized for its endless rotary knobs. “That was super nice, because all my mapped controller positions were saved inside the clip. When I switched to the next scene, boom – everything jumped into place. The controllers stayed perfectly in sync with Live, which was impossible with normal encoders. Endless rotaries always pick up exactly where you left off.”

He still uses that approach today. “Last year, I built a new live show using the same method, and it still works beautifully,” he says. “I used Live on stage again this year at Ultra Miami.”

Creating Mix Compilations in Live

Few artists are as meticulous about their mix compilations as Voorn. His Balance 014, fabric 83, and recent BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix were all assembled in Live. He sees the tracks he uses more as ingredients rather than endpoints, slicing, looping, editing and layering them into something that outgrows the sum of the source material. “I’ve always done my mixes in Live,” he says. “For Balance 014 I used about a hundred tracks. It took months to license everything. But it was the first time I could really show how I think about structure and flow. I want a mix to feel like an album; musical, not just a playlist.”

Getting Heard Isn’t Easy

Voorn admits that finding truly inspiring new music has become harder than ever. “I get sent so much,” he says. “And it all sounds kind of good. It’s mixed well, it’s mastered well, but sometimes there’s a complete lack of interesting ideas. That’s the challenge today. Everyone’s capable of making something that sounds professional, but not everyone is making something that feels original.”

The sheer volume of demos makes discovery a logistical struggle. “We once opened a demo email and got something like 300 submissions a day,” he says. “I could give up my day job just listening to demos.” Even third-party submission platforms, he says, often make the process harder. “Some of them have terrible interfaces. You can’t even download the tracks properly.”

So what advice does he have for emerging artists trying to get noticed? “A personal touch helps,” he says. “Don’t just write, ‘Hey, check my SoundCloud.’ At least show you know who you’re talking to. Tell a story, give me a reason to listen. If it feels like you’ve just copy-pasted the same message to fifty people, that’s not going to work.”