Producer David Pramik on Grammy nods, spanning genres, and oeksound plugins

For L.A.-based songwriter and producer, David Pramik, each day at work is never the same. Here he reveals how receiving multiple Grammy nods opened up a host of new opportunities, and the interesting ways in which he uses oeksound plugins throughout his creative process.

Fortunately enough, Pramik has had a very busy year so far. Despite having written and produced songs for a number of big pop, R&B and hip-hop acts, including Selena Gomez, Bebe Rexha, Rag’n’Bone Man and Machine Gun Kelly (his work has reached a combined one billion streams across major platforms), he was in fact a rock and metal head growing up.

“I’m a guitar player too, so rock music is a very comfortable place for me to work in,” Pramik admits. “I’ve had a lot of success there, and I’m thrilled about that, but what I love about being a producer is that I can really span genres.”

And impressive that success has been; Pramik’s first Grammy nomination came to fruition following his work with the band Nothing More, on a song called Go To War. The song hit No.1 on US Rock Radio for a few weeks, and while it was still very early in his career, a number of doors soon started opening:

“The song was nominated for three Grammys - Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance. I think it was actually the morning of my birthday when I received a bunch of texts from my manager; he sent me the screenshots of the nominations and we were just going crazy!

“When I’m in the room with a band or artist, I’ve learned that the most important thing is that I need to know who they really are,” he adds. “If I don’t already, then I make a point that morning, maybe while I’m getting dressed or whatever, to play a lot of their music or similar artists to just try to understand what kind of meal I’m going to be having that day.

“I try to find the core of something, which is usually just a loop, some chords, or an 808. It’s very minimal, but once we have that little cornerstone, and once the room is moving, from there I try to make it sound as great as possible as quickly as possible.”

To help him achieve that speed of service, Pramik utilises oeksound’s soothe2 plugin, which he describes as a “game changer”.

“I’ve been working with a country artist called Tenille Townes, who has an incredible voice, and I’m just such a huge fan of hers. She has this amazing power behind her vocal, and that’s like her superpower, but power can be a little unwieldy sometimes in the session,” he explains. “I actually have a whole template set up for her vocal that includes soothe. Every once in a while she’ll get on this specific vowel, and there’ll be a really resonant spot in there, but soothe simply fixes those resonant frequencies. Sometimes it just feels like cheating!”

Pramik also uses soothe very frequently on guitars, especially in the lower-mid range to take care of some unwanted thumps and bumps. His favourite feature however is the Delta button, which isolates whatever it’s working on and helps him to further sharpen his focus.

“It just works and works quickly,” he adds. “With soothe, if you go really aggressive, it produces this weird squeakiness which is generally considered undesirable, but there’s definitely some application for that to be cool, and it’s also a fantastic de-esser.”

Pramik has also been getting creative and experimenting with the “really interesting” presets within spiff, oeksound’s transient processor:

“It’s just been lovely to be able to achieve these weird sounds that I could not create any other way; it’s exciting to have access to a whole new landscape of sound,” he ponders. “I have a whole bunch more music that’s been waiting in the wings, and it’s going to start rolling out this year.

“I can be really aggressive and toothy and snarly and rockish one day, and then I can go into a completely different palette of poppy, clean, fresh the next, and that is without a doubt my favourite part of this entire thing.”

You can listen to the full podcast interview with Pramik below.