Soundhive Sessions: Building beats with The Phronetic

Visit Brooklyn and you might spot an up-and-coming producer making beats in the parks and streets! This is The Phronetic, a finger drumming sensation who performs for his thousands of Instagram followers. So when we invited him to the ROLI Soundhive to share his sound, we knew we were in for a very special performance.

Watch the film above, where The Phronetic builds up a luscious beat with the Seaboard Block and two Lightpad Blocks. He also takes us through his set up and some of the 5D Equator presets that bring the performance to life.

The Phronetic's productions — old school boom-bap beats with a modern electronic twist — and his virtuosic performances are winning over a rapidly growing fan base. Although he began as a traditional drummer, he taught himself finger drumming with Melodics, the educational app included free with BLOCKS. “It took a solid month of constant practice to get my fingers to do what I wanted them to do. I had to translate what my arms and legs do on a normal drum kit to 16 pads!”

When he's not performing on BLOCKS, The Phronetic is jamming with his other favorite controllers, the Akai MPD 32 and M-Audio Keystation 88. “I want to spread the live beat culture community and see more producers performing live! I want to transform the idea of what it means to be a music producer.”

Watch some of The Phronetic's best Instagram BLOCKS performances at the bottom of this page. And don't forget to follow The Phronetic on Instagram, Soundcloud and listen to his tracks on Spotify: