“I think it’s the most underrated plugin on Ableton Live”: The simple tool Chris Lake used in his Taylor Swift remixChris Lake was recently one of four dance producers asked to remix and put their own spin on Taylor Swift’s megahit Opalite, from her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl.
Turning one of the biggest pop tracks from the past year into a dancefloor-ready anthem was no small feat, but the English producer did so in style, and recently spoke to MusicTech about how he gave the song a new lease of electronic-flavoured life.

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And he even reveals his surprising secret weapon that took his remix to the next level and infused it with a sense of “imperfection”, Ableton Live’s stock Overdrive plugin.
“The thing that’s really key is loads of Overdrive,” he says. “I think it’s one of the most underrated plugins in Ableton Live. It just gives vibrancy and lift to the songs and makes them a bit more imperfect. It’s just really musical to me.”
The producer also reveals his workflow for creating the remix involved continuously printing everything he wrote to audio. “I’d make a complicated project, break it down to six stems, move to a new project, then start the cycle again, until I ended up on that last version.
“That last version, from the moment I started the beat to the finished remix, took me about two hours to get the sounds that I was using within that. I’d spent about three days putting it together.”
Lake also remembers being asked to create a remix for a Taylor Swift track for the first time.
“I’ve dedicated my life to music production and DJing,” he says, “and there are lots of people who understand it. But people who don’t go to clubs just don’t really get what DJs do. They don’t get what producers do. They have no concept of it.
“Well, you tell them that you’re remixing Taylor Swift, and suddenly you have people’s attention. She resonates on a frequency unlike anyone else on this planet.”
Listen to Chris Lake’s Opalite remix, plus Taylor Swift’s original, below:

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