Catching Up With Pipe Leak After His Homecoming Performance At Secret Dreams To Chat Set Prep, Workflow, Musical Journey & More
Written by: Dan Warren
Last month, Secret Dreams returned to Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio for its fourth consecutive installment. This year’s festival saw its largest lineup to date, massive upgrades to the mainstage, art installations everywhere you looked, and a crowd that was determined to party no matter what challenges were thrown at them. Despite some long delays getting into camping and postponements caused by severe weather, the weekend at Secret Dreams was one of the most thrilling audio/visual joyrides of the summer festival season.
Attendees were truly spoiled with jaw-dropping performances, including two mesmerizing Tipper sets (with Oneirogen and Fractaled Visuals on VJ duties) packed with bangers and a ton of throwbacks that many fans had been chasing since their first Tippings. These sets were a fulfilling sendoff ahead of Tipper’s highly-anticipated final run of shows. Pretty Lights delivered one of the most entrancing sonic experiences that Secret Dreams has ever seen with two sets, including the launch of “Horizon Sprinter & The Prismatic Fleet.” This was a top highlight for many attendees.
Additional highlights included fan-favorites Of The Trees and Daily Bread warming up the crowd before Tipper’s second set; an extended headlining performance from Detox Unit during the pre-party (accompanied by Johnathan Singer on visuals); an insane 1985 Music takeover featuring Shades, Alix Perez, EPROM, and Monty; a magical sunrise set from OPIUO (with Focal Point on visuals); as well as several energy-packed, day-time sets from Two Guys (crawdad sniper + Chez), Alejo, Audio Goblin, Ternion Sound and more.
For one artist, Secret Dreams was more than just playing a festival set. Columbus, Ohio native Derek Petrucci, better known as Pipe Leak in the bass music scene, challenged himself to deliver a 100% brand new, all-original set as soon as he got the offer to play Secret Dreams. For the next several months, Petrucci set out to create an intentional, energy-driven experience with a wide variety of styles that truly encapsulated his journey and progress as a producer. Hours and hours of preparation, fine tuning, and commitment resulted in a very polished, hour-long homecoming performance on the mainstage to kick off the first official day of Secret Dreams. Be sure to check out the full set on SoundCloud and show it some love!
The Pipe Leak project is the result of a desire to never stop learning. Petrucci’s disciplined approach to production and output of quality music has opened several amazing doors in 2025, including a mini national tour to kick off the year. This tour included some incredible support sets for names like kLL sMTH, LTJ Bukem, Humandala, Ooga, parkbreezy, and more. Whether it’s drum & bass, dubstep, halftime, breakbeats, or even Lo-Fi, Pipe Leak has a unique ability to seamlessly fit onto a diverse range of lineups and events.
The Synapse had an opportunity to connect with Petrucci after Secret Dreams to chat about a number of topics, including the prep that went into his Secret Dreams set, his musical journey going from playing drums in a band for several years to pursuing a never-ending quest in sonic exploration with the Pipe Leak project, and so much more. Check out the full conversation below and be sure to give Pipe Leak a follow across all of his socials at the end.
You kicked off the first official day of Secret Dreams with an unbelievable set! After seeing the track list that was posted on SoundCloud, it looks like there was a lot of new music that you debuted during this performance. Tell us a little bit about the overall prep that went into this set.
Thank you so much! The prep for this set pretty much started right after I got the offer to play Secret Dreams, so probably three months out from the show date. My initial goal for this was to write a completely new hour of music. I had just finished a mini Winter/Spring tour, where I played about seven shows around the country, so my thought going into this was, “Okay, I’m not going to schedule any shows for these next few months so that I can focus on writing as much new music as I can for this set.”
In the past, I’ve been able to do this when I’ve received show offers two to three months out in advance and write a full 60 minutes for certain sets. This has been really useful over the years because I could then use that music for forthcoming releases and keep working on some of the tracks after the shows have passed. I also like to write longer tracks, so my initial goal for this set was to have somewhere between 15 and 17 brand new tracks ready to play.
After the first month and a half or so, I realized that I had gone pretty in-depth with the first half of the set. I spent a lot more time developing the tracks and not really moving on until I felt like they were in a really good place, so it was a much more in-depth writing process. When it was time to actually get on stage and play, I had 12 brand new tracks finished. I think I played 16 tracks total, so 12 brand new tracks and then the others were either unreleased tracks that I had played in previous sets or a couple tracks that were already released.
That’s pretty incredible that you were still able to knock out 12 brand new tracks for this set! You definitely covered a wide range of styles. What did the breakdown for each section look like?
The prep was pretty intentional from the start. I knew the tempos that I wanted to go after within each style. If I’m going to write a halftime track, for example, I’ll typically write it at 87 bpm because I like to write drum & bass stuff at 174. That way, it’s a perfect transition going from one style to another. And then for the more breaks type stuff, I’ll typically write those at 133 bpm and then obviously dubstep at 140.
My initial thought was to write a good 15- to 22-minute chunk at 87 bpm, then go into some 140, and then finish with about a half hour of drum and bass at 174. I wasn’t really considering doing much of the breaks stuff initially, but throughout the writing process, I started one track and the groove of it sat much better at 133 bpm. I had a 133 track from an EP I released a couple months prior that I thought fit really well with it and then I ended up spending a good amount of time on that section.
Those three or four tracks took up maybe a full month of the writing process, where I was really trying to nail down the drums and the EQing on those. I got really into the EQ process for these tracks, which is honestly why I wasn’t able to finish every track for a completely brand new set. I wanted to make sure that the EQs were doing exactly what I wanted them to be doing, which meant I had to spend more time actually listening to the tracks and fine tune some things here and there.
Once I finished one of those tracks, I would go back into the project and deconstruct the drums from it and get a similar groove that I knew would match well with it when I would go from track to track. I would then change the tamber and some of the actual samples and sounds of the drums, so that I had a consistent groove. I was also mindful of the kick patterns and the snares. So yeah, each track kind of builds on the patterns and stuff from the tracks that came before it.
I think I gave myself like nine weeks to finish as many tracks as I could and then I wanted to start the mixdown and mastering processes from there. I would pretty much finish writing a track, do a mixdown on it, and then send it to my mastering guy, Jeremy Medasie, who goes by Aeded. This was a good system because I could just move on to the next track and focus on writing as much as possible. In the past, I would wait to do all of the mixdowns at one time, which was a disaster because if I got fresh ears on a track that I had written a month and a half prior, I would all of a sudden not like it and that would cause a lot of hold up in my output of music.
I was really happy with how meticulous I was with the preparation for this set. I set a lot of timeline goals and was able to pretty much hit every single one leading up to the show. During the week leading up to the set, Jeremy and I were just doing minor mastering tweaks and revisions on certain things to hear if something punched a different way. This entire process pretty much took all of the nerves out of the idea of playing such a big event because I felt more prepared for it than I’ve ever been for a set.
That’s awesome! It definitely seemed like you were very dialed in, not only with the production, but also with how the flow of the set went overall. It was really cool to witness. During the writing process itself, were there any influences – whether it was artists or different labels that you’re a fan of–that helped guide some of these projects?
Not really to be honest. I don’t think I listened to any electronic music at all during the entire writing process for this set. I listened to a lot of classic rock as well as a lot of Steely Dan. I also listened to a lot of J Dilla, which was definitely an influence on the halftime tracks in the beginning of the set as they were a bit more hip-hop leaning. I was also watching a lot of movies at nighttime after I would get out of the studio. A lot of film scores were influential with those pad and string type sounds in a lot of them.
I think the only electronic music I really listened to was stuff that I had made two or three years ago. It’s easy to be super critical of your own works, especially having learned a lot since making those songs. But, after listening back to some stuff, I realized, “Hey, this was a cool nugget of an idea. I didn't know how to bring it forth at the time, but let me revisit this concept and see what we can do with it."
Trying to build more on some of the themes that I was thinking about while making those older tracks was definitely a big part of this writing process. My music doesn’t really have words or lyrics in them, so I always try to think of images in my head that I’m trying to illustrate. When I went back to some old projects, I would think about the headspace I was in at that time, which was really weird because some of the stuff comes from a pretty dark place. But, it definitely helped me illustrate and tell a story throughout the set. I felt really happy with how I was able to convey these images through my music.
That’s really cool and I think you definitely succeeded in doing that. So, take us back to the actual show day itself. After all of that prep time leading up to the set, how did it feel playing up on that mainstage and setting the tone for that epic 1985 takeover that followed?
It’s funny, I don’t really have any pre-show rituals or anything like that. I’ve had some pretty stressful show days in the past because I didn’t feel like I was prepared. My whole thing going into it was just get up there and have a good time playing the music that I worked really hard on. So this meant making sure all of my ducks were in a row as well as having the confidence in my mixing and transitions.
I was really focused on executing the first few mixes of the set properly. Sometimes when you get on a different set of CDJs, they can all act a bit different where there can sometimes be a delay, so I just made sure I nailed those first three transitions during the halftime section. And then from there, I knew that I had prepped all of the songs the right way where it would all flow really well. I felt really comfortable up there while playing.
Obviously, it was very hot that day, so I felt a little bad for the people in the audience that came out that early. But I also appreciate everybody that braved the heat. I wanted to be really present and just enjoy that payoff for the three or so months of work that went into that hour-long set. I also wanted to connect with the crowd and just let those moments up there really sink in.
Having toured with a band for several years in the past, I never really got those moments to be fully present because I was always concerned about getting to the next place and playing the next show. I’ve now learned to really take in these moments when they’re there because once they’re gone, that’s it, and you can’t really get them back. It’s important to just have fun with everyone, not worry, and not be too serious or take yourself too seriously.
Absolutely! I feel like a lot of artists overlook this part about not taking yourself too seriously. You definitely looked like you were having a lot of fun up there. Switching gears a bit, I am always curious on how artists got their names. So, where does the name ‘Pipe Leak’ come from?
It’s funny you ask that because a lot of people think I was a plumber or something like that. They hear ‘Pipe Leak’ and their brain immediately goes to, “Oh, so you were a plumber at one point!” But no, I was never a plumber haha the story of how I landed on this name goes back to a dream I had a number of years ago.
I was in my room and all of sudden the walls started to dissolve to the point where they were melting in on me. While this was going on, my room also started getting this 3D mapping pattern all around it and then these pipes started to appear in the corners of the room. These pipes then started leaking this liquid down the walls and weaving in between the 3D mapping pattern. When this happened, I realized that this is what pure inspiration feels like. When the valves open up or the pipes leak, you just have to soak in as much as possible until it gets turned off.
I had been thinking about what I wanted my artist name to be and went through so many different, terrible names before I landed on Pipe Leak. That dream really opened up a new sense of direction and inspiration inside of me, so I stuck with it.
That’s such a cool story! Diving into your musical background a little bit, I know you mentioned you had been in a band for several years and did a lot of touring with them—how did that translate into wanting to pursue electronic music production?
My first instrument was actually the drums. I started playing the drums when I was 10 and was self-taught for about 11 years playing in bands throughout middle school and high school. I started to actually take formal lessons when I was 21. Playing the drums was my sole focus for pretty much my entire musical life. I was so obsessed with it. I would play for hours and hours every single day, I was a freak about practicing.
I met some guys during my freshman year of college and we started a band called BareFuzz. We started playing gigs all around Columbus and then started getting into the festival scene. We actually played the first couple of Secret Dreams! Things were rolling right along for quite a long time, but as you can imagine, this took up a lot of my capacity. I was also working a full-time job at the time, too.
Oddly enough, electronic music was actually my first musical obsession when I was a kid. I remember discovering Aphex Twin in the second or third grade and really fell in love with the ambient releases, then I found the Come to Daddy album, which is more breaks and jungle type stuff. I then got really into Luke Vibert and Squarepusher — I didn’t even know how to describe that music, but I just loved it.
Once I was in college and started attending (and playing) more music festivals, hearing electronic music live was incredible. I was just like, “Dude, I really love this.” I followed certain artists around quite a bit and just continued to get deeper and deeper into it, but never really had the time to dive into producing. I messed around with Logic in high school and college, but had no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t until my senior year of college in 2019 that I downloaded Ableton and I instantly fell in love with it.
I moved back in with my parents after college and the band was supposed to really take off and start touring a lot more, but then COVID happened and shut down live music for the next year and a half. When that happened, I got a grant from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and used it to buy studio monitors and transform my room to have an actual studio where I could just dive in. After that, I started taking some lessons from Jade Cicada, Resonant Language, as well as some buddies of mine who were way further along in the process.
This was basically my life every single day during COVID. I would still practice drums for a couple hours because I was still doing that, but then I’d be in the studio all night continuing to learn the ins and outs of Ableton. Once I started to get the hang of it, which was probably a couple years in, I wanted to get good enough to start releasing as much music as I could. That was my main goal from the start and honestly, that’s still my main goal today. I’m very focused on just building a big catalog of music and showing people the progress I’ve made over these last couple of years as an artist.
Incredible! I like how you approached learning music production the same way you approached practicing the drums. It’s cool to see how that obsession of wanting to learn more has paid off.
Yeah, and now I can’t see it any other way. I’m really happy with what I’m doing and even though I’ve been involved in the industry for pretty much my entire adult life, it still feels completely fresh and new to me. I’m still very much a novice. I’ve been producing for about four years, and not just screwing around with it, but taking it seriously every single day.
It’s really exciting because there is still so much stuff to learn. I think a lot of artists get frustrated when producing because a lot of contemporary artists have been producing for 10 or 15 or 20+ years and have so much knowledge that they don’t have yet. But that, to me, is the exciting part about producing. It’s similar to playing drums for the last 20 years. I feel like I’m right back in that process, which is a very comfortable place for me to be in.
You hit the nail on the head. I’m a big believer in the phrase “Never Stop Learning” and it’s awesome to see how you’ve held onto that for these last several years. And to have been producing seriously for about four years, you have already accomplished a ton! I feel like this year especially, you have been getting your name out there more. Tell us a little bit more about the mini national tour you did earlier this year. Who were some of the artists you supported and what were some of your favorite cities that you played in?
Thanks a ton, man! Yes, the mini tour was a great opportunity for me to play my music for a lot of new audiences. I think there were about six to eight shows that I played during this tour. One show that immediately comes to mind is playing the Black Box in Denver. Denver is obviously such a great market for the music that I make and hearing my tunes on that sound system was an amazing feeling.
My first show for 2025 was in Chicago with kLL sMTH and Freddy Todd, which was a blast. The show I played in Wilmington, North Carolina with Humandala and Ooga was incredible. Those guys crushed their sets and were really fun to hang out with. That Hennessey sound system was also insane! I also really enjoyed the show I played in Cleveland supporting the all:Lo Collective tour with parkbreezy, pheel., and TF Marz. For that one, I got to play a special Lo-Fi set with a lot of different material that I’ve been making.
While these shows were obviously amazing, my top highlight is definitely the show I played in Burlington, Vermont with LTJ Bukem. That show was an absolute dream. Seeing him play at Tipper & Friends 2022 in Suwannee literally prompted me to quit my full-time job and focus on music for as long as I possibly could, so it was a huge full-circle moment for me to be able to play a show with him. He’s such a legend.
All of these shows were super special because it was really my first time going out of town to do this kind of thing. It was cool because in every city I went to, there were people who had been following my project for different periods of time and they would mention various tracks that they liked, which was super new to me.
I’ve obviously toured with a band for several years and that was great, but it’s a totally different experience because you’re in a van and hauling a trailer with all of the gear and equipment and stuff like that. Hopping on an airplane and flying to a new city to play music is a totally different feeling. It was really exciting to be able to do that.
Right now, we’re actually planning a Fall tour that will start in September and run pretty much through the rest of the year. We’re also submitting music to a bunch of labels and have some releases lined up, so definitely be on the lookout for more updates from me! I feel really good about the plans that we have set in place for the rest of this year and beyond.
Awesome stuff, man! You definitely have a lot of great momentum right now and it’s nice you’ve been able to connect with a lot of new fans this year.
Honestly, the thing I am most happy about is when I meet new people who have followed my project in-person and they all seem to really appreciate the output of music that has come out in such a short period of time. Right now, I think I’m at 30 to 33 releases since the end of 2022. I’m super proud of how much I’ve been able to release and, for me, that’s the most important thing to keep doing. I’m really excited to continue releasing more music and connecting with new people that appreciate it.
There is certainly a lot to be proud of! It’s been really cool to learn more about your journey as an artist and we’re looking forward to seeing and hearing what’s next for you. To close out here, is there anything else that our readers should know about you or the Pipe Leak project?
Yes! I actually just launched a Bandcamp subscription that will have monthly releases in addition to all of the other music that is currently out now. This Bandcamp subscription is tiered at $5 per month and is basically how I plan on funding the project moving forward. I am also planning to put up some merch on my Bandcamp. But yeah, this will all be reinvested back into the project to help me continue to grow. I’m really excited to roll this out!
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