Tell us about your first steps in sound production: when it was, what soft did u use?
The very first encounter i had with music production was when i got my first real keyboard at 14. It had 6 channels and the sequencer i used was called musicator and used classic score notation. Then i moved on to fasttracker 2 shortly after. After that it was cubase and a midi sampler soundcard (sound forge for processing) and i settled on vst based setups after that.
How much time had passed till u signed your first tune on the label (wich label & when)?
My very first signing was around 99 on a danish label called man rec. Me and a friend had an outfit called computah and we got to do a full cd album on there.
What were the general influences on your music? And what are the influences now?
Back then it was very much just trying to do what we heard optical and the ram guys pull off. I came into it on a sort of trueplayaz sort of vibe and ended up a hardcore virus and ram fan. Right now it's all about techno and dub for me as far as musical influences go. I see techno as a treasure chest of techniques waiting to be tested and adapted to dnb speed. At the same time i've felt the need for some more organic flavour in my life so i've been listening to a lot of jamaican sounds and detroit techno as well. I'm a bit frustated with the musical aspect of dnb at the moment, including most of the dark stuff. So i've been listening to everything that could teach me something about more natural sounding, organic movement in sounds. This includes rock like jeff buckley, radiohead and kashmir to classical like wagner and beethoven to blues to jazz etc. Everything that involves people who are genuinely musically skilled (especially in the classic sense, miles davis for example) has my interrest these days. To my surprise techno does this (in my opinion of course) better than a lot more acoustic based music out there, which is incredibly fascinating to me. As far as dnb goes amit has brought somethign to the genre that we really needed and his tunes are very inspirational to me. 
Did u produce any kind of music in spite of dnb ever? Was it ever been released?
When I was young I did euro dance happy hardcore inspired music, before i got into dnb. Since then i've had a go at some prog trance and tribal house but its not something i see myself doing a lot. I am having a lot of fun making techno though, again it's not like i'm considering a genre switch but its a very education genre for me. Both the minimal and hard stuff is fun to do. I'm also currently finnishing off the demo for a reggae/ragga inspired band i'm doing with some rapper friends of mine. We're basically doing everything you can rhyme over: ragga, hiphop, 2step, grime, dnb and more. No releases yet though which is probably for the better as we are still learning.
What studio equipment do u use for production?
100% pc based. My monitors are old 2nd hand homemade pieces of work but i know them well enough to get by. My hd25 headphones help me spot the worst mixdown mistakes, but new monitors are high on my list. I use logic for pc and a few select plugins i really like, like psp nitro, amplitube, waves, linplug alpha, es2, lots of tape delay and the exs24mkII is my sampler of choice. I'm slowly transitioning to cubase but mostly by necessity.
Could u impart to our audience some of your production tips?
Lately i'm running a lot of breakbeat loops thru filters and fx like nitro, trying to get a more techno sound. Nitro is great because the lfo's are so flexible. Usually i'll just pitch up an old breakbeat so it fits the bpm, maybe cut it up and rearrange it, then play with filters, fx, mix and lfo's in nitro till i get a flow i like.
A thing that amazed me when i looked deeper into techno production techniques is the HUGE variety of sounds they're able produce just by filtering and processing drum machine hits. Anything goes for this really, but a classic open 909 hihat with a short decay on your filterenvelope is a gateway to a world of sounds. I like flanging stuff lately, the more flexible the flanger plugin the better. Once you distort these sounds with a good tube/tape/whatever emulator you can get some great percussive sounds that will blend in with most funk breaks. Tom and kick samples are great for fastpaced electro style percussion if you pitch them up an octave or two and filter them. A technique i've used for years is having a few of these hits in your groove and then using delays on them to give the tune that fastpaced drive i love.
As far as atmospherics goes i usually just go crazy with plugins, heavy reverb and delay is usually there but other than that there are no rules. I'll use a chain of 12 plugins or more if i have to, to get the sound interresting. Once you've got a nice chain setup, its a good idea to try and run a few different sounds through it. I've discovered a lot of great sounds that way, especially because very simple sources (i use a lot synth noise for example) will sound completely different. It's also important to not just resample single tones. You can make some nice pads out of arpeggio synth patterns with loads of fx and reverb on them, good for cloudy, synthchoir type pads. After that i'll usually resample the sound and bring it into a sampler. One of the first things i do after that is check to see if i can get the sound to work in a melodic context (lead, background riff etc), i was never a fan of a the intros that sound like they're just some random sample cd atmospherics triggered here and there, so i spend a lot of time trying to get my atmospheric sounds to work with the tune and the groove. I use a lot of delay and temposynced lfo movements specifically for that purpose. Its important to think frequencies and see if you cant find a way of getting them to move without clashing so you get the clean funk ;)
As i said above i've been working on the musical aspect of my tunes and i learned so much from listening to solos of all kinds. Acoustic/manual musicians have a big array of techniques at their hands like vibrato on a guitar, the way the bow is handled on string instruments etc. The funk slap bass is another good example. It seems to me that a lot of producers forget that we have the same type of tools at our fingertips. Anything you can do to create some feeling and dynamics in your riff is worth trying out. For example, I use velocity to control different parameters in the sampler like volume attack, i find it much easier to get funk into a riff if you have more than just stiff notes to work with.
There's a few producers in the scene that use the term 'not letting your setup control you'. I see that as great advice because i relate it to not letting the limits of simple software stop you. This is why it can really pay off learning some of the bigger plugins like absynth, reaktor, albino, nitro, kontakt etc really well. A lot of people just learn how to do the things they think they need but there are some very powerful tools hidden away in those things. This also applies to when you're stuck. Do something drastic so you can get things moving instead of just tweaking the same plugins.
U have tons of releases on different imprints, what are the nearest forthcoming ones?
I have the speed of thought ep coming out soon on flatline. Then I've got another single coming up on nerve which is gonna be Time is broken b/w resolve (me & mundane). This year should see some more releases by me on elp collective inc 'faded', 'hope to understand' and 'available technology' with phono. There's talk of me rmx'ing some techno tunes as well which i really look forward to. What producers are of current importance nowadays in your point of view & who will become in the next year? Right now the offkey camp is a much needed initiative in dnb in my opinion. Raiden is doing a great job and he's gathered some incredibly talented producers around him. Prode and the sect especially are really shaking things up and temper d has a new unique style of his own too. I think the new breed of tearout producers are looking very interresting as well. I've been playing a lot of SPL lately and i'm very excited about the new limewax LP. Klute is also a long time favourite mine and his label is one of the best in dnb today i think.I love how hard phace and noisia are pushing the technical side of things and the DNAudio camp completely deserves all their success as well. They are the kings of rollers today. New producers: I'd like to see dstruct do well in 07, tenebra out of russia are sounding fresh, Amex & Kaiza from germany with the german techno movement, jesta out of london and loads more. Again i really like how amit has completely changed the format of dnb and i hope more people take up his example. There are loads of good producers out there today, i think 07 is looking really good :). Short inquiry: - fav beer
partial to ales lately.
- best party in wich took part
its hard to pick one but i had a lot of fun when i played in iceland, but big parties like the roskilde festival are good as well.
- best place to visit
depends on my mood really, right now i'm dying to go snowboarding somewhere.
- fav book & movie
another thing that changes often but right now its probably ghost in the shell, both the movie and the first book, i learnt a lot from this story.
- fav non-dnb artist
dj surgeon or method man probably.
Few words for the russian drumand bass community Just wanna say that it's always a pleasure visiting the russian scene, its big and vibrant and the crowds are lively and headstrong. Keep it that way! I'll hopefully be back soon to rock out with you. Keep an open mind for 07, some very interresting things are coming ;) Questions by FlameTenebra special for drumandbass.ru (c) 2007 |
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