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Hello everyone welcome to another Dubspot Live Stream. I will be your host and moderator
Chris Petti, and today we have a very, very special Live Stream for you. I would like
to thank everybody for coming, and all of those out there who are tuned in to watch
us right now. With us today is legend, DJ Sasha.
Welcome. It's really quite an honor and a pleasure to have you here, I want to thank
you for coming down. It's good to be here.
Your engineer Josh is here with you as well.. the idea here today is that you have a new
album coming out . It's coming out in a few weeks yes.
So basically we're going to take a little bit of a look at what went into the album.
I know personally I have a lot of questions that I'm going be grilling Sasha with, don't
worry they're easy questions, if they get too difficult we have a secret cue where I'll
back off all of this. So my first question is- how did you get involved
in electronic music? Because at this point in time you know, it's a lot more accessible
with computers, everybody has a laptop, everybody has a computer for the Internet, so I'm just
curious how you got into this. Yeah it was definitely a little different
when I started (laughs). I started DJing a long time ago (laughs). When I started to gather momentum
with my career and I got a big residency in the North of England in Stoke, all the A&R's
in London used to come up North- it really was the days when DJ's would break records,
every Friday the records that you would drop on Friday night- on Monday morning the A&R's were trying to
sign them. We were playing white labels... Dubplates mostly.
Dubplates and white labels. The London A&R guys would come up specifically to hear what
records were breaking in the clubs, you know, it was a completely different process to what
it is now. And off the back of that they started offering me remix jobs, so I would go down to London
and they'd book me in a studio. I didn't know how to play anything, I didn't know how to
work anything in the studio, and everything at that time was going down to tape, there
were computers, but they were very basic computers and everything would go down to tape.
But a lot of the time I would literally just be playing sounds off records and trying to get my program to get a sound similar to it (laughs)
and kind of copy it. And that's how it started; it was quite a nice way to make records actually.
And I stuck with that for quite a while, because we just got results. We made records so fast,
I had a team and it just really worked. It did get to the point where electronic music
production went up a notch. Around 93-94, when I just wasn't getting the sound that
I wanted with this method. And that's when I realized that I had to teach myself how
to program music. So I went out and bought a load of equipment, way too much, and probably
didn't make a record for 18 months (laughs). I'm curious what exactly were you using at
that point in time? Oh I just went out and bought way too much
equipment that I didn't know how to use. I bought all these different synths and effects
processors, I was reading Sound on Sound magazine every week thinking- I need to buy that and
I've gotto buy that. And I just filled the room with stuff that I didn't know how to
use. It wasn't actually until I decided to take
my MPC and one synth on holiday with me for a month, and I sat down and learnt
them inside out. And when I came back to the studio I said "Oh I know how to use
that now." I overwhelm myself with technology really, I had no technology background, I'd literally
come from a gig, play and program a sound, there were a few synths that I knew what the
buttons did on them, but that wasn't really what I was in the room for.
So it made more sense when you broke it down to one or two pieces of gear?
It really did you know, once I learnt how the MPC worked as a sampler, then the other
equipment in the room started to make sense. Also there is another synth, the JD-800, I
got an understanding of that machine, and then all the others made sense to me
The JD-800 was actually quite a bit of fun it was a big Roland keyboard that came out
in the 1990's but it had every parameter on a slider on the front panel, and it was really
an amazing tool to learn how to program your sound from.
Yeah I've still got mine and I love that, I mean that was the sound of Airdrawndagger,
and I bought a Waldorf Wave, between those two synths, that was the sound of Airdrawndagger.
So what were you using as far as software sequencers at that point in time? There were
only a couple that were out. I think it was Cubase; it looked like a grey
kind of Tetris thing. It was so basic; it was very hard to get it in time with the midi
stuff. But I don't know, that kind of out of time, sloppiness, it was a sound that a
lot of people have gone back to try to recreate, with the delay compensation and stuff like that.
We were constantly trying to get it in time (laughs), but actually the sloppiness
of it, is it's beauty. I think it's the imperfection sometimes is really
what the charm to it at the end of the day. So you don't have a traditional music background with this that comes from
the DJing side of things? No I learnt to play the piano when I was a
kid, I did my grades and I got up to grade 6, I did a lot of classical training. Then
I discovered other music, I kind of gave the piano up and it was about 2 or 3 years later
when I went into the studio and I thought- well I know how to work that. I'm not a great
player, but actually on this last record I did most of the playing because I sat down
and actually forced myself into it, and I actually really enjoyed playing a lot of stuff on the album,
it's performance stuff, stuff that I've jammed.
That was going to be my question, do you still play?
Yeah I really got back into it on this record. On the previous two records I've was working
with Charlie May and he's amazing, when he's in the room in front of the keyboard I'm not
going to push him out of the way because he's so amazing (laughs)
But because he wasn't around for this record,
and I was doing it on my own, there was no one else and actually it was quite liberating,
once I actually got into it, a lot of stuff come back to me that I had learnt, and once
I started to get confidence- a lot of the sequences and the musical progressions in
this album come from jamming, we jammed a lot of this stuff, recorded long passes and
then took out the best bits. Very cool. So, Cubase is what you started
using, you've actually been using Ableton Live for quite a bit of time now.
Yeah I think we started with Ableton 4 was the first time we got a hold of it, and then
we've kind of followed it's progress. Yeah we do most of- I do most of my stuff in Ableton,
we mix some stuff down in Logic sometimes, we do that Rewire thing sometimes, because
it kind of sounds better, on certain tracks it seems to sound better, on other tracks
you lose something. It's a case-by-case basis.
It kind of is yeah.
So, you have the mix of the album here.
Yeah I have the sequence of the album here with all the separate tracks on it. The main
sessions that we used to mixdown the album got quite complicated and probably wouldn't
run on the laptop, so I hadn't bother to bring those with me.
So you had a very interesting approach to this, that I'm not going to spoil the surprise
of explaining it, I'll let you use it in your own words as far as the concept of what you
went to put together here with this album. Well it's the third in this series, the Involver
series. When I got originally signed to Involver I was just signed to do a normal mix compilation,
and at the time the market was so flooded with mix compilations. I sat down and I started
putting this mix together and I was just like- you know, all my previous mix albums had kind
of set, had kind of moved the bar in a kind of direction you know it kind of pushed something
forward, I just felt like it wasn't doing enough really. So I sort of came up with the
idea of getting all the parts and then kind of doing re-edits. And then once I've got
all the parts, I end up kind of remixing everything, so we pretty much remixed and re edited every
track on the album and then put it back together. So this is the 3rd in the series and this
is probably the one that's taken the longest actually. We got very close to finishing it
before the summer, and we just didn't quite get there. I felt there were too many filler
tracks on there, there are actually a couple of tracks that we really wanted that we had
licensing problems with, and there were a couple of mixes that just weren't quite right.
The Flutes mix that we did before the summer wouldn't have been a Beatport #1 record (Laughs).
Once we took it down to Ibiza and mixed it down in Ibiza, it came back this monster record
and I'm really glad that we did that. And I knew that the Involver record wouldn't be
finished until the end of the year, so I was like so you know what, we should just put
this out over the summer, this and the Thermal Bare record You Love, I thought- let's put
these two records out over the summer just to keep people happy so they don't think I've
completely lost my mind in the studio and disappeared (Laughs). And then I think the
success of the Flutes record getting to number 1 on Beatport, it was quite shocking but fantastic
and that really helped with the licensing stuff- when we went back to the album in October
it really helped with the licensing stuff, people were just like yes straight away, there
were no problems. But yeah, we got very close with it but it just wasn't the same record.
But you know there's what, 12 tracks on the album, but we've probably recorded what, 40?
30? 35? 40, 50.
Trimmed away the excess that'll be an additional release, or B-Sides, and lost tracks....
Yeah well there's so much stuff, there's so much stuff that's going to be released this
year we're going to feed out. There were some great mixes that didn't make it on there,
they didn't quite fit the record at the end. Yeah it was a long process; I'm very proud
of it now that it's done. Well, could we listen to a little bit of it perhaps?
Sure, yes. What should I play?
You are the DJ. (Laughter)
I'll play... let me play Battleships. (Plays Track)
This is one of the tracks that we actually did- this is one of the tracks that we did
earlier on in the year. I think one of the big problems with the record as well, as well
as kind of licensing problems, was that we ended up moving studios 4 times? And each
time we moved, and we'd mix a couple of tracks down we'd think- oh we need to get the other
tracks to sound like this. We went back and remixed tracks that really didn't need to
be remixed. And that's kind of one of the parts of the process that I wanted to talk
to you guys about- sometimes it's very important to walk away from something and not keep going
back to it. It's very easy with computer programs to always go back and think- oh I can do this
better. And it is an important part of the process, and I was playing- we were working
on mixes, we were working on mixes, and then I'd take them out at the weekend, I'd play
them out and I would be like- ok vocals too quiet in that section, the bass there... That
part of the process was very, very important. But at certain points you need to let go of
stuff, and that's one thing I didn't do on this record. When we were mixing the record
down finally in London, and we went back and remixed everything, and it was kind of unnecessary
actually. We probably wasted a month of remixing tracks that didn't need to be remixed, but,
it is what it is. Once we were in that studio in London we felt like we had to do that.
I kind of wish I'd had someone next to me going- that's finished you're cut off,
you know? When does it actually get finished?
Right. You could endlessly tweak this.
You can, you can, and this record definitely went on and on a bit, there were times when
I thought I was losing my mind . I'd go back and listen to mixes we'd done a month before
and go like- oh this one's better than one! Yeah, my head started to cave in.
Yeah, this was a mix, the very first mix, that we did of it is probably- yeah it was really, really
good. But there was one thing wrong with it, and I keep on going back in to fix it.
Yeah, I mean we must've done 7 or 8 versions of this and the first one was always the best one (laughs).
The final version turned out fantastic though, but it took a while to get there.
(Plays Track)
Yeah, this is the one of the tracks as well
that I've had the biggest response I've had playing out, I've probably been playing it the longest.
(Plays Track)
This was the first track, we got the Moog, I bought a beaten up Moog Taurus bass pedal off
Ebay, and it didn't work, it's one of those ones where you play the pedals with your feet,
and then there's the top unit's about that big and sits on a pole. The pedals were all
busted up, and we couldn't get sound out of the actual bass pedal. We sent it off and
got it fixed up, and it probably ended up costing me about $700, but it was the best
$700 I've even spent, cos the bass out of that thing is ridiculous. They've made a new
Moog Taurus, which is fantastic I've got one, but it doesn't sound like the old one. The
old one has just got this depth and dirt to it that is amazing.
Yeah, well, at least you have the original. Yeah. I wouldn't take a Moog Taurus on the
road with me, whereas in the new one, that's a fun toy to play with. And this one as well
we spent a lot of time programming beats on (Native Instruments) Maschine- and
this is, all the beats came off Maschine with this so we had a lot of fun with that.
We started, all the beats at the beginning of the album came off Maschine, but then once
we started working with Grayson in Ibiza, he's really amazing at programming drums inside
the Ableton drum player- Drum Rack?
Yeah, Drum Rack sorry. He really took over the programming of the drums sort of later
on in the album. Well this actually leads to another question
that I'm going to be selfish and I'm going to ask you myself. You know, you started with
a bunch of hardware with all of this because that's what existed back at that point in
time when you got into it, myself I started with hardware as well too. But now everything
is living inside the box. There's so many options, and so many different choices to
choose from, from software instruments and all of this, but you know when we were talking
a little bit before all of this, I actually was really kind of surprised to hear a lot
of the gear you're using to do all of this, namely the outboard modular stuff.
Yeah we really got into that with this record. There were some people that I stopped working
with who had set my room up- Baz who engineered- who's engineered for me for 7 years, he did
the first 2 Involvers. He kind of went off to his own thing. And I went back into my
studio and I realized I just didn't know how it worked properly, because I'd always been
kind of sat behind him and he'd been kind of controlling everything and he'd set the
room up exactly how he'd wanted it. And I just, I spent about a month in there
trying to get it to work and I couldn't get my head around it, and I also decided that
I just, I didn't want to just sit there programming music on the computer. I'd actually got some
really old beautiful synths, I'd gotten an ARP 2600 but it was literally sitting there
collecting dust and it hadn't been really touched for a couple of years. I sort of looked
at that thing one day and I'm like- what am I doing not using this, this should be the
center of my studio. I would agree with you 100%.
Yeah well it ended up being central, one of the central sounds on this, that and the Moog
Taurus bass pedal were probably the two synths we used the most on this record. And all the
sequences we did on those two synths really kind of shone through on this record.
Yeah I mean this again was another one of my questions for both of you guys too,
as far as how you use the modular synths- because they don't quite integrate as cleanly
with the computer as the software synthesizer does- obviously it's outside the box and everything-
I think they do. It's getting better.
It's getting better. I think they do though I mean, we got it working
properly, and then we got it working to the point where we were writing sequences on an
iPad and getting it to fire off in time with the track- so much fun.
That's what I found, the part of it that I found really interesting, because there's
different ways, there's different approaches you can do to the modular synthesizers, I
feel like more often than not I hear people just using it just as a sound source and recording
the audio down and putting it into a sampler inside of a computer, but you guys are sequencing.
No we managed to, Josh (Engineer) was really- We would have CV (Control Voltage) running live,
he'd play a part with CV into the wall and then he'd sit and tweak knobs for a 15 minute
pass and be like- there's the song- Can you hold that mic?
I'm sorry. We can't hear what you're saying. Well, we can hear what you're saying but everybody
else out there can't. Sasha would play, he'd play out a midi part,
and we'd send that out with software now you can actually send CV to all your analogue stuff.
Yeah there were a couple of really important-
The Silent Way- Yeah the Silent Way- the Expert Sleepers thing-
The MOTU Volta- The MOTU Volta's amazing.
You can actually send everything out and just be like- here's a 15 minute pass and he'd
sit and tweak and you could have like- ok there's the record, and it kind of like built
itself. Yeah the arrangements on a few of the tracks
literally built themselves from the way that we'd tweak... You know we'd get like a 10
minute loop going of the track and I'd tweak out the synths, the ARP or the Moog Taurus,
and that kind of pass would end up deciding the arrangement of the record. It was kind
of cool to work like that- Yeah it was awesome-
It was very much back- Right it's like old school.
Back to the old way we used to make records- Who would have thought CV would be back?
In 2012. It's back massively.
Yeah. Yeah there's just such an underground kind
of movement of that, what's the name of the movie?
I Dream of Wires right? Yeah. There's a lot of people obsessed with it, and we definitely
got obsessed with it. Yeah it's definitely a rabbit hole. It'd be
like a day of- we'd take parts that we've already done and be like- let's run all of that through
this wall of modular stuff we have, and you'd sit there and be like- now what do we do?
You have too much you know, which is awesome, so many options, just sounds, there's just
something 3 dimensional about it. There's a lot of sounds left over from this,
I think we might plan to do another sound lab thing with all this leftover sounds from
Involver because there was just so much left on the cutting room floor afterwards.
Yeah I know this was the biggest surprise to me that you guys were using a bunch of
modular synths to do this. So typically to put one of these tunes together, how many
pieces of hardware are you running simultaneously? It kind of depended on the day really. The
ARP and the MOOG Taurus would seem to be the two things that we would go to. But I've
got an OSCar which we tried to fit on so many records and I don't even know if-
It had a mind of it's own. It just had a mind of it's own.
And you'd turn it on and you'd be like- oh that's awesome! And 5 seconds later it would
glitch out, like, the sound's gone forever. Yeah I mean for me that is the single biggest
defining difference between what you see in the software and what you see in the hardware,
that the hardware's got a little bit of a degree of unpredictability with it but the
unpredictability is what's exciting about it.
Yeah that's the beauty about it, yeah it is, because once you've captured something...
There were a couple of times where we tried to go back to recreate one of the sounds,
to redo something- (Laughs) You couldn't do it.
You could never get it to sound the same, and that's kind of the beauty of it. The thing
with soft synths is it's so easy if you're not getting what you want out of it, to just
open that preset menu up and flick on something else and then start again. Whereas I think
when you're sat in front of a piece of hardware, you really have to sculpt the sound and work
at it, and then when you get it, you've got to record it as soon as you can.
Yeah I mean I think there's something a little bit more magical about the hardware because
you don't always know what it's going to do, and when it does those little unpredictable
types of things... Yeah that stuff does go out of tune and you
know, it's fun, it's so much more fun to use. So I guess the bottom line is just to always
keep it recording? We just record everything.
You know the other thing we did a lot actually was, the Virus, I did a lot of the writing
sat in front of the Virus, the Access Virus, the Polar one, I love that machine because it literally
does everything. And a lot of the sequences I'd write on there, then we would transfer
over into the kind of modular rig. But the one thing we did a lot actually was we'd get
a sequence running and I'd start flicking through presets and we'd just have it recording
the whole time and sometimes the glitches between presets ended up being the sound.
Little parts that we would actually use. Sure.
Yeah just always record. Yeah it's cool too with Sasha, I mean for
me, to be sitting there and he has a DJ background you'd be like, again a huge pass with the
ARP, and he rides a filter differently than- there's something about where he's just like-
alright that's a record, it's ready to, like done, here we go.
He knows. Yeah and that's cool, I mean it was pretty
much like, the record was performed live- A lot of it was, yeah.
In the studio, which was actually really cool. A lot of the magic moments on the record were
captured in those performances and I think that's very important to have some element
of that in electronic music, it kind of humanizes it and makes it feel real.
Yeah I mean it's a bit more organic, it's not as precise, it's got those nice little
imperfections with it- I guess it's whatever kind of music you wanna
make, if you're making linear techno music and you want it to sound like a machine then.....
You know there's always a way to find a performance in it, whether it's the way you mix it down,
whether you're playing something or the way you're tweaking a synth out; I think that
performance element is really, really important. So when everything happened, you know I call
it the software revolution, at least in the music industry when everything went completely
virtual in the computer, did you stop using the hardware and kind of see what you could
do inside the box? Yeah, yeah. The first two Involvers were-
the first Involver was totally done in Logic and Ableton-
With all the instruments inside? Yeah. We did have an analogue room set up,
and we did a lot of sound design with it but a lot of, I mean most of the programming was
done within the computer. The second one we started to buy, we did a lot of guitar pedals
on the second album actually, we bought loads of guitar pedals
Processing synthesizers? Yeah rather than using the computer to do
the processing, we would plug in the guitar pedals and getting great little moments like
that, just some cheap little pedals you can get some great sounds out of it, really interesting
stuff. And then with the 3rd album we went full analogue really. Everything's getting
mixed in Ableton but we're almost using it as a glorified tape machine, we're trying
to do as much stuff live and outside of the box as possible really.
That all right there is the ARP- Yeah it's the ARP.
With CV madness running to it. Very cool.
And this is the Ultra Easter Mix, a Smalltalk mix that we've done, which is probably one of
the biggest tracks off the album. It's interesting how the technology cycles,
all of a sudden one minute it's all in one place, then people start to kind of get the
bored of everything living in one place, I mean I'm definitely seeing others returning
to this hardware kind of thing, in combination with the actual computer, again using it as
a glorified tape machine device. Well I know if you want to start collecting
vintage analogue pieces of equipment, you need a big bank account, but what's amazing
that's happening at the moment is all these companies are coming out with these fantastic
little boxes- I mean the Moog Taurus, Korg is putting out a little $600-
The little MS-20 yeah. I mean the MS-20's online are 2-3 grand now
for a good one, and they're coming out with one that's 500 bucks, and it really is a clone
of the old one, I'm sure it won't sound exactly the same, but it'll be more reliable probably.
And Arturia are coming out with the Minibrute that's got all the CV stuff in it, everyone's
really kind of- it's a bit of a studio revolution I think, and it's really fun to combine it as well.
There's bits of software that we absolutely relied on, especially for processing
like the Fab Filter stuff, and the Eventide H300 and the (Eventide) Blackhole, that was
an important, they were important. The Eventide you were using as a harmonizer?
The H300 plug in we were using for a lot of sound effects-
Interesting. And Kore, Native Instruments have stopped
making this Kore thing but it was- it's a secret weapon (laughs). It's an amazing piece
of kit because it just, it organizes all your Native Instruments sounds, but at the same
time there's an effects side to it. So a lot of the vocal processing we did came from Josh
tweaking out Kore, I love that. I love that box.
So, you've been at this for a while, and the question that I have for you is how do you
keep things exciting still, with all this? I mean is it a new piece of gear that you
get that inspires you, what keeps it all fresh? I think constantly pushing yourself. And not
kind of just going around in circles. I'm having so much fun at the moment DJing,
I think working on this music and having a lot of exclusive music that was my own to
play out for the last year has been really, really exciting. Because it gets so hard to
find exclusive music, once it's up on Beatport everyone has it and it's hard to find exclusive
music unless you make it yourself, or you know a producer very, very well and he's prepared
to give you a track for a while before it gets released or you have a record label.
And I've got the record label going at the moment, Last Night on Earth, it's grown really
beautifully over the last 18 months. It's really kind of evolved into- it's evolving
into something really, really nice. But again I've got all this exclusive music for the
label that I get to play for 3 or 4 months before it comes out. And then having all this
Involver stuff to play out, it's made my DJ sets really kind of, I don't know, it's felt
really good on the road. And that's very important. Let's shift gears for one quick moment.
What are you using these days as far as performing out live these days? I've seen you play on
vinyl over the years- It's been a while since I've played a set
on vinyl (Laughs)- Not to date myself, or him (Laughs). But I
remember a lot of the sets very distinctly, and everything that you've played over the
years, when you played at Twilo here. Right.
At this moment in time, have you used Ableton Live as a performance tool?
I have done, but it just got to, in the end I'd kind of had enough of the problems that it had.
Because I started DJing with it when it was Ableton 5 and it was quite a basic
program, and they just made it much more and more tailored to producers and it became a lot
harder to use it as a DJ. And Traktor came along, and they've really kind of taken
the concept of Ableton but stuck a DJ interface on the front of it. But I tried just using
Traktor for a while, and the button pushing thing, I don't know I just wasn't feeling it.
And now they've come out with this HID mode where you basically use the CDJ's to
control Traktor and that's the perfect solution for me, so that's what I'm using at the moment
and I absolutely love it. Interesting.
Because it just feels like- I don't even have to grid tunes or put starter points in I just-
you put a brand new track in. That was the other thing about Traktor and Ableton that
used to drive me mad is the preparation. I'd get sent tracks, and having to get everything
gridded up, it just drove me a little mental. With HID mode you can literally play a brand
new track and drop it in; I really like that. Very cool. So, what kind of advice would you
give to somebody starting out today, that wanted to get into this. I mean, it's a lot
more accessible at this point in time, there's software programs that pretty much come with
the computer at this point in time. So if you wanted to look at what the studio looks
like, you have a virtual version of the whole thing. Software synthesizers- a couple of
hundred dollars and you have an entire studio. Yeah, it's a crowded market (Laughs).
That's exactly what I was going to say, that the whole thing is much more condensed, much
more saturated then it ever had been. Much more competitive as well.
I think you have to have a clear idea of what it is you want to do. That might mean messing
around with a few different genres or styles before you actually find something that you
really feel comfortable with. And then I think it's consistency, putting things out on a
regular basis or playing consistent DJ sets, whether it's doing a DJ residency or putting
stuff online consistently. Right now, I think using social media as much as you can; I mean
people have built up Twitter followings very quickly off making a huge record and suddenly
they're getting booked for crazy money. But there are different ways to approach it. It
depends what kind of music you want to get into what kind of genre you want to follow.
There are quicker ways, making big hit records is the quickest way, and then there are ways
of kind of just building your name up- that's definitely the harder way (Laughs).
Interesting. So about the DJ stuff you were talking about
before, I wanted to get into that a little bit more, maybe about how things are connected.
So Sasha you were talking about HID mode, just for those of you who don't-
We're actually going to have to pass the microphone to you before somebody yells at me about not
being able to hear anything online. Gonna geek out a little more on the DJ stuff.
So for those of you that don't know, HID mode- I'm Endo by the way, I teach here at Dubspot.
So HID mode is a new way to connect the CDJ's to Traktor. So basically, before we used
to have timecode CD's that would basically control the music, the decks, in Traktor.
But now you actually connect the CDJ's to Traktor in a different way. So do you want to
maybe explain really quickly how you connect the CD players and the mixer to the computer
and how that works? As a soundcard? Well I've been using the Pioneer mixer simply
because the set up is so easy. You take one USB cable out and into the top of the mixer
and that's your soundcard sorted out for 4 decks.
It's automatically routed output- Yep, and then with a USB hub I'll connect
as many players- if it's two players I can go straight into the laptop, because I've
got 3 ports, or if I want 4 players or if I want to have- maybe use the Traktor X1 controller
then you'll need a little USB hub. But yeah you can make quite a complicated set up, you
can have as many decks as you want with a USB hub to be honest. But yeah it automatically
maps all the buttons on the CDJ to Traktor so everything has a function and it works
just like a CDJ does and you can customize those as well. You can use buttons to jump
forwards 16 bars in a track, or backwards and loop things. It's a really fun, hands
on way to use the computer; I think Traktor have nailed it. There's still a couple of
glitches with it that they can iron out. And also the other thing about it which I love,
is that all the information of the track comes up on the CDJ players, so you don't have to
look at the computer at all really. I set my computer off to the side; I hardly look
at it during my sets. That's kind of important as well.
Do you make a lot of playlists so you can view your playlists on there?
Yeah, of course, Traktor syncs with iTunes, and I do all my playlists in iTunes, then
it also saves all your setlists as well, so I'm always referring to sets I've played over
the last few months. It's a really beautifully integrated way actually.
So as far as it works, it's basically like a midi controller almost.
Yeah it's turned the CDJ into a midi controller basically, yeah. And it's sharp, it works
really nicely. Instant response. Me and Sasha worked together
a lot on his DJ set up- do you want to maybe talk about some of the things we changed,
some of the buttons we've changed? What have we changed....?
Like the Beatjumping- The Beatjumping yeah. Like I was saying, being
able to jump forward 8 or 16 bars at a time- I use that a lot. Especially if you're playing
a brand new record, to be able to just quickly jump to the middle of a track and remember- oh
that's that thing with the vocal in it, and then go back to the beginning. What else did
we change? And then we changed the Tempo Fader so it's
Relative vs Absolute. Right. Because that felt a lot more natural
to me. Yeah a little, because that keeps it the same.
So another thing you use a lot in your set up is the RMX 1000.
Yeah, probably a bit too much sometimes (Laughs). So what are some of your favorite effects,
and the ways you use it. I don't know it's like, each different gig
I try and focus on the- I mean I love the echoes and the delays and stuff like that,
they get used a lot. But the reverbs and the kind of swishes, I don't use those so much.
But if you're playing at a festival and you've got a really short set and you've got to make
it dramatic as hell, using those sometimes can really, really help. If you're doing a
long set in a club, you don't necessarily need some of those. And you try and be a lot
more subtle with it- and you can be subtle with it, but you can also be very obvious
with it. I think if you're playing at a festival where everyone is banging it and you've got
a short amount of time to play- having some of those effects that are quite in your face
can really, really help you. Make it more dramatic-
More dramatic, yeah, and have more of an impact. Kind of creating your own breakdowns, and
build ups. Especially using that Beatjump thing you can edit tracks down. You might
want to play a track, but if it's 10 minutes long and you're in the festival where everyone's
dropping things quickly- to be able to edit that stuff on the fly using the Beatjump thing
and using some effects, is a really nice way to cut a 10 minute track down to like a
4 1/2 minute, 5 minute track. And make a live edit.
Yeah and like, get into the next thing straight away.
It's like a 32 beat jump, so it's 8 bars- Right.
A lot of dance music is made in 8 bars, so you can really do live-
Is it? (Laughs). Re edits on the fly.
Yeah and having the effects you can make sure it doesn't sound like you've- if you jump
in to the middle of a track, it doesn't sound like you've made an edit, it just sounds like
a natural thing. So just wanted to switch and break things
up for a moment, I think we'll take a couple of questions from the audience, just to kind
of move things along, I know many of you that have come here probably have a lot of questions
for Sasha, and just so nobody feels like they're slighted in any way that we didn't leave enough
time at the end, we're going kind of intertwine this as we're going along. In the back you
have a question? And the way we're going to do this is I'm going to repeat the question
so that our viewing audience out in cyberspace understands what the question is. Because
they try and reverse-engineer it, and hear the answer and try to figure out what the
question was, could be a little bit more difficult.
Your question. Hey Sasha what's going on? A huge fan of the Involver series, great stuff. Communicate,
Northern Exposure and everything, really cool. So, in the Northern Exposure stuff, it seemed
like you were doing a lot of the time warping and cutting up tracks, similar to something
that's very easily done today. Right.
How were you doing that back then? It was a lot more difficult (Laughs).
Ok so the question is: In the original Involver- Northern Exposure.
Northern Exposure I'm sorry, Northern Exposure. You were doing a lot of time- you were doing
a lot of warping, and alot of configuring audio to fit the timeline, and you were using
older tools than what's available in this point in time-
We were just using Logic at the time. And there were two key things really, there was
the Pitch n' Time plug in in Logic that helped us kind of-
Serato Pitch & Time? Yeah Serato Pitch n' Time, it's before they
came out with Serato, the DJ thing. Right.
That was their first product I think. And using that to help us, yeah, because there's
tracks on there that aren't in the same key. And I know at the time it really confused
people, I had people go "I tried to mix those two records at home- they don't work." But
yeah, we did that to make these mixes fit perfectly, it's basically what Ableton does now.
And then we also did a lot of sound design with a program called MetaSynth.
Ah yeah, Metasynth. I love that program, and we still use it.
We still used it on the record for a couple of things.
Yeah if you've seen the Izotope Iris plug in, basically it's a synthesizer that you
can import images into, and what it will do is based on a color scheme it'll create different
harmonics and frequencies to allow you to- But it's main thing was the granular stretching
that it would do. We would do stuff- I think the first time I used it really properly was
on Ray of Light, Madonna Ray of Light- no I guess it would have been the Northern Exposure
thing. Yeah and we used it on the Madonna Ray of Light record as well. Taking her vocal,
and taking a 3 minute vocal and stretching it to 20 minutes, and turning it into this kind
of Brian Eno soundscape which is just- it's an amazing.... We had so much fun, and
we still go to it now, because it hasn't been updated in 10 years I don't think.
So I guess you're a collector of vintage computers as well? (Laughs).
Yeah we had to find and old laptop to run it on as well (laughs). I think it runs on
the new one- It does, just not well.
No there's a lot of stuff that didn't make it over from OS9-
You know, I wish that I'd kept my OS9 system, because there were some things on that system
that I really did miss. There were some really good- the way that you could hard edit audio
in Logic was something that you can't really do on anything now. And it was such a really
nice way to- you could hard edit in the Edit window in Logic, and then process little sections
of it- it's what BT used to do endlessly to get that kind of- before the glitch plug ins
came out, that's kind of how he used to get that sound, processing certain hits. It was
a really fun way to work. I think he actually went out a few years ago and actually bought
an OS9 system and recreated it. So he's still got that system, because he missed it as
well. I wish I'd kept mine, I just automatically upgraded. There were a lot of great plug ins
that were lost in that transition. They just a sound to them you know?
Yeah, well, you know they say technology moves forward but, I think after the vintage synths
it's going to be vintage computers. You have another question? Wow.
You were talking a little bit about Harmonic Mixing.
Right. Can you talk a little bit about maybe your
history with Harmonic Mixing and how you utilize it in your DJ sets?
Ok, so- forgot the mic again- so the question for everybody out there is about Harmonic
Mixing and how Sasha uses Harmonic Mixing in his sets.
I didn't ever really call it that, I just think that because I learnt the piano when
I was young I had a musical ear. Everytime I tried to mix records-
You know what sounds right and what doesn't. Well yeah I just always tried to do that.
I think the guy that wrote Mixed in Key kind of based it on listening to my DJ sets (laughs).
I just always felt- that sounds right. Sure.
But it's not the case with every single DJ, one of the great things about working with
John Digweed back in the day was that he used to mix records that I never would think of
mixing together. And there would be this clash to the mix, but it would be- it would work.
Because he would keep them so tight. And I think that was the reason why our sets used
to work so well together, was because I would kind of do that harmonic thing, and then John
would kind of put this disharmonic thing in, but it would work. It was a nice- and I would
think, I wouldn't have thought of mixing those two records together.
Kind of like a tension/release kind of thing. In more traditional music terms.
Right. We have some questions from the internet as well.
So from our viewers online, there are a few
questions about controllers, wondering if Sasha's still bringing the Maven on tour?
And if he's tried Push? Ok, I'm going to repeat this because you don't
have the microphone. So basically, what we're talking about is we're talking about different
midi controllers, and basically the question for Sasha is about the Maven, and also the
new Ableton Push. I haven't actually played with Push yet, it
looks like a lot of fun though. I think it just came about as we were finishing the record,
and we were kind of past the writing stage, so it wasn't something we needed at the time.
But I'm definitely- I'm just in a little kind of month and a half/two break from writing
music at the moment, I'll be getting back into it soon, and it will probably be one
of the first things I grab hold of. The Maven is sat in the studio collecting dust (laughs).
What is it? It's a midi controller that I built for Ableton
that had a soundcard built into it, and it was literally a Firewire cable- it was one
Firewire cable to the midi controller, then it had audio outs to the mixer. And it was
very beautifully built, expensively built (laughs), beautifully designed midi controller
that weighed a ton. I wanted it to. I was like- if I'm going to replace the decks with
the computer I want something that feels like a tank. So we built it out of metal and aluminum,
and a friend of mine worked for Soundcraft in London and built front of house desks.
So he had all the parts, and he helped me design it and build it and he did most of
the work in the end. It was a fun thing to use, but it started breaking down, and just
the touring, I think just touring with something that heavy. It's weight itself is it's problem.
You survived the road and it did not. Yeah, it didn't survive really. I spent two
years with a company almost developing it. We actually came out with a production version,
we were ready to go and they got cold feet. And it was just- it was around about the time
the (Akai) APC 40 came out. Yeah they decided not to do it, and then about 6 months later
they looked at the sales of the APC 40 and they realized they'd made a big mistake.
But by that time I think I'd moved on; I'd spent two years designing, working with these
people to get it out onto the market, and by that time I was kind of done with it. And I'd moved
back to CDJ's and I was like- I'm not even using Ableton anymore so it's not relevant.
Well not on the road. Actually I'm going to jump in here and ask
one more question too. So you're using a lot of outboard hardware to get the sounds, and
you're also sequencing it as well. There are elements inside the interface that I'm sure
you're controlling, do you use a specific set of midi controllers to do this? Or is
this all done through a mouse? Yeah there's a couple that I really like.
What do you like? I like the APC 40, I like the little APC as
well- The 20?
Yeah the 20, that's really good. My APC 40 broke down at one point, so we actually used
the APC 20 a lot. And then for controlling plug-ins we used the Novation- what's it called,
the Remote- The Zero SL, yeah. Kind of like the brain
of it without the keyboard. Right exactly. And that's great with controlling
plug ins. And we really- that was one thing actually, working with Grayson, he taught
me something- when you start to map a plug in, an effects plug in, or a synth plug in
into a piece of hardware like that, it suddenly starts to also feel like a piece
of hardware. And it suddenly becomes- and again it's about writing performances for
the effects as well as the, as well as the synths.
I had heard some amazing advice- or a statement, whatever you want to call it- years ago, that
making music with a mouse isn't making music. It's just-
It's a different thing. Yeah it's a different thing. Well a lot of
these pieces of hardware weren't on the market a few years back. The fact that there are
so many little, even just small little gadgets that you can use to control the soft synths,
it does bring them alive, it does tend to give them a whole other feel, and you can
get an element of performance out of them. It's interesting that you say that, the lines
are kind of really blurring right now in this point in time between all of the connective
remote scripts, between the hardware controllers and the software so there's less actual mapping
that you have to do, a lot of Plug and Play- A lot of it just sort of comes up straight
away, which is great. Right. But just being able to kind of write
parameters in, to control say between 30 and 55, that's your sweet spot, being able to
do that sort of stuff, that's important that you can do that and really get something good
out of a performance. You have a question?
My question is more production-based. I want to know when you start a new project, how
you start with the structure or the song that you're thinking about, or do you just kind
of go with it? My problem is that I, I've got a part, I like that part, but they don't
really coincide with each other. Ok so basically, you stole my question but
that's ok (laughs), it wasn't going to be exactly the same way.
The question is the point of inspiration. Where you start everything, if you start with the-
and this was going to be my question- you end up making a sound accidentally on
one of the hardware pieces, and say wow that's so cool I've got to put that into a track,
or are you starting with a set structure that you know how the track is going to work and
how it's going to evolve? What do you even start with, do you usually start with the
drums or....? I think it starts in different places sometimes.
I mean, you walk into the studio and you're just like- what should I play with today?
And that's definitely an element of it, but there are a few tried and tested places that
I got to when I'm like- I don't really know what I'm going to do today. One of them is
I've taken my entire DJ library, and I've stuck it through Mixed in Key, I mean, there's
40,000 pieces of music there, it took about 3 days to process it all (laughs). But I've
ended up with this folder structure whereby- which I keep updating all the time- where
all my DJ tracks are in folders in key. So when I open up in Live, if I decide to work
on a track in E Flat Minor, I'll go to that folder, and I'll just start clicking on tracks.
And then you start loading little clips of drums and sounds in, a lot of the time they
will automatically all work together. So very quickly you can get an idea and a groove together
and the sounds all work and then you start replacing sounds. That's one way, if we're
struggling to know what to do. A lot of times we've started off from that. If it's a remix,
you kind of have to look at it and go- what do I want to keep in this mix, and what do
I want to throw away? Is it one little element that I want to turn into the track? Or do
I keep most of the track and turn it into more of like a re-edit? And I think that comes
down to- again it's on a case-by-case basis. Some of the tracks on the album are virtually
all of our sounds with little clips of them and then there's some other ones that are
really kind of reverential re-edits; it just kind of depends on the song really.
Sure. A question from the internet. We do have a lot of people asking if we're
going to be able to see some sort of pre-mix Ableton session.
Well it's kind of what I'm playing... How do you mean? Oh you mean an actual session?
He's talking about an actual project. We've got a session in here, we've got a stems
session. Again, we couldn't open up the full sessions on here with all the plug ins, because
the laptop just couldn't handle it. But we have got-
I'm just going to repeat that so everybody knows what we're talking about. So basically
the question was- are we actually going to be able to see an actual project file of something
in progress or something that's finished? And the answer to that question.....
Yes. Is yes. Yes.
(Laughter) But you're using a much more powerful computer
in your studio than the laptop is capable of doing.
Yeah we bought, about halfway- I had a Tower in the studio here in New York, and it just
couldn't handle the sessions. So we went out and bought an iMac, the i7, the fastest one.
The Mac Pro couldn't handle it? Nah, nah the laptop.
Oh the Macbook Pro. So these are the sessions mixed with effects
and things? Yeah we basically stemmed them out. Josh you
want to come and talk us through it? Yeah sure.
Because we've got a- this track is the Kiki track, the track that I did with Kiki.
It actually started off as a remix for another artist, and we decided that we weren't going
to use it but we decided that the backing track was so cool, we wanted to use it for
something. So we sent it to Kiki to put a vocal on, and she literally 8 hours later
sent back this incredible vocal and we kind of had one of the biggest tracks on the record
sorted and it all came together, which is nice when that happens.
Might I just zoom out a little? Actually it's already zoomed out already.....
So obviously in the initial session there's way more going on than there is here. The
other cool thing about this record is that there was 4 of us working on it.
Yeah, yeah. One person in London, one person in Ibiza,
and then Sash would be New York, London and Ibiza. And we had everything running off Dropbox.
So one day he'd be in London and he'd be like- we have a new track, can you run it through
and process a bunch of Kore stuff and I would do that and they'd have it and build an arrangement
and send it back. And it was cool to see- The time difference really works sometimes,
we'd be finishing up at midnight, and Josh would just be finishing a session in New York
and it would be 7pm and he'd go- alright. And we'd get into the studio at 10 in the
morning and he'd done all these amazing vocal processes or he'd put in some analogue treatments
or something, and they'd go all into the mix, and it was a really, really fun way to work
like that- the time difference really, really helped actually. Our Dropbox folder got pretty,
big didn't it? (laughs). And because of that we did a lot
of stuff in stems where it would be like- Because we were trying to pass things backwards
and forwards. It's like, you can't pass a 10gig session
back and forth, 5 times a day. I think it also helped because-
I think when you commit to stuff, that was another thing that I learnt actually- working with-
I did a couple of days with Steve Dubs who is the Chemical Brothers engineer, early on working
on this record. His thing is you've just gotto commit, you've just gotto commit. Do you like it?
Yes. It's in. And he would commit. And he would make a stem out of it, and he said:
"You can always go back and change something a little bit," but you never do. I think once
you commit to a stem, it's there you know? Sometimes in the more complicated bits where
we had a lot of effects and vocals going on, and some of it clashed- we'd go back and fix
it. But when it came to bass and drums and the main elements of the track, once you'd
committed it to a stem, you were happy with it and it was like- ok, let's move on. It's
definitely a nice way to work with arranging on a computer because you're treating it more
like a tape machine. Sure.
So you guys- you've been at this for a while, you've worked with hardware, you've now worked
with software for a while as well. Timelines: how long does it usually take you to finish
a tune when you start? Well Battleships we finished in like, a day.
Yeah but then we messed with it- (Laughs) But then it lasted for longer than
a day. Some of the ones, sometimes they just come
together so fast, sometimes they can take forever. The ones that take forever are usually
the ones that you never want to hear again at the end of it.
Yeah and there were plenty of days where it would be the same 16 bar loop, and it was
like- just throw that out the window. Yeah.
The other cool thing though with the stems is that, again, passing things back and forth,
and like Sasha said, we'd commit to everything. And if you want to change something later
it wasn't like- oh we have to dig back in through that sound, it was like- just take
this whole stem, or maybe it would be like- I'll give you something without drums.
Run that through a wall of whatever, just go crazy, then we'd have a whole new part that might
turn into another song, or it would turn into something else that was cool and it would
be like- oh I wouldn't even think to do that. I'd never done that because it was like- we've
gotto go in and find that exact sound again. And it was like- no just take what
we already have and process that, and it would turn into something else that became-
Yeah it's kind of how we ended up doing a beat less version of the album, because we
did- we kept on putting these music stems down and bouncing all the music together so
that Josh could just have one file to process, rather then sending him this complicated session.
He'd have one file in his inbox and we'd be like- just mangle that. But then a lot of
these stems that we printed, a lot of the time, especially if you print the vocal base
and the music altogether in a stem and process that as one thing- you get some incredible
results out of it because it's so harmonically rich. And we were listening back to these
stems and were thinking- these are beautiful, we should do something with this. So that
ended up being the second CD of the album, we've actually just put together all these
beautiful music stems without beats and they sound fantastic.
So you began working with this with linear sequencers, and then you got an MPC and you
got into this pattern based kind of thing. When you compose with Live are you using the
session view when you start? Or are you doing most of the work from the linear timeline?
We start there don't we.... We build up, build up, build up, build up, build up, build up....
But then a certain point you have to- the quicker you can get into this window the better.
(Laughter)
The better. Well we all know that, yes. It's a trap.
Some people get right in there so quickly. I think once we started committing stuff to
stems- then you have to work in this window- because you've printed a little arrangement
of something. And even if it's just a basic kind of arrangement it kind of forces you
into this window. If you're happy with the kick, the snare the hi hat and how it all
sounds, just get it into a stem, and then you can start arranging. And then we'd start
programming and tweaking sequences, and sometimes one take of tweaking a synth would basically
define the arrangement. Right. Do you go back and forth between the
session view and the arrangement view in the composition process? Or do you pretty much
stay in one place? Once you're here, not really,
but it's only if you're not happy with a track and you- you have to go back. And sometimes
that would happen, I would just get so pissed off with a certain bassline, that we'd print
the whole track without the bass then start reprogramming again. And with that we'd go
back into the other window. What I really like doing with the midi controllers or the
APC 40, is getting a midi pattern that I like and putting different pitches on it and actually
then replaying the midi pattern, treating it like a sample. We came up with some really
good stuff like that. But on this record more than anything, a lot of it was me sitting
at the synth, and just playing. But there are so many things now, if you can't play
that well there are so many fantastic gadgets that you can use, especially on the iPad,
that can help you kind of cheat your way around it.
What do you recommend with this? Ableton's got some things built in, especially
in the Max for Live thing, you can make sure you don't play wrong notes, you can pick
out a chord structure. But then on the- What was the one we used on the- I can't remember
what it was called. It was like a little.... you could have 8 different sequences on the iPad.
Yeah what was that called? I can't remember
what it was called. I can't remember yeah.
That was fun. The SoundPrism thing on there was amazing because you can play chords with
one finger, and it actually makes you play some pretty interesting chord progressions.
And then again on the iPad, for processing, we used a lot of the granular synthesis programs
on the iPad. One in particular was Borderlands which I absolutely love. You can load 3 or
4 samples into a window and then you can start messing around with it, and they kind of morph
into each other, and we used that on a few places on the record as well.
Interesting. Yeah I'm a huge fan of a lot of the stuff on the iPad. I think it's really
cool and creative. Yeah, it's so cheap and there's some really
creative tools on there, very powerful. Sound mangling tools.
So I think we have time for one or two more questions. You want to ask another question?
I'm asking for somebody, actually the owner of Dubspot.
Sure. So basically you're always on tour-
I'm always on tour (laughs). Always on tour, what are some of your favorite
festivals that you like to play, favorite clubs-
I'm sorry I'm going to ask you to repeat it one more time. (Passes microphone)
So Sasha's always on tour, we want to know what are some of your favorite festivals in
the world, and some of your favorite clubs that you like to play? And also, maybe a little
bit about Ibiza and how important it is for breaking tracks.
Ok. I've got some favorite places to play, it's hard to pick (laughs). The States is
really hot right now, there's some great, great clubs here. Output that just opened
in Brooklyn is fantastic, I think I'm going to be playing there a few more times.
What else? Vessel in San Francisco is fantastic, there's a new venue in LA called Sound that
I'm playing this weekend and then Avalon is getting redeveloped which I'm really looking
forward to as well as the Exchange there as well, LA is hot. I mean Miami is always turning
over fantastic clubs, my favorite at the moment is Treehouse because it's so tiny and just
really, a lot of fun. And I just played this club in Dallas called It'll Do, and it opened
in 1948 (Laughs), and they've left the outside of the club exactly as it was. And the woman
who's running it, Brooke, her Grandmother used to go there, and she's 74 now (Laughs).
It's not been open consistently for that long, but it's amazing that it's been around for
that long. It's an institution.
And internationally, Buenos Aires is one of my favorite places to play. I just played
a gig at MoonPark with Hernan, and there were 8000 people there and it sold out like that.
I'm going back next weekend to do the Part 2 of it and I can't wait. The crowd in Argentina
are fantastic. Warung in Brazil is one of my favorite places on earth to play, when
the sun comes up in the end.... You play in this kind of a triangle A frame club, when
the sun comes up you start to see this kind of triangle appear at the end. You might be
thinking the crowd are a bit quiet tonight while it's dark- as soon as they see that
triangle, they go absolutely bonkers. It's really special. And then Europe, there's just
so many places. I love playing in Eastern Europe, Romania is one of my favorite places
to go to. Tokyo, I love every time I go there, I have a fantastic time. I just got back from Australia,
that was brilliant. Yeah, there's too many places.
What about Ibiza? What did you do this summer there?
The last two summers in Ibiza, I've been doing the Ushuaia Venue, and we're just in negotiations
about what we're doing this year. They're actually opening up a new venue there,
just slightly smaller. So yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah, Ibiza is, I think the
most important place for music on the planet really. I mean, it's incredible there. People
always talk about: "Oh it's not as good as it used to be," and it's definitely different,
but the quality of music and DJ's that go to Ibiza, and the quality of the nights there,
and what everyone puts into their nights there is just really amazing. Every night, pretty
much from the 1st of June until the 1st of Oct, you go out and experience incredible
music there. If you haven't been, then you need to get out there and experience it.
So, time flies when you're having fun, right? So we've actually gone a little bit over here
but I think what we're going to do is we're going to play one more tune that you have
broken down into the stems and everything so that everybody can hear it here, and we
may have time for one or two more questions after that. But let's just crank this, let's
just listen for a moment. This is Keep Shelly in Athens.
Could we get some more volume on this? That would be great.
Keep Shelly in Athens put this amazing album out last year, and we actually remixed two
tracks off their album. This is the kind of more banging one that made it to the album.
The other track, which I really loved as well, it didn't quite make it onto the finished album, we're
going to find a way to get that out as well. This is probably the most banging track on
the album I would say isn't it? Well then it's definitely gotto be louder.
(Laughter) Crank it!
I'm not sure the vocal is in time is it?
I think it is. This is where it's all- Yeah this is-
It's loud. This is kind of the effects stuff that we
do with the music. This is a lot of the Kore processing stuff that we'd do to
the vocal. Yeah we like to build up these soundscapes, especially by kind of layering
them and you know, playing around with that sort of stuff. I think every single track
on the album have got a lot of that stuff going on. I find it quite important to give it-
the first time you hear a record you get that hit of the bass or vocal in it, but then
when you listen to stuff at home, or in your headphones you get all that stuff flying around
your ears- I've always tried to do stuff like that. It's the icing on the cake, it's important
stuff I think. That kind of became-
Yeah there's a lot of those atmospheric loops. Yeah there's layers, and layers, and layers
of effects. A lot of it, it'll get lost but it's, I dunno, it's important for me that
it's there. Well you'll remember every detail when you
hear it. Well if it's not there, you might not hear
It's missing something. The track is missing something, yeah.
specific stuff but if it's not there it's like-
So that's the end, that's the most banging part of the record I think.
I don't know if I've even played this out yet I don't think. Have you not?
It's a difficult one to finish. Yeah (laughs).
Yeah the ones that are difficult to finish, I find, are harder to play out (laughs).
I think that'll do. Ok. You have another question, yes?
So my question is, I want to know what you think about the whole EDM movement, and how
do you- when you're going to these festivals and you see, just say Avicii, how do you interact
with the other side of the dance world and where do you see it going?
Oh wow, this is going to be hard to repeat, ok, so, you know what I'm going to do-
That's another workshop (laughs). That's another workshop altogether (laughs).
I'm sorry- It's a big question.
It's a big question. The EDM thing, I sway backwards and forwards
all the time. Part of me thinks- yeah it's great that it's got so big around the world,
but then I look at the crowds that go to those and I'm thinking- are they really going
to go to a Crosstown Rebel Rave? It's two different things. So, I don't know, the music
pollutes my ears but at the same time it is great to see another movement of electronic
music come through and explode like it has. I think America needed it's own heroes. When
John (Digweed) and I came here, and Oakenfold on the first sort of wave of- and Coxy- on
the first wave of international DJ's coming here and getting really successful, and then
you got to 2003, and it looked like it was petering out. A lot of the nightclubs started
playing R&B and hip hop, but then when those guys started realizing they could start making
records with kick drums like that, then it just went ***. Deadmau5 came along, you know,
America needed it's own heroes, a generation needed it's own heroes. So it's a very hard
to be dismissive of it. A lot of the music I'm not into but it's- there was a lot of
music I wasn't into in 1998 as well so (laughs). All I can say is that the clubs that I'm playing
at the moment are packed, and having it, and I'm having a great time. And it seems like
the two scenes are coexisting, so I don't see the problem really.
Live and let live. Right (laughs).
Ok so another question from the internet? Well one of the things, I was wondering if
we could perhaps go back to the Ableton session? And play out the track, plus some of the stems
so we could get a bit of an idea of how things are layered individually.
The thing about this- Ok so, it's condensed quite a bit more than
it would be with the original pieces. Yeah I mean how many tracks is this?
It was like, 10. So the question from the internet- was could
we see more of a breakdown of the actual components that go into the layered sounds and soundscapes
that are being made. But, if we take a look at the screen for a quick moment, you can
see that it's actually stems and a lot of the parts have been condensed together.
They've already been bounced together. One of the most CPU hungry things that we did
on the record were the drums. Because Grayson would use so much processing on the drums,
he'd have these drum racks set up, and there would literally be 10 tracks of drums, and
it would only sound like a kick and a snare and a hat.
And the only thing that the computer could play at the end of the day was the kick drum (laughs).
Right well, when we started trying to pass-
that's when we started to try to put things on the laptop but they wouldn't play back,
and that's when we were like- we've got to commit to stems. There were some really quite
complex processing that goes on within the drum stems, which is why we had to commit
to stuff. So, there's 15 layers in this session, there must have been 60 in the original.
Yeah, every track yeah. We maxed out our computer on basically every record.
It's the race against CPU cycles right? (Laughter)
So, one more question from the internet? And then one of the other questions is kind
of just about time management. Because you're so busy touring and blocking out time
in the studio for albums.... So the question is about time management,
how you're able to keep with the production schedule, with all of the touring and everything
because you're playing quite a bit. That was the hardest thing, and I think it
was definitely one of the things that derailed us earlier on in the year, is I'd taken a
chunk of time off to work on the record, and then once I had to go start touring again-
if you're flying down to South America for a weekend, you're not going to be in the studio
bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday (laughs). Well I guess my question is at that point
is does this become the mobile studio or do you just try to keep everything stationary?
I'm not very good at sitting with the headphones on and working. I don't even like to listen
to music for long periods of time with my headphones on. I have been doing this a long time and
my ears are precious and I do like to give them a rest. I don't know, my ears get fatigued
if I sit and listen to music for long periods of time, so I don't actually get a lot of
work done on the road. I know some people that do everything on the road on their laptops.
I know Calvin does literally everything on his laptop on the road, and Eric Pridz as
well I think he loves to work like that. But I don't know, I find it hard and I find it
tiring, I can't. I like pacing around when I work as well.
You know in some respects I completely understand that, in the space that if you have access
to it all the time you may not necessarily set definite timelines an deadlines for yourself.
When you're going into the studio, you're going into the studio, there's nothing else
you're going to do there except sit and write music.
Exactly, that does help. I've actually let go of my studio in New York because of that.
I felt like we got alot more work done towards the end of the record when we were going into
a studio where we had literally a start and an end. I think it was a lot easier to focus
I think, when you've got your own room. And it's like you've got 3 months to work on this
record and you're like- oh right, ok. Let me just turn one more parameter on the
hi hat, one more... (Laughs). And suddenly there's two weeks left and you're
like- what happened? (Laughs). I mean a lot of time actually on the road,
the one thing I will do on the road is do re-edits, to play out and stuff. And a lot
of those are really simple, two or three loops and a track that I really like. Some of the
things I did last year, I did a Cat Power- literally it was thrown together in about
10 minutes. It became one of my biggest closing records of last year. I just took Nicolas
Jaar's version that didn't really have beats in it but, put some beats under it. But doing
things like that on the road is fun. Because you get to play it out that night and it's
finished. You're working with a much smaller project
for that point in time, it's not like you have to cut 20 tracks and rearrange it, move
pieces over here and pieces over there. Right.
Questions in the room? Behind you.
Ok. How's it going Sasha? Love your music man.
Thank you. First of all want to ask- I guess you sort
of answered the question- if you produce on the road, and what is your strategy when it
comes to actually getting your track ready for mixing? Do you actually do a rough mix
down and send it to your mixing engineer? Or do you actually do some of the mixdown
adding reverb, eqing, ect? To be honest, I think the mixing process and
the writing process is part of the same thing now. I think it maybe used to be different
but I think the way you use compression and reverb and delay is part of the sound of records
now, and it's very important to get into that side of things I think. And processing's like
I said we do a hell of a lot of processing. And a lot of the time when I'm working with
an engineer, I'm in the room with him as well. Every now and then I might get something together
on my laptop but it's rough and I'll send it to Josh or I'll send it to Grayson and
they'll get it sounding right so I can play it out. But a lot of the time if we're working
on a proper project we'll be in the room together. Thank you.
Cheers. It was never ending. Because he would play
something out at night, and he'd go- you'd get instant feedback, he'd play something
he worked on out at night that day- or, that day at night. And then the next day he'd be
like- (shakes head) wasn't working. What about the producer that doesn't have
the mixing engineer and wants to do it on their own?
Nobody's hearing you (laughs). What would you recommend to a producer who's
actually doing his own mixing? Would you actually say- do your own production, after your production
you work on your mixing inside your production? I don't know, I think it's all one thing. You can really
struggle if you're producing- you need to get certain things right. You need to get
your kick and your bass right, that's the first thing. If you can't get those right,
some of the studios we worked in over the process, we couldn't get those things right
because they weren't treated rooms, properly. I'd take something away it'd be way too bassy or
it'd have no bass in it. If you're struggling with the basic elements in a track like that, then it's going
to be a long process to try to get it finished, because you're always going to be like- oh
it's not right, it's not right.... Yeah because most producers actually work from- you know,
home producers- Right.
Have their little set up in their room, obviously it's not really treated so-
I know that but it depends on the room. We mixed Flutes down in Ibiza in Grayson's garage,
with literally mattresses around, on these terrible little speakers, the sound was buzzing,
the cables.... I mean it was really ghetto. (Laughter) And it was one of the best sounding
records I've ever made. So it's definitely- it can be really hard to get a room to sound
right. It doesn't have to look pretty, but it's important if you're working in a room
to know if it's- to know where you stand with it.
Thank you. Any other questions in the room?
You have a question. Here you go.
It's been bothering me for a long time that's why. I had a thing where, a question like
do you- when you make music is it strictly from your heart or you follow more trends?
Why the question's like that is because, probably 5 past tracks that I send out, people give
good feedback, but they say that everything is in Minor and they make fun of me kinda
because they're my friends and they're like- is everything so bad, that bad? But this
is how I feel and I'm not sad and I'm just like- even when I played, it's cool I always
pick the sad stuff because I like it. Move the mic a little closer.
The question is that I can probably calculate and force myself to make something a little
bit more upbeat but how do you do that? I wouldn't recommend that. If sad music's
coming from your heart, some of the most beautiful music in the world is sad music. If that's
coming from your heart then go with it. I don't know, I go backwards and forwards, sometimes
I do want to make something dark, and sometimes I want to make an end of night anthem that's
euphoric. Depends on what kind of mood I'm in really. But I would go with your heart.
Question in the back. And remember I'm going to have to repeat this so please,
please, think of me when you ask the question too (laughs).
Maybe just reminiscing a little, could you talk a little about your time at Twilo?
It was very dynamic? You got your ear injury? Coming to America?
So, basically we're asking you to take a trip down memory lane called 'Back to the days
of Twilo with ear injuries and coming to America.' I don't like getting too nostalgic to be honest,
it makes me feel old (laughs). They were amazing days in New York, turning up at Twilo, and
there's 2, 3 thousand people queuing up outside, probably the best sound system I've ever played
on. My relationship with John at the time was amazing, and I think at that time I was
probably the most well-rounded DJ because I had a residency in London at Fabric with
Craig Richards and Lee Burridge, and we had a completely different sound to what I played
with John at Twilo, so I was kind of getting pulled in two directions at the time. So I
think musically I was the most kind of rounded I'd ever been. But yeah they were amazing
days, and the club was amazing, but you know everything comes, everything has to come to
an end. It has been a while since New York's had a really, really great club; I have high
hopes for Output actually. Where did you like the DJ booth, by the power
bar or in the- The question is- where do you like the DJ
booth....? The power bar booth was a bit of a nightmare
because it was this bottleneck. It was amazing to play there, but it was a bottle neck. And
once we got up to the, on the other side of the room it was a much nicer booth to play
from, but you were definitely more removed from the crowd a little bit but I liked them both.
So, we have time for exactly one more question-
your question. You mentioned that some of the tracks you
wanted to put on Involver 3 you couldn't because of licensing, is there any chance you're going
to be coming out with a Pixelated People, Jeff Mills-
Ok so let me try to repeat this- so basically some of the tracks had some licensing issues
with them, and to repeat this, the questions with the Pixelated- will he be coming out
with the Pixelated Peoples? Yeah.
Yeah that was actually Henry Size's record that he sent me all the stems to and we did
a couple of versions of it, but yeah that's one that got left on the cutting room floor
really. There's so many tracks like that on the album, there's literally 20 tracks like
that, that I know we're going to go back to and I'm going to find a home for them, it's
just getting this thing finished was the most important thing. Now, as I said I'm going
to take a bit of time off but then I think it's going to be a case of trawling through
all those tracks that didn't quite make it, and working out what to do with them, because
there's some fantastic music there. Well listen, I hope that you all enjoyed this
very much, let's give him a round of applause. (Clapping)
So I hope that this has been fun, entertaining, educational, all of that good stuff, and I
want to thank everybody for tuning in out in TV land. And for those of you that haven't
checked out Dubspot, we're up on the internet as well as the physical location here where
we've been broadcasting from, very easy www.Dubspot.com. And once again I hope you enjoyed, thanks
for tuning in, and keep making music. (Clapping)