Interview with Octane & DLR before next weekend's show
check out the production section, interesting read!
OCTANE & DLR INTERVIEW- AUZ/NZ 2011
Who/what are you earliest musical influences?
J: I can remember my dad had his record player and really nice sounding set up, nothing to fancy but the older hifi’s from the 80’s had a wicked sound. He would play Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Chris Rea, Mike Oldfield, Paul Simon and Garfunkel as well as other older rock music, nothing to heavy, always an emphasis on rhythm and good song writing. I didn’t think much of it at the time, Pink Floyd are obviously seminal and I can still enjoy a few Dire Straits and Paul Simon and Garfunkel tracks, my tastes moved on over the years, through punk and ska until i got a cheap PC and got Dance Ejay, that was it for me, the days of Dance EJay were good! A lot of fun was had.
Chris: Looking back, my earliest memories of really being besotted with music were of being no older than 6 or 7, going to bed early just to listen to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” Album on tape! I was 13 when I started to realise I was more than just a listener as I found myself being moved more than others by good music. It’s still the same now I’m old... oh, so old!
UK still has a long list of talent in DnB – why is that do you think?
J: I lived in the Bristol area for around 10 years and the scene there is legendary and very strong, a lot of money is invested into inner city areas by a number of incredible people including Roni Size, although not everyone who writes dnb and is from Bristol has been through his studio’s he was obviously massively influential to a scene that was key to the progression of dance music not just in the UK but across the World. I talk to people across the World and some guys I really admire, in the UK you can get a 0% interest loan funded by the government for instruments as well as pro audio gear, however there are so many people across the world who are paying through the roof for a pair monitors that we would consider ‘not good enough’. To sum it up the UK is a incredibly creative and well supported country with a lot going for it, it would be a waste if a lot of talent didn’t cease the opportunities we have at the moment. We’re very lucky!
Chris: James, are you talking politics? Agreed, we’re all very lucky to have opportunities but we all have to work very hard to compete. Where most people have good jobs, cars and mortgages, we have shoes that are falling to bits, one pair of studio pants but lots of analogue gear! I think a lot of us musicians really have to be dedicated and it’s paramount we love what we do.
Tell us a little bit about Exhale Audio ?
OD: Exhale Audio is something that we have wanted for a long time although at the same time its something we sort of fell into, natural progression from being ridiculously perfectionist about our own production. We offer a fully professional studio environment apart from no arse smells can be blamed on us its in the disclaimer that clients must sign before using the space.
We are currently wrapping up our website, updating from an older one thanks to a good friend ‘Mikey’, we are a fully professional set up now, and its where we see our futures so its key to us to establish a brand which is recognized for quality of work, the website goes hand in hand with this, it’s a very professional design, contains a small amount of key info to help people discover what Exhale Audio is all about. By the time you guys will be reading this it will be live, we’ll let the site do the rest of the talking:
http://www.exhaleaudio.co.uk
Thanks to Mikey for the design and Chris ‘LDPix’ for the photo’s both people’s contact info can be found in the enquiries section on our site.
Have you guys been to AUS/NZ before, what are you guys most excited about for the tour ?
OD: Neither of us have been to either Australia or New Zealand, it’s something we’ve always wanted to do, of course. Now finally not only do we get a trip over there we get to tour round the countries systematically tearing clubs to pieces playing high quality dnb, drinking, eating, socializing and hopefully relaxing! The only draw back is the fact that the sun has just began shining in the UK, which is not an event to be missed, but now we are traveling back into winter, its not that cold over there... is it?
We are excited about the prospect of getting out of the studio to travel half way across the World to play in some amazing places and meet incredible people! Both of us have been working flat out, as everyone know’s sometimes it’s too easy to get wrapped up with the whole work thing, you end up living in your own World. We are keen to meet everyone who put in so much work to get us over, and ask them why on earth they would spend so much time and money getting two ugly mugs like us half way across the World.
J: I wanted to go bungee jumping, or sky diving, but pretty sure it’s well out of season and Chris isn’t man enough to join me, haha.
What do we have to look forward to from Octane & DLR over the next few months?
OD: For us at the moment we are placing so much focus on the studio, it’s very important to us, we feel we have a lot to offer the music World, not just making dnb or dance music in general. We are keen to push the studio, so that in a few years time we should be sitting in one of our 4 or 5 houses with custom built studio’s and infinity pools. To be fair just being able to afford to take our ladies on holiday would be enough at the moment.
We have plans with Ram to do a remix of a Basher tune from his recent LP, also in talks with another very prestigious label about a possible 12”. Still to come is our Critical 12” as well as ‘Giddy Kipper’, a track we made with Linden and Quantum soul which will be featured on Critical’s various artists LP. We have been working on a 12” for Run DNB, also remixing ‘Footloose’ by Amoss, with Linden for Horizons. We have some really exciting plans with Dispatch, after taking the label from zero to hero in the space of a year both of us feel it’s time we gave Ant a chance, so we are giving him a look in on 2 brand new funky numbers which will feature a vocalist and live instrumentation along with the usual Octane & DLR filth. Anthony begged us for around 6 months to allow ‘Back in the Grind’ and ‘Seven’ to be remixed, so finally after months of conversations and bribery we allowed it, Cern & Dabs will be remixing ‘BITG’ and EBK is revamping ‘Seven’, personally we can’t wait, and we feel it’s nice for Ant also. When we began releasing on the label he was so grateful for us bringing him back into the limelight as a DJ, it’s amazing to be able to get 2 of the tracks that got him there remixed by another 2 producers who have also given the label so much!
Chris: Please note the tongue-in-cheek regarding Ant’s label.. Although it’s all very true! Let him know yourself, he loves to be reminded!
Any plans for an album in the near future ?
OD: We have so many projects on, we love the idea of an album, really it’s what it’s all about, it would be incredible to build a collection of work which we felt worked with each other and featured on one LP. The major issue in our eyes is that we are so perfectionist about everything, either we would kill each other or we would reach our natural death by the time it was done.
We work with Quantum Soul and Ruckspin in a collective called Cymatic also, the last week long session we had some amazing and diverse pieces of music came about, there is a couple of tracks which we are buzzing about, ideally for us we see that as a focus for building an album. As a group of people we have started to get comfortable with each other and can see ourselves building a live set out of the material to go on tour with, personally we feel a live show is so important in this day and age, as it has been ever since music came about thousands of years ago. DJing is important to us, but to be able to do a live performance, something unique and groundbreaking to an audience is what we are all aiming for at the moment. Any donations for kit can be sent to
[email protected].
What else keeps you busy outside of the studio and gigs?
OD: Hahahahaha, this is going to be pretty boring, but at the moment not much! We both keep up with the World, just about, and have ladies, friends and families who put up with us. That, along with food is enough really. Of course when, yes we said when, we are rich a famous we will get people to do everything for us, probably Ant TC1, whilst we go galavanting around our various homes and private islands, drinking rum brewed at our own brewery.
PRODUCTION
Analogue Or Digital ?
OD: Both, there is no question about it, the digital age has revolutionised music production, however without hardware where would we be now? the Marriage of the two is where the future lies, it’s all happening right now! We’re just trying to keep up with it all.
Favorite pieces of gear ?
OD: Surely that would be telling, so we aren’t going to name any plugins, just to be tight. For us at the moment, the Summit Audio DCL-200 is the one, incredible compressor/limiter, which has such a rich and beautiful sound.
Through your experience, what do u think is the biggest aspect to achieving a respectable production sound?
OD: It’s all about time and effort in our eyes, both of us have been producing for 10 years, we were never happy with our sound so we just kept on pushing hard for years until we felt we had something original to offer. When producing tracks sometimes we’ll hit the idea straight away, but most of the time it’s all about putting that effort into sculpting a new bassline from scratch, never giving up until everything feels right.
Chris: There is no question that trained ears are the only instrument that can perfect a mix or master. It takes years of practice, much like being a brain surgeon or a ninja.
What is the most enjoyable part of making a track?
OD: Finally hearing it out in a big club and seeing crowds go off (...or not).
What is the typical vst setup u would use on the master channel or do u like to keep it clean?
J: It’s good to see what happens to a track when it’s pushed hard, so always nice to add some eq, compression and limiting to hear what will happen to the track in the mastering process, without doing this you can discover that pads and harmonic elements distort in the mix when pushed hard. Arguments about loudness aside everyone should expect their track to be pushed quite hard in the final stage.
Chris: I like to make a mix as clean as possible with a free output. If i’ve worked on a track for a long time, I’d rather let J take over with the mix and mastering. Having a fresh approach really helps.
How long do u generally take to finish a track?
OD: Dependable, never ever finished anything in a day, 3 days is a possibility but it’s usually or a lot, lot, lot longer.
Do you base your drum grooves around funk loops & generally how many drum hit layers would you use?
OD: We like to base our drums around what a drummer may be able to physically play live, this is not always true, but we like to think that most of our funkier stepping tracks have a realistic drum beat that could be played live. Every track deserves a different approach, of course we use breaks, but we also create our own breaks, use live sounds and recordings, synthetic sounds or generally whatever feels right.
Is there any certain process’s u use to get large sounding drums?
OD: It’s all about getting the frequencies, placement and width correct, ultimately this boils down to sample/sound selection in the first place, here’s where the ears come in to play again. Sure everyone know’s the famous phrase “you can’t polish a turd’, this is whole heartedly true. It’s also nice to have drums that sound a little thinner, if thats the intention, our track Mainframe with EBK has a fat sound but generally some of the drums are quite thin, they hold their place in the mix nicely.
What synths do u go to when making mid/bass sounds?
OD: How long is a piece of string?
What then plugins do u use to process these sounds… distortion/FX etc ?
OD: There is no rule as to what should be done with certain sounds, it’s all down to the intention of the producer, for example to add a distorted grit to a sound, distortion is the one, there is so many different plugin and hardware options that offer different types of distortion characteristics. A lot of the time we prefer to process sounds as minimally as possible. The more work we can do at the source, the more separation the final mix will get.
Do u bounce these sounds as audio or keep them inside?
Sometimes in music its cool to add an air of unpredictability that you naturally get with analogue gear, however a lot of the time this can be frustrating along with the lack of control you can have with a synth it can be very important to bounce things down and reintroduce them into the arrangement to gain control of start and end points, and for further manipulation using audio tools, also handy to take the strain off a computer. Anyone from pre 2000 days will be very very used to recording everything back in as audio as all that processing and synthesis can be very draining on your CPU
How have you developed your engineering sound, any training?
We have both had a wealth of experience in the music industry, there is so many routes you can go these days, the best thing to be doing is ceasing opportunity, if you want to further your knowledge in this industry there is plenty of way’s of going about it, it’s all about what you feel comfortable with, actively searching out these opportunities is vital to success in such a saturated business/scene.
Whats your advise to up coming producers, whats to focus on ?
We often listen to dnb but in general it’s rare you’d find us at home relaxing to dnb. We like to get away from it a bit, not immerse ourselves in the scene too much, it’s important to understand a genre, but we have heard so much of it over our lives that we don’t want the sound of ‘now’ influencing us too much otherwise it’s so hard to sit down and create something truly original.
Amazing sound of course and octane and dlr were smashing it up. Good vibes. 