One of the most influential figures on today's technoid drum & bass scene, with releases on many well-known labels and a share in the respected Nerve Recordings, agreed to answer questions from drumandbass.ru. This Dane needs no introduction: he has already played in Saint Petersburg three times. Ladies and gentlemen, Pyro.
Hi! Tell us about your first steps in music production: what did you start out on, and what software did you use?
I did my earliest production when I was 14. At that time I got my first real 6-channel keyboard. The sequencer I used then was called Musicator, and it worked only with classical musical notation. But soon afterwards I started using Fasttracker2. Then came Cubase and a sound card with MIDI and sampling support (I used Sound Forge for processing). And after that I discovered the VST standard.
How long did it take before your first track was signed to a label, and which label was it?
My very first release was on a Danish label called Man recs. A friend and I had a project called Computah. Its album was released on CD.
What influenced your music in the past, and what influences it now?
At the time we were simply trying to achieve something resembling Optical’s sound, and we also took our bearings from the output of RAM. I came to drum and bass under the influence of the output of trueplayaz, but a little later I simply became a fan of the sound of the labels Virus and RAM. As for today, the main influences are techno and dub music. I regard techno as a treasure trove of special techniques and methods just waiting to be tried and adapted to drum and bass speeds. At the same time, I have always needed greater variety of taste, so I listened to a whole range of Jamaican music, as well as Detroit techno.
I am a little disappointed with the current state of drum and bass, especially when it comes to most of the dark stuff.
In general, I listened to anything that could teach me more natural, lively movement of sounds in a track. That includes all kinds of rock music, such as Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Kashmir, classical music: Wagner, Beethoven; blues and jazz, and so on. In general, any music made by people with outstanding performance skills (like Miles Davis, for example—in the classical sense). To my amazement, this is found everywhere in techno music, much more often than in most of the rest of supposedly acoustic, “live” music. It is wonderful. As for people like that in contemporary drum and bass, there is, for example, Amit. He brought to the genre exactly what we all needed; his tracks inspire me greatly.
Have you ever produced in genres other than drum & bass? Have any of those tracks been released?
When I was just starting out, I made music influenced by euro dance and happy hardcore, until I got into dnb. Since then I have tried my hand at various styles, particularly prog trance and tribal house. But to be honest, I cannot say that I concentrate heavily on these genres. I get enormous pleasure from making techno, but again, it is not a style I am ready to switch to completely; rather, it serves an educational function for me. In general, I like making both minimalist and heavy, saturated sound. By the way, I am currently finishing a demo recording of a project influenced by reggae/ragga. It is a joint project with my rapper friends. We record any music that you can rap lyrics over—ragga, hiphop, 2step, grime, dnb, and so on. There have been no releases yet, but that is probably for the best, since we are still learning.
What studio equipment do you use for production?
100% PC-based. My monitors are two pieces of old homemade equipment, but I know them so well that it is difficult to give them up. My headphones HD25 (Sennheiser—ed. drumandbass.ru) help me correct the harshest mixdown errors, but new monitors are still at the top of my planned-purchases list. I use the sequencer Logic on PC, as well as a number of favorite plug-ins, such as psp nitro, amplitube, waves, linplug alpha, es2, various tape delays. I use exs24mkII as a sampler. In general, I am gradually moving back to Cubase, but for now only as necessary.
Can you let our readers in on any production secrets?
Lately I have often been running various breakbeat loops through filters and effects, such as psp nitro. This way I try to achieve a more techno sound.
Nitro is generally magnificent because its LFO (Low Frequency Oscillation, a low-frequency generator: one of the fundamental methods of working with digital effects—ed. drumandbass.ru) is very flexible in its settings. Usually I simply pitch an old breakbeat loop up so that it matches the tempo, chop it up and rework it, then play it with filters and effects from Nitro until I achieve the desired result. One of the things that impressed me most about techno production technique is the ability to create HUGE variety in sounds solely by filtering and processing percussion from standard drum machines. Of course, anything can be processed, but a classic open 909 hi-hat (a cymbal sample, hihat, from the classic bank roland 909—ed. drumandbass.ru) with a short decay time on the filter envelope is a real window into a world of sounds.
Lately I have liked putting a flanger effect on sounds. The more flexible the plug-in is to use, the better. After that, you can distort distort the sounds using various software emulations of amplifiers and effects processors. This can produce excellent percussion that works well with most funky breaks. Tom and kick samples Tom and Kick are good for fast electro-style percussion if you raise them by an octave or two in the sampler and then filter them. A technique I have liked using for a long time is taking several such processed drums and layering various delays delays over them to give the track speed.
When writing atmospheric sounds in a track, I usually go crazy with plug-ins: powerful reverb and delay are always involved, but honestly, there are no rules here. I can use a chain of 12 effects on a channel just to get an interesting sound. By the way, if you have such a long, configured effects chain, it would be a good idea to run different samples through it. Very simple sound sources, such as synthesizer noises, will sound especially different in the end. In this simple way I discovered many excellent sounds. It is also important not to use only samples from a single note. For example, you can get excellent massive pads pads (long atmospheric sounds—ed. drumandbass.ru) by running some piece of a synthesizer arpeggio through a chain with reverb and effects. After this stage I usually resample the sounds and put them into a sampler. The first thing I do after that is make sure the resulting sounds will work in a melodic context (lead, background riff, etc.). I have never approved of intros in tracks that sound simply like a random collection of sounds from a CD, with atmospheres placed here and there. That is why I spend a great deal of time making my atmospheric sounds work together with the rest of the track and the groove. For these purposes in particular, I use delay extensively, along with tempo-synchronized amplitude modulation from LFO. The frequency aspect is important, so if you can make atmospheres processed in this way run without conflicting with one another, you can get clean funk;).
As I said, I have worked a lot on the musical side of my tracks and learned a great deal by listening closely to various instrumental solos. Live musicians have a huge number of playing techniques in their arsenal—for example, vibrato on guitar, or the way a bow is used in string music, and so on. Funky slap on bass guitar is another excellent example. It seems to me that many producers simply forget that the same arsenal of techniques and instruments is still at their fingertips. You should try anything at all, as long as you achieve some specific feeling and dynamics. I believe it is much easier to give a riff funkiness this way than when you are using only static, rigid notes.
There are several producers on the scene who follow the principle—“do not let the equipment system (setup) control you.” I think this is an excellent method, since it also applies to using simple software. There are no limits. Therefore, it is worth exploring more complex software in greater depth too, such as absynth, reaktor, albino, nitro, kontakt. Many people think it is enough to get only what they need from a program at the moment. But this kind of software contains enormous possibilities and powerful tools if you dig deeper. This helps a lot when you get stuck. Doing something sharp and unconventional can help get things moving again.
You have releases on many different imprints. What is coming out soon?
Soon there should be an EP called Speed of Thought on Flatline Audio. Then a single should come out on Nerve with the tracks Time is Broken and Resolve (feat. Mundane). There will also be releases this year on ELP Collective with the tracks faded, hope to understand and available technology with Phono. There are also negotiations under way about releasing remixes of some techno tracks. I am really looking forward to that myself.
Which drum & bass producers do you think matter most right now, and who will break through this year?
The Offkey camp is very prominent today.
Raiden is doing great work and has brought an insanely talented group of producers together around him.
Prode and The Sect stand out in particular.
Temper D also has his own unique style. The new generation of producers is very interesting overall. I have been playing SPL very frequently lately. I am also intrigued by the new LP from Limewax.
Klute has been my favorite producer for a long time, and his label (Commercial Suicide—ed. drumandbass.ru) is one of the best in drum and bass today. I also really like how Noisia and Phace are raising the bar for the technical standards of production. The DNAudio camp also undoubtedly deserves its success. As for new producers, I would like to see DStruct continue developing in 2007, Tenebra from Russia sounds fresh, amex & Kaiza from Germany, with the German techno movement, Jesta from London, and many others. Again, I really like how Amit has completely changed the format of drum and bass, and I hope more people follow his example. Overall, there are many excellent producers today. So 2007 looks promising:).
Finally, a short questionnaire.
Favourite type of beer?
Partly ales lately
Best party you have been to?
It is very hard to remember any particular one, but it was a lot of fun when I played in Iceland. Big parties like Roskilde are cool too.
Where would you most like to go right now?
Right now I am dying to go somewhere to snowboard.
Favourite book and favourite film?
They change often, but right now it is probably Ghost in the Shell—both films, as well as the first book. I took a lot away from this story.
Favourite non-drum & bass artist?
Dj Surgeon and perhaps Method Man
A few words for the Russian drum & bass community?
I want to say that I always enjoy visiting the Russian scene. It is big and energetic. The crowd is always active and resilient. Keep it up! I hope to come back and hang out with you soon. Stay open to new trends; 2007 has a lot of interesting things in store;)
Questions by FlameTenebra for drumandbass.ru, 2007.
