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This week's producer Q&A features The Beatmonkeys.  Residents at the Liverpool institution of Chibuku, they made their names as multirave DJs and producers, and it stood them in good stead as they went on to play everywhere from Fabric, to Glastonbury, to peaktime slots at Space in Ibiza.  Nice.  They've lately turned their attentions to a slightly rockier sound, and their latest single 'Rollin'  came out a couple of weeks back on Rocstar - check that here.  On with the Q's; since there are two of them and they now live 200 miles apart, they've generously supplied us with two sets of answers:

How do you approach a tune?  Drums first?  Melody? 

Mat - Most, but not all tunes, we start with the drums, even if they don't make it to the end mix. A good groove to jam on with the bass. Usually live bass to start with. We then convert that to midi and change it as the synth sound progresses, until we both like it, otherwise it gets scrapped. 

That, or we start programming a bass sound we like on a synth and work the midi to suit. Working that way round though normally ends up with a great 'sounding' line but with no musical interest and it gets scrapped. 

Either way though the drums come before the bass, which will get scrapped repeatedly until we're both happy with the sound and the line. We've found the best way of working together is to be completely up front and say straight away if you don't like something. It makes for a slow process and while some records just fall together and the main parts are put down in a couple of days, this isn't usually the case. We'll often spend weeks on and off trying to get that bass or those drums sounding mint only to scrap it for something better at a later date. There's a lot of scrapping going on, but its not between us. 

We do quite a lot of recycling, we've been working together for quite a few years now, so we've got quite a catalogue of ideas and sounds. We still say "oh those drums from that might work with this" or "that hook from there will fit if we pitch it" Hooks are probably hardest for us, we find them really difficult to sit happily, if we can get away without using one we will, but you normally need one. Drums and bass on their own just don't cut it most of the time, much as we'd love it if they did! 

Chris - I approach a tune over the left shoulder, staying out of the said tracks peripheral vision, I try to creep up on it slinky like the snow leopard, then I pounce making sure none of the inspiration can wriggle free, this is a tried and tested technique for a good club track, but hit records are a much more mighty foe to hold down.  I'm slowly learning all classic stalking techniques that are needed, but some are naturally gifted - for this check out Gaga and Bono, its no coincidence they were both born with claws and opposable thumbs, deadly!  Nature finds a way! 

What time of day do you work best? 

Mat - I probably work best at night, when everyone's asleep, between 2 am and 7. But i think thats mainly down to having no distractions. I did a long stint of working those hours, sleeping in the day. In the winter though you end up not seeing any light and the tunes you write get darker and darker, so you have to be careful about that!  Unfortunately we both have part time jobs to pay for our excessive cake habits, so we have to work around those hours. 

Chris - About 7 in the morning, after a run and lunges, but I'm ready anytime of the day really.

Where do you get your inspiration / motivation from? 

Mat - I get a lot of inspiration from new toys, from little freeware plugins to a new guitar or a microphone to new synths. I'm also inspired by restricting the tools i work with like literally down to 1 thing. I recently wrote a tune using only plugins that run on my powercore, it was more an exercise to see what it could do, but i came up with a line i used on another record.  

Motivation wise, I think it's good that there are two of us, pushing each other along. There are big highs and lows in this game, its good to have someone to pull you up and out of the lows and to ride the highs with. 

Chris -  Anything really -  a noise, a record, human endeavour, loved ones and bills to pay. 

What do you do when you're not feeling inspired? 

Mat - Normally I just plough through, there's always shit you can do when you're not feeling inspired though that can make the times when you're hit with inspiration quicker and easier to get that idea down. A tidy studio is one of them haha. 

Chris - Just live life.

Do you start a tune from scratch, or do you usually have a drumset/template/etc to work from? 

Mat - Always from scratch, unless we're melding two or three ideas together. We don't have drum templates or anything like that, surely you'd end up with the same drums on every track? I once set up a template session with all the aux's and busses i normally use (in an afternoon of feeling uninspired) but I don't think i've used it once. 

Chris - Always from scratch - we live in seperate parts of the country and only see each other at gigs or weddings, so we normally knock something up and send it to each other over our monkey server, until one of us proclaims it finished and sends it to the label.  Recently I used one kick drum in a lot of things but i normally choose from the myriad of sounds at my disposal to start a record.

If you got a chance would you write pop stuff for a major label (if the money was good?) 

Mat - I dunno about write stuff, but i'd definitely produce / mix if the money was there, It's not something that's alien to us, we've worked on pop projects before, along with all sorts of other types of music too.  

Chris - I do, they just haven't signed it yet.

What's the boring, workhorse plugin/piece of kit that you use all the time? 

Mat - There isn't really one that stands out, but when we're bashing ideas down, we use the Massey compressor and eq a lot, they're simple, quick and sound great. The CT4 is my go to first compressor for nearly everything and the VT3 is ace at adding that bit of sparkle to the top of sounds. All his plugins are amazing actually. 

Chris - ooooh Pro Tools elastic audio all the time - a lot when I don't need to either.

What's the coolest bit of kit you've got and do you actually use it much? 

Mat - I've recently acquired this amazing scottish percussion instrument, I think it's called a Bowmore, it makes this great sound when you hit it with a stick. Its hard to describe, almost like a glass cowbell. I can't remember how i got it, I was very, very drunk. 

Chris - A 1972 dictaphone, it's shockingly shit. 

Do you mixdown your own stuff?  Reckon there's a stigma around this? 

Mat - Lately, I've been mixing all our own stuff down. We used to use Ginz, who is a genius in the studio and we'd spend hours berating him while he mixed our records to perfection. I liked the process, it was good to bring it to some different ears, it's got to be someone you trust though. I started geeking out learning techniques a while ago. I used to be completely disinterested in it, but I really enjoy doing it now. I find it quite nerdy - I like nerdy, its a good word. Say it out loud twice. Nerdy. Nerrrrdy. I don't know about any stigmas, I think it makes a huge difference to how your track is presented though, far more than mastering. It did us a lot of good to go to someone who knew what they were doing. It taught us how to be better producers as well. 

Chris - Mat mixes it all, I'm a production nonce.  I actually know nothing about production.

What production technique do you think is really overused / annoying? 

Mat - Neither of us are a fan of that auto-tuned sound. I mean c'mon, Cher? Thats where it should have stopped. Really. You know it makes sense. Stop. Now. 

Chris - Not so much a technique, but singing - a lot of vocals, especially in commercial dance music are really really shit.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out? 

Mat - I think it would have been useful to know that the internet was going to kill any chances of making any real money from selling your own music. I recently read an article about the cassette tape making a bit of a comeback. "Home taping is killing music" the signs read back then. There's no such slogan now is there. I watched, bemused as Lars Ulrich got turned into the most hated man in the industry for fighting against peoples god given right to steal music over the internet. I like the idea of seeing tapes back around again. I think thats really cool. We might even look into a limited run of cassettes for our new album. Its nice to have something you've bought in your hand rather than on a screen.

Chris - It's probably going to be a waste of time and I should have banked on the penis puppetry to take off...

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