How do you approach a tune? Drums first? Melody?
On the whole we generally start with drums. When we're both working together it'll only be a basic beat that goes down, just to get the groove going. We'll then lay new parts down on top of that then the beat will be developed at a later stage. Sometimes beats get started and worked on pretty intensively so they're ready to use / ready to drop straight into a track, then sometimes (but less often) a hook, melody or bassline idea gets knocked down and it's just left at that to develop later when we're both in the studio.
What time of day do you work best?
It would seem early to mid-afternoon is when we work best, although this is probably only because we've had a few hours to wake up and get our heads into what needs to be done! However, whenever we're both locked into an idea with a good plan of where we're heading we tend to be able to crack on at pretty much any hour of the day or night.
Where do you get your inspiration / motivation from?
We used to get a lot of vibes for our tracks from listening to other tracks we were really digging, in whatever style that may be, but this has become increasingly less so as we've become more and more picky on what we think is actually clever and innovative music. At present, inspiration is appearing more and more from listening to the radio, be it Kiss, 1 Xtra etc, and from listening to random albums (both old and new) from our music archive. Also, after working on a track for an hour or so and there's some basic ideas down, a cup of tea gets brought into the mix usually, once consumed this tends to leave the ears slightly refreshed, so we can quickly establish if what we had down is something worth running with and finishing. The fresh ears (even after only 10 minutes or so) can often help you realise what it is that is needed to finish the track.
Our motivation comes from listening over to all the stuff we've finished/released so far and knowing that we can do better! Whilst this might reflect a rather 'perfectionist' attitude, from an artist's point of view we're always looking to develop our production / engineering techniques to further our sound and skills.
What do you do when you're not feeling inspired?
Smoking (James) and drinking tea (both) is the first port of call! We really couldn't tell you what we do when inspiration is lacking, we generally just sit about in the studio winding each other up until one of us breaks and subsequently boots up the sequencer! Sometimes when we have people round working on projects/collabs etc. then a walk round the block or park may occur, but over time when there's just two of us in the studio we've quickly established that that involves far too much effort.
Do you start a tune from scratch, or do you usually have a drumset/template/etc to work from?
Tracks are always started from scratch, although as we said before, sometimes we might work with some old drum parts or similar just to get us rolling. As for a template, it's something we've always sorta liked that idea of, but its also something that we've never really been arsed to set up at the same time. The thing is when we're putting ideas down, with so many different toys to make noises with and then recording percussion etc, there's no real order in which things get done. We've got a feeling that having a template project could really stifle that haphazard creativity process! I'm sure it would be possible to set up something that wouldn't, but that sounds like way too much hassle and may hinder a working process that we're pretty happy with.
If you got a chance would you write pop stuff for a major label (if the money was good?)
We'd quite happily write pop music! Even if there weren't large amounts of cash involved, it's something that we definitely want to do in the future. We've come to realise how skilled you need to be to produce pop and it's a good goal to have on your horizon. When we reach that level then we know we'll be a force to reckoned with!
What's the boring, workhorse plugin/piece of kit that you use all the time?
The white boxes of joy (TL Audio) get lots of parts pumped through them for some added eq / compression / general crunch, they're far from boring though! Other than that I suppose stock eq / filter / compression when using it out of habit and to tailor the sound rather that for effect.
What's the coolest bit of kit you've got and do you actually use it much?
The digital radio's getting a good workout right now - 'Are you gonna bang doe?' - and is getting increasingly rinsed late evening. Our Moog is cool, and obviously gets a heavy workout. The white boxes of joy are also well smart, and as mentioned, are used all the time. Other than that there's an Akai (MPC) filter and Yamaha SU700 kicking about that we're aware are pretty cool, but we don't really use them enough to comment. There's plenty more bits of hardware in our studio setup that are what you might consider to be 'cool', but we use them too much to think of them as so.
Do you mixdown your own stuff? Reckon there's a stigma around this?
Yes, and we always have done. We're of the ilk that to be a good producer you've got to be a good engineer. For us, you need to properly understand what frequency and stereo placement are all about to be able to produce 'properly', so in terms of mixing down, we wouldn't have it any other way.
It shouldn't be forgotten that the role of the mixdown engineer has a pretty specific and important position to play in the completion of commercial music. As far as pop music goes, an artist would never be asked (or expected) to mix their own work, so in this case there's nothing to be ashamed of in not mixing down one's own material. However, as we're only making dance/club music, and it's often really not that complex, those who are making it should really find the time to master how to mix properly!
What production technique do you think is really overused / annoying?
The obvious choice here would be sidechaining. But having thought about it for more than five seconds, we don't reckon it's particularly annoying or overused! Maybe over-sidechaining a part for effect is though... The old filter LFO on bass lines is also getting pretty tedious (guaranteed we'll end up with an EPs worth of tracks like so now we've said that!).
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out?
It'd be pretty decent if we knew all of what we know now when we started because then we could have been well better at what we do when we first started. It'd also be nice if we could know now everything that we'll learn in the future...
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i.d.
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