Producer Interviews

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• Lomax

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Lomax (Liquid V, Critical, Innerground)

Hope you are doing well Mr Lomax? What are you up to in the studio this week?

Well I haven’t done much music the past few weeks but have just had a chance to get in the studio today, so I’ve been finishing off a tune that I started a while back.

What is your usual schedule? Do you treat this as a job or just go in when you feel inspired?

I tend to write when I am feeling in ‘creative’ mode, that’s when I get the best ideas down. I might work hard on tracks for a few weeks, then take a few weeks off and come back to them and see how they are sounding. I have a full time job so its not always easy getting the time apart from weekends.

So I think you are known as the collab king working with Bcee and Kubiks alot, just recently you have branched out and done a few solo things any reason for this other than Kubiks' singing skills?

Well I did a lot last year with kubiks and bcee. I wanted to try a few new things for 2007, having been really into the harder sounds that were coming through, metalheadz kind of sound, so I wanted to experiment with some new material.

Can you break down a kit list of some of the various bits in your studio?

My setup is really minimal these days. Like most producers I used to have a lot of hardware gear, akai samplers, mixing desk etc but now I do everything virtually. I run a high powered laptop with an edirol soundcard, an evolution midi keyboard and genelec 1029A moniters with 1050A sub. I still have some old synths but don’t tend to use them much now, a ‘quasimidi raven’ which is basically built for making techno and gabba (!) and a virus indigo, which is great for your classic bass rinseouts.

So a lot of up and coming producers will be delighted to hear that you're creating your tunes all within Reason! Its like sometimes people can't believe it can be done! Even when the program has been proved time and time again in top productions! How do you feel about this Reason Love/Hate relationship?

Basically my take on it is, if you know how to use it properly, it’s a serious piece of software. I’ve been using it from day one so I’ve learnt how to get a good sound out of it. I’m not saying my mixdowns are amazing, in fact they are far from it, but generally if you know what you are doing you can get a nice sound out of it.

What is your starting process for a tune? Is it a sample?

I try to start by getting a combination of samples that I think will work well together. Then I will open a fresh session and work on a beat, once I have something simple down I will chuck the samples in and work on a 4 or 8 bar loop. I have all my samples arranged quite nicely in reason so I might try and introduce more elements, until I build up a solid groove; from there on the track can come together quite quickly.

Obviously you will be using the Redrum for your single hits, do you split up the outputs and send them off for individual eqing?

Yes, I tend to EQ every element of the beat if required, so they have to be grouped and treated separately.

What do you think of the mastering suite in Reason 3? To my ears the eq and compression are as good as some of the top Pro Tools plug ins, do you use these tools often?

I agree, but its easy to get carried away and ‘overdo’ it. I tend to compress every sound through aux’s on the mixer, and eq everything individually, so there’s not a huge amount I do to a whole mix.

Where do you get your samples from? Do you ever touch sample cds or refills?

All the time! There are some great sample cds out there, but funnily enough I stay well away from the drum n bass ones. I find you can get much better use out of a hiphop or a breaks sample cd for example. Also there are certain refills that I use in every tune, especially for drum hits.

Any special NNXT tips you'd like to share with us?

I don’t really use it to be honest. Sounds a bit crazy I know, but I have always stuck with the NN19 sampler.

So lets talk bass.... you have been coming up with some excellent tunes with the sickest bass sounds! Are these samples that you are messing around with or are they the reason synths?

A combination of both. But layering up the sounds is what I spend quite a lot of time on, whether it’s a maelstrom bass or a bunch of samplers. I might bounce something down out of reason and resample it, then give it some more treatment.

How long does it take for you to finish a mixdown? What are your fav tunes to reference to whilst mixing?

I definitely mix as I go along, recently I have been rewiring into cubase to make use the ‘waves’ plugins which I am a big fan of. But I get the best possible sound out of Reason before I rewire it, giving me less work to do in Cubase. I don’t bother rewiring every sound, I group drums and bass tracks separately for example.

When giving your tunes out to other DJ's a lot of producers will master the track themselves to get more volume and energy out of the track? How do you achieve this?

I don’t master stuff myself, I just like to get a solid mixdown which is nice and loud and that usually does the trick. I don’t like putting a maximiser or a compressor on the whole mix, it’s a really gay thing to do.

What would you like to see in Reason 4?

Definitely another synth of some sort. Also I think it could do with a few more fx devices. Also I think they could improve the sequencer display which they have never really changed since version 1.

Finally any advice for people that keep blaming Reason for their lack of production!?

You could try and use cubase or logic, but I guarantee your tunes will still sound shit.