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Random Movement (Innerground)
Hows it all going Mr Movement? It's been a minute since we spoke, have you been busy?
I've been too busy... haven't had a decent night of sleep in months... I've been hammering out the tunes, working on some collaborations and remixes, doing the bassdrive radio show, and playing a number of shows in the United States as of late...
I will never forget the time I came to your studio, in the basement, it was like a mad professor's lab! Vintage Desks and Keyboards galore! Has it got any larger since I last saw you?
Actually a number of those pieces of kit are now collecting dust... My Allen & Heath desk is non-functional, so I'm in the market for a new one... I've really been relying on software much more than I ever thought I would.
Do you feel lazy sometimes setting the mixer up and outputs etc?
like fuck it does it really make any difference!?
Well it really has been a hassle doing things the analogue way, and I feel that since I've kept things all digital lately I've been able to work on things in a much more effective manner. I do have the reputation for being a bit lazy when it comes to writing music (specificly with mixdowns and the technical aspects of things), but when I'm in the right mindset for doing the analytical work, it comes out solidly.
It all does make a difference, but how much of one is sometimes hard to distinguish...
So you were using mainly Reason a few years ago and mixing down on a real desk, are you still doing that? Or are you just mixing inside the box now?
It's been an inside-the-box adventure in the past year... I'm heavily using Logic now, along with the Native Instruments Komplete, a touch of Reason, and the Korg Legacy Plugins - I have to rant about how awesome these sound... I happen to have an MS-20 and am hard-pressed sometimes to be able to tell which instrument sounds better. Loving the Izotope software as well, Radius is amazing. they've also come out with a great sounding vinyl restoration plugin, but the name escapes me atm...
It's Izotope RX!
I cleaned up all the wax I've gotten from the dollar bins!!
Are you on the latest Reason 4? How do you feel they have improved the sound engine? Was that the main reason why you rewired or mixed down externally?
I had alot of issues with the Reason sound engine sounding like, well, Reason... I thought alot of the plugs included with Reason were sub-standard, and that Reason was really more of a scratch pad for creative ideas... Now that Reason does sound so much better, I have been using it sometimes even by itself to come up with main ideas which get used right out of the box, out of Reason... I rely heavily on the plugs in Logic and other audio unit plugs to get things sounding just right though, to this day, and don't plan on changing that any time soon, its all much tighter now.
So what is your main sampler now? Still the NNXT etc?
Kontact and the EXS24... I use the NNXT for a few special features, like the loop in reverse feature is very easy to throw in... Kontact tends to feel very clunky, but the end result tends to be much nicer.
Exactly, the NNXT is probably the best designed sampler I have ever used! I wish more could adopt that easy approach!
Agreed man!
You are very sample based, and obviously dig alot. Where are some of your fav spots to find these gems? Do you ever sample from mp3's?
I sample from anything and everything. I do go out on a sunday afternoon and grab a number of gems from the dollar bins, and I tend to look for obscure material... I was recently using a Jelly Roll Morton vocal from 1922... The library is the cheapest most effective place to sample, in my opinion. I do sample from mp3s alot as well, but I occasionally notice a different in the quality of the sound that makes me hunt down the original recording on CD and rip it, if the situation calls for it.
How do you treat your samples? Do you rex them up afterwards? or Timestretch etc?
I do it all... I rex if i feel like it, or a compress, timestretch, filter... I like to just goof around with the sound until it sounds like mine, but different kinds of effects that I'm going for require a bit of planning... I try to do as little distructive editing as I can.
One distinctive part of your sound is the drums! They have amazing grooves to them! No quantizing for you!?
I try to stay away from quantizing the accents of my music if I can, but sometimes I just turn up the shuffle knob in Reason and let it ride. I like to think about all the drummers I've worked with in various bands over the years, and I like to think about how a real drummer would play things. So much of this music is just about compressing the hell out of everything, and I disagree with that... Louder isn't always better, because you lose the feel of those accents rather quickly.
For sure. I think dynamics are going to come back into the music soon!
GOD I HOPE SO
When it starts to bore the man on the street we may see some change!
Make music sound like music again, not a competition to get things as artificially loud as possible.
It all started with Dr Dre's 2001, that was the loudest thing ever at the time, still stands up 8 years later in loudness!
I never did the comparison, I'll have to check it out.
You seem to like to have the breaks up quite high in the mix, and only a token kick and snare behind just gently reinforcing the breaks. Have you ever made any stuff with just single hits and no breaks?
heh... NOPE
Honest answer! Would you ever consider doing some subfocus type drums for example?
You'll be seeing some changes in the most recent things I'm doing for innerground, actually... Louder snare and kick, but the breaks are still present. Honestly, I'll consider doing anything if I'm feeling it at the time... hence the random movement moniker!
Another notable part of your sound is the lovely rolling subbass. Are these some top secret samples you have collected over the years or directly from soft synths?
I usually just take an evening, eat a bunch of chili tacos with extra ranchero sauce, and then forcibly insert a LDC mic into my anus and wait for the gaseous eruptions to occur.
ok, the real answer now.
I use softsynths, sample the hardware I have, or dig through my file of bass... so its a combination of things...
My favorite things to use for bass are the Nord Lead 2, MS-20, Logic's ES2, Reason's Thor, and Native Instruements Massive. I notice large differences in the tonal characteristics of alot of these toys, but each has their own list of features that the other is incapable of doing... I think it's best to keep the flexibility in terms of sound creation at the top of the creativity list... nothing is more annoying than running into a brick wall because you can't make the sound you want... so features are very important
What would be your ideal plug in if you could make one?
The ideal plugin would be more than just a plugin... I wish I could just hard-wire a supercomputer to my brain and compose like that, and then have an upright bass with a million knobs and faders so that I could perform in the way that would truly show where my love is... I wish I could compose all my music specifically through an upright bass...
Haha why the upright bass?
It's my favorite instrument, and I've playing it for years... I used to be in a number of jazz combos in my city, as well as a local big band... I'm a jazz HEAD, know all the standards and bop tunes, but I never get to really incorporate that into the Soulful Drum and Bass that I do in the way that I want to...
I used to be IN a number...
And finally how do you feel living stateside has affected your music? Do you think you would be still making what you make if you lived in London for example?
I tend to think that you cant help but be influenced by everything around you, all you hear as well as see and experience... If I lived in London I suspect I might be making different music, but being in the states, living in a small farming community, just far enough from civilization that I can keep my sanity, I have been able to keep the music I make as pure as possible. I do this because I love to do it, and I think that not getting caught up in the industry of it all has kept me sane, level headed, and able to enjoy my life much more than many. I may not be as popular of an artist simply because of my geographical location, but I am ok with that, simply because I get to have signifigantly less stress in my life than the Big Guns, and I also have the luxury of feeling like a human being instead of a hit-making music machine.
For more info: www.myspace.com/randommovementmusic
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Production Tips and Tricks
Date Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 April 2008
Location Central London (Westminster)
