DSF Q&A Sessions 17: Vaccine

[qwaycee_]

[murky21]

I think Cascade Failure is one of my favourite pieces of work in any genre. When it finally got released that was a great day, after hearing it in a few mixes (I didnt even know it's name back then). Its a song that means a lot to me for various reasons, and it is so good it makes me quite emotional, ha.

Question: It is a very understated, chilled track, but when I heard it mixed with other beats on your big up mag podcast it brought it alive which added a whole new dimension to the track for me. When you started to build it, did you intend it to be a stand-alone song or was it written to become part of your dj weaponry? And kind of the same question but do you always have an idea in your head of what you want before writing a track or is it more of an ad-hoc and dynamic process?

much respect to yourself, and thanks.

[little boh peep]

Okay, sorry about the delay - I've been ill and studying for finals.

thanks for doing this again. to get things rolling and to get the obvious out of the way care to give a quick run down of your kit list both hardware and software?

I'm on a PC running Renoise 2.6 with various softsynth plugins. No point in outlining the PC's specs as I'd just embarrass myself, but suffice it to say, the last time we upgraded it was January 2007, and as soon as a pile of money falls into my lap, it's going straight into a new PC...

Additionally hardware-wise, I have: a MOTU 828 MkII on sound card duties after much fiddling with the drivers and USB ports, Dynaudio BM5A monitors, a Samson Mixpad 9, a Behringer UB1002 mixer, an M-Audio Radium 49 MIDI controller that likes to enter command line data while I'm edit mode in Renoise, a Novation Nova, a Novation Launchpad, a Korg o5R/W, a Korg NanoKontrol, a Roland R-8 with 808 and 909 expansion cards, a Nakamichi CR-1A Cassette Deck and Sony Mini Disc for sample use, a Shure SM58 Mic, Sennheiser HD280 Pro studio headphones, and a Crumar Performer that we got it for a song and dance on Craigslist, is literally older than I am, and needs repairing. It would make a lovely throne for Astrocat in the meantime. (http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- ... 4563_n.jpg and http://slog.thestranger.com/files/2007/06/astrocat.jpg for comparison's sake.)

would you mind explaining how you're using renoise in a live setting? how well does the program lend itself to that kind of use?

In a nutshell, I figured out what basslines, keys, and/or vocals I could reasonably play or trigger live, then rebuilt the rest of my original songs from scratch in two very, VERY long project files (roughly half hour length, 120+ channels, 350+ meg worth of samples, tens of VSTs and VSTis), one at 140 bpm, one at 170 bpm. Because each song is built from one-shots, I can do remixes on the fly - trigger samples from one song over another, mute channels, loop sections, etc. I tab between the two project files over a breakdown in the 140 section to transition. If this is like Sanskrit, I'm sorry - it's easier to show someone than explain. It took about 60 hours over the course of 4 weeks to build this incarnation of my set, and every time I go in and change the running order or slot something out for a different tune, it's another few hours' work.

As to whether Renoise lends itself to that kind of use live, it's only as good as your laptop specs, how you've built the project file, and how well you improvise. Initially I tried to do a Renoise show with stems rather than one-shots, prior to Renoise 2.6 and the autoseek feature on long samples, and it was not terribly successful, to put it politely. Renoise was designed to track music in, not to perform live with, and I've found out the hard way the limitations of the program. Long samples, very large project files, lots of channels, etc - even if your computer is top-of-the-line spec-wise, you may still get crashes, you may not be able to save your work, you may not even be able to load the project file in the first place, etc. Again, this is not Renoise's fault, because it's being used for something it wasn't programmed for - a monstrous project file rather than streamlined tracking. Think streamlined (which I should do the next time I revise my live set, really, and not have let it become the lumbering behemoth it has become) and you'll be fine. If I had another 60 hours to sink in I'd rebuild it again from scratch, knowing what I know now.

Hi Vaccine, I'm curious as to where you source your drum sounds from? (if it's not giving away too much of the magic, aha)
Just happened to check, and 'Breathless' is currently #1 most listened to track on my iTunes... I love your work! Simply amazing.

Entirely from the sample collection my husband has amassed, quite honestly. He produces as ASC, you may have heard of him... the drums in "Breathless" are one-shot hits reinforcing a break I pitched down and cut up from a sample CD BT did called "Breaks from the Nu Skool", or some name like that. I could be coy and not be so specific, but that would defeat the purpose of this Q&A. Knowing where drum samples come from doesn't kill any magic I don't think.

oh snap! I was at that show loved your set that night, when I went around to the side and saw you were using ReNoise my fucking jaw dropped lol.

Onto my question.. what's your favorite type of music to produce, to DJ, and to listen to?

Small world! You should have said hello and introduced yourself.

My favorite kind of music to produce right now is probably the "autonomic" 170 stuff. I just love the way the beats bounce at that tempo, and the lack of rules (which someone else asked about a few questions down, and I'll address in a bit), the sophistication in sound design, and overall spaciousness is what originally attracted me to dubstep almost five years ago. Also anything with vocals - I love using vocals, I think they add so much character and relatability to a track. Likewise with DJing 170 bpm is my favorite thing to play, although I hope I'll always have enough 140 bpm music that I like enough to drop in my sets! It's intentional here by the way that I'm classifying things by bpm, not by genre. When I'm thinking about DJing, I'm thinking about how I can create a narrative with different pieces of music and mix that narrative without shoes-in-a-dryer, not about playing "dubstep" or "drum and bass" (read that with air quotes). Anyone who's heard my studio mixes knows I don't pay attention to genres, just a series of tracks that I think sound correct together...

My favorite kind of music to listen to depends on the context, but around the house it's strictly ambient, shoegazey indie, and/or however Helios is classing himself these days. I love me some Helios. So - easy listening, essentially. I don't typically listen to "dance music" (more air quotes) unless I'm either selecting tracks for a mix, or exercising. Before I started producing I never used to physically need soft sounds or silence, but my ears take such a beating now, I do. Has this happened to anyone else?

I'll get to the rest of the questions tomorrow and over the weekend. Again, my apologies for not starting to answer these sooner - blame the brain and not the heart.

[deadly_habit]

since we have so few renoise producers that pop up in the q&a's care to share any tips or tricks workflow wise that commonly might be overlooked?

[step correct]

How long does it generally take you to finish a tune?



P.S. We'd really like to have you come out and play in Santa Barbara sometime!

[86bass]

Good read

[little boh peep]

For your live/DJ shows, what MIDI controllers do you use, and do you actively dislike touching your laptop whilst playing?

Touching my laptop is a necessary evil I'm afraid - I don't use a MIDI controller live. I got used to using the computer keyboard in our studio to play notes rather than our MIDI controller's keyboard, and that habit stuck for my live show. I've been practicing with our Novation Launchpad in Renoise - and watched my husband playing with it and Ableton to even greater effect, which may also be an option in the future - but I don't feel confident in it enough to take it on the road with me yet - my live sets I feel should be a kind of rich and interesting extension of my studio mixes. You can see a tutorial of Duplex and the Launchpad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZoCscMbW9w

I do actually miss DJing though. We had to sell our CDJs last year due to a lot of unexpected expenses, and if that aforementioned pile of money falls into my lap, having CDJs again is on the wishlist...

On average how long do you spend on a song? and how is the time split up(mixing, arranging, ect)?

On average, a week to ten days. I'll get the basic idea down for a track in a short session or two, then spend the rest of the time expanding the idea, sequencing, mixing it down. Mostly sequencing; I've always found that the hardest part of producing - how do you keep an idea interesting for four or five minutes? Mixing down doesn't take very long because I always do that as I go.

Hi Vaccine. Are you a doctor or a medical student?

It's great that you can juggle between that and making/performing dope music!

Medical transcription student, and very close to finishing my degree! Medical transcription for those not familiar involves converting a doctor's audio dictation into text for a patient's medical record. This might be a simple office visit, a surgery dictation, an autopsy, a pathology or radiology report, etc. A good medical transcriptionist needs to know quite a bit about every medical specialty, type fast, practice exemplary grammar, spelling, and research capabilities, listen carefully, and have excruciating attention to detail. Music has prepared me well for the latter two habits.

As for whether I can juggle it with music, err... I can't, and it's a large point of contention. I have enough time to prepare for gigs and do commissioned (ie: paying $$$$$) tracks, but only barely. I'd have a lot more releases under my belt if not for school - not the least of which is the album I've been slowly writing - but at least I have an education to show for it, and the human body and medicine have always been fascinating subjects for me.

Do you got something to say about your label to someone wanting to make one ?

Have a good business plan, and act professionally towards your peers, artists, and record buyers. This means keep quality control high - you need a reputation for quality more than you need a million releases - keep your word to your artists when you say you'll do something, think about what sets your label apart from the sea of other labels and don't compromise that ethos, send out promos to the DJs who play your sound in a timely fashion, actually ask politely before you put those people on your promo mailing list, and have a contingency plan if something goes wrong, such as losing distribution.

I was going to ask to see a screen shot of fever but since you use renoise, it'll not make much sense! (haha)

I absolutely adore your studio mixes, so do you really think about them cause they really do have a a sense of journey and brilliant progression or are they just on-the-spot kind of things?

Let me do that and get back to you. My husband is trying to install our new RME sound card at the moment and the studio is otherwise disposed. I'll edit this post when I have...

Yes I absolutely think long and hard about studio mixes, thanks for noticing. My favorite mixes before I learned to DJ were always of the journey and progression type - wrong scene, but check out Sasha and Digweed's "Northern Exposure" trilogy for an example - and again as with the label example above, I think it's important to have a reputation for quality and lasting appeal rather than something a listener will flick through once and move on to the next mix.

thank u so much for doing this

1) Most of ur drum lines contain artifacts reminiscent of the whole dnb way of doing things. a lot of dubstep artists happen to put the regular reversed snare somewhere but urs always make me think of a forgotten dmc routine from 2034 that would be found in deep cosmos... soemthing really unreal... with all sorts of reversed, chopped bits thru.. in a deep sea of delay and reverb...

2) what do u use for verb and delay? whats ur favourite verb/delay plugin?

3) ur tracks sound crazy warm... does it come from cleaver, not too agressive eqing ? (as in letting bass mingle with the mids and his and not cutting every part of the spectrum apart from the rest so much)... see, i tend to realize more and more that lots and lots of sharp eqing ruins the vibe of a track and i was wondering what was ur opinion on the subject.

My pleasure.

"The d&b way of doing things" is probably due to learning to produce from my husband, who's pretty well-known in drum & bass. It's interesting you hear that influence, as when I try to write things at drum & bass tempo, he says I'm subconsciously bringing my dubstep influence to it.

For reverb and delay, I use Renoise's native reverb and delay almost exclusively, along with Mykrasound Stereoecho, and various plug-ins by Audio Damage such as Dubstation for delay, and Reverance and the now-defunct (I think?) Deverb for reverb. Deverb is INCREDIBLE for a low-fi feel.

Warmth is down to sample choice, I don't do a tremendous amount of postproduction on my drums, or even on the track as a whole after rendering. Start with quality sounds, and EQ and/or compress as necessary.

Do you think there's much of a future left in the subby 140 bpm halfstep sound? I see a lot of dubstep pioneers moving on to other sounds, whether it be 2-steppy/housey/jukey/brostep/whatever type stuff and i was just wondering what kind of role you see for the classic dubstep sound in the future.

I hope so? If not you'll find me in a corner clutching my vintage Toasty and Loefah records and crying into my spirulina. If I'm honest, I'm glad I got into dubstep when I did in 2006, as the majority of what's classified as dubstep now doesn't appeal to me as "dubstep" - that doesn't mean it's bad, it just means don't call it dubstep. If you take out the "dub", by definition it is no longer dubstep.

Music moves in circles though, so who knows, maybe as soon as next week there will be a resurgance of that sound. It took drum & bass getting ridiculous and incestuous and self-parodying before the autonomic-type sound became popular and revitalized it for a lot of listeners.

now, my question... to be honest i dont have a specific question, but maybe you have some cool production related advice for us? maybe something you wish you knew when you started producing.

okay, one specific one: on the high grade mix of fever, what exactly did you do to the bass? it really stands out from anything else i've heard, really powerful

Regarding advice I wish I'd known when I started producing, I have a few pieces. Mix down as you go so you don't get too attached to how something sounds un-effected or un-EQed and you're not doing major surgery once the track is fully written. Know how to use the plug-ins you have at your disposal. And the biggest one for me personally - don't be afraid to experiment with drum, bass, and melody placement. Some of the best music comes from experimentation and unintended accidents. The bass and melodies do not always need to start on 00 (in Renoise terms, in general music terms, at the beginning of a bar). Drums can be in offbeat places, it's okay if breaks aren't completely tight as long as they work groovewise with the rest of your song. Ever tried to mix Burial - "U Hurt Me" for example without some of the drum hits sounding out of time? Yeah, me neither. But the song works beautifully on its own.

The bass on "Fever" remix is the same sub bass sample as in the original "Fever" track, with a simple EQ boosting the 50 Hz and all frequencies above 300 Hz cut off, and - probably the real answer - a plug-in iZotope makes called Spectron. Which of course I no longer have installed so I can't tell you the exact preset , but look it up anyway. I also have Spectron over the primary vocal in that remix, which made it sound (IMO) more cold and otherworldly. Trash and Vinyl by iZotope come highly recommended as well.

More in a bit.

[kuma]

Favorite thing to bake?

[j.nitrous]

Not really production questions but I am a long time huge fan...

Are we going to get your remix of Kito's Cold in our hot little hands in 2011?

Is there a lot in the works for you music-wise next year? I was disappointed to see not too many releases from you snd would love to hear what you're making. I stalk hardcore on Twitter and see very little music updates!

Are you going to tour Australia/New Zealand any time soon?


Thanks!

[Ldizzy]

thx for not being all blurry and stuff, a lot of producers would be afraid to ''give away'' their thoughts on better tools.. proves ur identity as a musician has deeper foundations then just the plugins themselves

[corticyte]

maximum respect if you post a screenshot! i'd never do that!

do you use Renoise's native DSPs much? if so which one is your favourite?
and since scripting is the big new thing in 2.6, if you could write a script to do anything in Renoise, what would it do?

big ups

[little boh peep]

How did you come about to making the autonomic sort of stuff? Do you think it's going to be a move from a lot of dubstep producers? Seems a lot of producers from dnb originally are heading to that sound now from dubstep.

I'd been chatting and swapping tunes with Damon from Instra:mental since 2007, but it was the autonomic podcasts last year which got me interested in writing drum & bass tempo music. Prior to that I'd completely associated the tempo with the kind of drum & bass my husband writes - nothing wrong with it, I just never had the ideas to write drum & bass in the classic sense like he does before the podcasts. Plus when you married the guy who wrote one of the best amen tunes of all time - "Windchime" on Inperspective - that's a hard act to follow.

I did the "Radiate" 170 version as an experiment for my drum & bass friends to play, found I really enjoyed writing at that tempo, and the rest is history. I touched on it earlier in the answers for this Q&A, but the "autonomic" movement has a lot in common with early dubstep - silence between the notes, subtletly, no rules other than a 4/4 time signature and a specific tempo - so that's probably why people are heading that way from dubstep.

I think Cascade Failure is one of my favourite pieces of work in any genre. When it finally got released that was a great day, after hearing it in a few mixes (I didnt even know it's name back then). Its a song that means a lot to me for various reasons, and it is so good it makes me quite emotional, ha.

Question: It is a very understated, chilled track, but when I heard it mixed with other beats on your big up mag podcast it brought it alive which added a whole new dimension to the track for me. When you started to build it, did you intend it to be a stand-alone song or was it written to become part of your dj weaponry? And kind of the same question but do you always have an idea in your head of what you want before writing a track or is it more of an ad-hoc and dynamic process?

I affectionately call that one "Failboat". Glad you like it. Musically I think it's one of my most mature tracks, but I never did arrive at drums I liked as much as the music. It's out now though so it's too late to take it back...

Probably due to learning to DJ before I learned to produce, everything I've written I've always done so in mind with how it'll sound in a mix. Early on I started my live sets with "Cascade Failure" until I realized it went over people's heads, and swapped it out for something dancier.

Generally I do start tracks with an idea of the final direction, but occasionally they take on a different life. Case in point, "Cascade Failure" and the drums. Also, the original version of "Side Effects" had completely different drum hits, and the drum pattern was me doing my best impression of Surgeon's "Whose Bad Hands Are These" (Bad Hands Breaks mix). I revised it at the label's asking, and it was better for it. My remix of Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip's "Thou Shalt Always Kill" was a sketch I'd had lying around for a couple of months that I always felt needed something like a vocal to complete it, then Sunday Best ran the remix competition, and voila, the acapella fit a treat. Likewise with "Ochre" - it started as a crunchy-drummed, synthy sketch, and the vocal was added at the eleventh hour.

since we have so few renoise producers that pop up in the q&a's care to share any tips or tricks workflow wise that commonly might be overlooked?

The "Sync" feature for loops under Instrument Settings -> Sample Properties. Oh my goodness, the number of hours I spent toiling away with basenotes and fine-tuning trying to get loops in time before Sync...

P.S. We'd really like to have you come out and play in Santa Barbara sometime!

Get me a train ticket and I'm there.

Favorite thing to bake?

LMAO, best question yet. Peanut butter and banana fudge brownies. If I like you, chances are I'll show it by baking.

Not really production questions but I am a long time huge fan...

Are we going to get your remix of Kito's Cold in our hot little hands in 2011?

Is there a lot in the works for you music-wise next year? I was disappointed to see not too many releases from you snd would love to hear what you're making. I stalk hardcore on Twitter and see very little music updates!

Are you going to tour Australia/New Zealand any time soon?

Aww.

Yes I hope so, now that Disfigured is getting things out more quickly. Since it's so old in fact, I'm thinking about redoing it... it was originally slated to be a remix 12" with her remix of my "Fever" on the flip, then "Fever" was moved to her EP.

Lots in the works release-wise and tour-wise next year I hope. As I said, I've been finishing school and music's taken a backseat - it's not for a lack of interest, trust - but there'll be an album, assorted 12"s, and job willing, tours of Europe and Australia/New Zealand.

thx for not being all blurry and stuff, a lot of producers would be afraid to ''give away'' their thoughts on better tools.. proves ur identity as a musician has deeper foundations then just the plugins themselves

You're welcome. I understand not wanting to give all your production secrets away - the process of making art can be a deeply personal and intimate thing - but technical knowledge like what plug-ins someone's using is a different animal from ideas. Even if I had Burial's samples and sequenced in Soundforge as he purports to - ie. the technical aspects of what makes Burial Burial - I'd never sound like Burial because I don't have his ideas. Only Burial has his ideas.

Screenshot is still coming. Installing the new sound card somehow killed the keyboard and a trip to Fry's Electronics was in order.

[j.nitrous]

Amazing. You've made my day! Looking forward to 2011 even more now.

[alley cat alicia esp]

[sixth sense]

Screen shot of a finished track?

[cloak and dagger]

I don't know Renoise, so can you redo one of your tracks in Cubase and then post a screenshot please? Thanks!

[pete_bubonic]

I don't really have a decent questions, just wanted to say your music has been an inspiration to lot of stuff I have written over the years.

[alley cat alicia esp]

I don't know Renoise, so can you redo one of your tracks in Cubase and then post a screenshot please? Thanks!

[Fiendish338]

Hello Christine

In my opinion you and your husband are two of the best and most popular Renoise users. I try to make music with Renoise and found it good for sound design because of the sample draw and record FX features which have allowed me to make my own samples.

Do you use these features and if so would you ever release a sample pack or xrns for remixing?


Yours Hopefully

John

[briskisgoodforu]

Assuming you have your music mastered, do you do it yourself or do you pay a professional to do it?

I've noticed some people believe mastering makes music sound "professional" while some respected producers claim they dont notice much difference between their pre mastered and mastered music.
How different would you describe your music before and after mastering?
What processes do you go through regularly with each sound to promote clarity in your mix?

Thanks