In this article:
Ben Allen ![]() Mixing R&B ![]() Babydaddy • Dan Grech-Marguerat The Scissor Sisters' first album, recorded in a Manhattan apartment, sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. The follow-up sees them expanding their horizons, while keeping their DIY ethos very much intact. Artist/Producer ![]() Writing & Producing With Robbie Williams Despite his best efforts, Stephen Duffy's solo work never quite made him a superstar — but it did get him one of the best co-writing gigs around. Producing Kasabian & Arctic Monkeys ![]() Yellow Magic Orchestra goes Latino Yellow Magic Orchestra helped pioneer the use of electronic instruments and sampling. Now Uwe Schmidt, aka Señor Coconut, has used the same techniques to render their greatest hits as Latin dances, with contributions from all three original YMO members. Recording Morph The Cat ![]() Folk Music For The 21st Century The idea of bringing folk music up to date is not a new one, but few people have taken it quite as far as Jim Moray. His material may be traditional, but his approach to music technology is as modern as it gets. Andy Jackson David Gilmour's chart-topping solo album was recorded on his own Astoria houseboat, a floating slice of studio heaven. Engineer Andy Jackson describes the making of the album. Mike Elizondo ![]() The Current State Of Affairs What can we, as engineers or musicians, do to prevent our recorded legacy being lost? Record Producer ![]() Richard Aitken of Nimrod Productions ![]() Writing & Producing in LA The success of Avril Lavigne's debut album Let Go catapulted The Matrix to the front rank of songwriters and producers. Since then, they've moved in ever wider musical circles, culminating in their work with nu-metal pioneers Korn. Producing Hip-Hop Miami is now a hip-hop centre to rival New York and LA, and Cool & Dre are two of its most active beatmakers, songwriters and producers. Craig Bauer Craig Bauer has been part of Kanye West's career from the beginning, and as a mix engineer on the smash hit Late Registration album, he had to marry West's artistic perfectionism with his own technical standards. Roy Thomas Baker ![]() John Fryer ![]() Harry Gregson-Williams ![]() December 2009
Click image for Contents
Other recent issues: | Armin Van BuurenArticle Preview :: Producing TrancePublished in SOS August 2009 People + Opinion : Artists/Engineers/Producers/Programmers Not content with being one of the most celebrated DJs in the world, Armin Van Buuren has also had a string of club and chart hits. We asked him to talk us through the production of a top-notch trance anthem.
“Imake what they call underground dance music,” remarks Armin Van Buuren, as we talk in a hotel prior to his set at Londons Ministry Of Sound. Youd be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the underground part of that description. After all, this is a man who has been at pole position in DJ magazines list of the top 100 DJs since 2007, and has produced a string of hits since bursting onto the scene with his track Blue Fear in 1995. His popular weekly radio show, A State Of Trance, also recently celebrated its 400th episode, so its probably fair to say that Armins particular brand of underground is about as well concealed as London Transports. Unlike the Tube, though, Armin shows no sign of stopping. A variety of new remix and production activity is continuing apace at a newly constructed studio in his home town of Leiden in the Netherlands, where he frequently works alongside his studio partner Benno De Goeij, half of the production duo Rank 1. To begin with, I asked him how he typically sets about putting together a track from scratch; unsurprisingly, its his wide knowledge of the music scene, built up through his DJing, that informs the process from the earliest stages. “Usually we start by listening to other records. Theres a few records around at any given time that have this hype around them, so all the producers listen to these records. A little while ago you had Deadmau5, with his sound, then you had people copying Deadmau5. We were listening to Deadmau5 as well, so our sound was a little influenced by that. And you can clearly feel the whole dance community shifting in response to the best new records. “Im a trance DJ, thats what people know me for, but I try to follow the trends as well. The bpm over the last couple of years went down, for example, and productions have a lot of influences from minimal and electro percussion right now. If were making a track or a remix, we listen to the current sound a lot. You have to go on iTunes and listen to a lot of other records. Thats really, really essential. Youre not copying them, youre being inspired by them. The Beatles listened to Bob Dylan — its that kind of thing. You kind of go with the flow. DJs wont play your record if it doesnt sound enough like the other records, because theyre building a set and theyve got to rock the crowd. So no matter how many hours of production you put into it, if it doesnt sound a little like the previous record or the record after it, then its not going to fit, and theyre not going to play it because itll make their set sound really weird. So doing research is extremely important.” Theme & Variations
The genesis of a new track is frequently a single main theme. “Usually we start with an eight-bar main theme, with maybe a piano melody or some strings, and drums and a bass line going. In the studio weve synced up the main Mac via MIDIoverLAN, which is a really quick way of working. I can be sitting behind the keys making a melody, and my sequencers running, sending out a MIDI clock to Ableton or Logic. Benno, with the headphones on, can have a laptop connected to the system making loops, while Im making a bass line or melody, and its always in tempo. It saves us a lot of time because two people can be creative at the same time; sometimes we make a track in half an hour! In fact, the strange thing is that all my biggest tracks were written in under two hours.” ...
Published in SOS August 2009 | Wednesday 25th November 2009 Dan Austin & Jez Williams ![]() Black Eyed Peas For their fifth album, The END, Black Eyed Peas main man will.i.am took the band — and their long-serving mixer Dylan Dresdow — in a new direction, with stunning success. Jez Coad & Simple Minds Thirty years after their debut, Simple Minds returned to their roots as a live band and relit the old fires to record their most impressive album in years. U2 : 'No Line On The Horizon' ![]() Producing The Way I See It Artist and producer Raphael Saadiq has channelled his love of classic soul records to create something convincingly vintage, yet fresh-sounding and alive. Ronald Prent, Darcy Proper & Wouter Strobbe: Blu-Ray Audio Few artists so far have taken advantage of the Blu-Ray formats potential to deliver stunning audio quality. A concert film by Dutch metal act Within Temptation shows whats possible. Recording electronica live in the studio Live performance and spontaneity are everything for Animal Collective, so capturing the magic of their unique electronic psychedelia on CD was a huge test for engineer and producer Ben Allen. Lily Allen: 'The Fear' — Its Not Me, Its You ![]() Christmas In Transylvania For most bands and most record labels, trekking to the wilds of Eastern Europe to record a Christmas album would be a project that would remain filed under Nice idea, but... Glasvegas, however, are not your ordinary guitar band. Seal: Soul 'A Change Is Gonna Come' ![]() Lady Gaga 'Just Dance' Transatlantic number one Just Dance was not only a breakthrough for Lady Gaga, but also for her producer RedOne and mix engineer Robert Orton. Record Producer ![]() Rolling Stones 'Shine A Light' DVD ![]() John Cummings & Gareth Jones Six albums into their career, Glaswegian instrumental band Mogwai decided to take the producers chair themselves. Oramics In the early 60s, pioneering British composer Daphne Oram set out to create a synthesizer unlike any other. The engineer who turned her ideas into reality was Graham Wrench. Producing Almost Everyone ![]() Matteo Scumaci & Robin Haller The task of bringing Hanggai's Chinese folk music to Western ears was challenging enough in itself. But then things started to go wrong... AC/DC Black Ice How do you capture the essence of pure rock & roll? For Mike Fraser and AC/DC, the answer was simple: get the sound right at source, track to analogue tape, and don't mess about with the results! Craig Potter: Recording The Seldom Seen Kid When they began work on The Seldom Seen Kid, Elbow had no record label and no producer. Two years later, it's brought them mainstream success at last. Kings Of Leon: Sex On Fire ![]() | |||||||