Genotype recently released Ritual Dance, an album of stripped back dub influenced drum & bass on Exit Records. Here tells us how he approaches making music in the studio…
How do you approach starting a new tune? Do you have a standard workflow of building beats/bass first, or focus on another part to begin with?
Sometimes a hook or musical ideas comes into my head and I work round that. I don’t like to plan because music is about feeling.
Do you usually wait till you’re in the right state of mind before starting a track or do you just sit down and see what comes out?
Sometimes I’m not in the mood but I switch on the computer anyway.
Does your approach differ depending on which genre you are making?
Definitely… to me it’s about mood… moods determine what you put towards beats.
What time of day do you work best?
Mornings.
What do you do when you’re not feeling inspired?
Take a long walk with my iPod.
Where is your studio set up and what does it consist of? Do you use any hardware or are you software only?
My studio is in my bedroom… I use Reason 4.
What’s your most used plugin?
Delay
What’s the coolest bit of kit you’ve got?
My CDJ 800 mk2s.
What’s the best piece of equipment you’ve ever used?
Even though it’s old, the Akai S5000.
Which sequencer do you use and why?
Reason, it’s very user friendly.
What’s your monitoring situation like? What speakers and headphones do you use?
Surprisingly I use hifi speakers and Sony MDR XD200 headphones.
Any advice you can give us regarding mixdowns?
Not too much bass and not too much treble, plus listen to the tracks over and over, take a little break then listen again as there maybe be something you miss.
What production technique do you think is really overused / annoying?
Distortion.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started out?
More focus gets you further. People only see money sometimes and forget the job.
What else have you been working on recently?
Been doing some downtempo, a bit of old skool, everything to be honest!
What else do you have coming out soon?
I have a track on Broken Audio’s Raise The Bar album, a single on Raiden’s Off-key and Voodoo labels, and Belgium label Mindtech.
Who would you like to co-produce with?
BTK, Raiden, Digital, Morphy, Outrage, Meth, Loxy but that’s about to happen. As you know I’ve collabed with Loxy and Meth already.
What tune would you like to remix?
Flammable by Johnny Jungle.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about?
My 2010 Xmas mix is coming soon; it’s gonna be two hours long… one and a half hours of mixing and the other 30 minutes will be unmixed classics.