Let's Get Down To Brass Tax Man... Deepchild's 'Backroom'

For our third instalment of 'Brass Tax' we have the lovely and local Rick Bull (Deepchild). He has been krunking out ghetto-tech for years now and he is currently in between the US and Berlin. As one of the biggest underground artists of Sydney, his presence hasn't gone unnoticed and I must say he has given me some solid insight into his music making philosophy. Sit back and enjoy the read peeps...

You've been writing and producing your own tracks for a while now. Do you find your writing process has changed much over the years? Do you find it easy to get ideas down or does it involve some grand inspiration?

My writing process has changed fairly dramatically over the last 10-15 years, primarily as a result of changes in technology. When I first started producing dance music, I was using an entirely hardware-based setup with quite a lot of analog synth technology and a random array of 80s' drum-machines and outboard effects (transistor delays, verbs etc). For years, I just didn't have the budget, for example, to work in stereo. My old sampler didn't have much RAM at all - so I'd work in mono, often with low bit-rate samples to preserve memory! I'd rarely sample an entire 'loop' of music in the early years...aesthetically, I think that these restrictions led to me doing a lot more pre-preparation work gathering and laying out samples, and in a way, restricted spontaneity in production, whilst grinding into me a certain bloody-minded work ethic. I used to aim to finish one track per month, and for me this would require daily work to achieve. Now, I'm regularly producing a couple a week or more. It's certainly a huge relief to have the tools and work-flow so much more streamlined - largely as the consequence of software-based production.

Grand inspiration? I'd rarely make such claims these days, tho' I used to THINK that good music was the result of profound or somehow shamanistic influence. I look back at many of my 'inspired' works of years back, and they just sound contrived to me; though there are moments of greatness. The older and more established I've become as a producer, the more important a real sense of fun and playfulness is for the process. I've actually found that most of my favourite pieces have been generated by an almost careless approach. I've had the tendency to strangle a groove's natural grace, so I'm learning to let things breathe a little more again. :)

These days, technically speaking, my approach to production (based primarily in Ableton Live) resembles more a game of Twister or Battleships than anything else. I'll never start an entire project from scratch - in fact, I don't think of tracks as unique entities as much as pieces in a larger sonic mozaic...in a sense, this is a reflection of tracks as 'DJ Tools', but my assumption isn't that the as-yet-uncreated tracks need bare any semblance to each other, rather, my focus begins, ALWAYS, with extended hours of making and cataloging sounds and loops. I'll typically launch Reaktor or FM8 in Ableton and 'blap' out a bunch of 8-bar loops, then file them away. I feel like my artistic contribution to the construction process, at this stage, is simply not to judge what I'm making. Hat-loop, bam...file it away...weird squelch-loop...bam...file it away. Vocal cut-up, percussion loop, anomalous bleep...etc...etc. I'll usually carry around a little portable sound-recorder (my Edirol ER-09) to record vocal ideas (it's usually where most of my finished vocals are actually recorded - I like the lo-fi restrictions of the device!) and sometimes percussive ideas, if particular ones hit. I'll usually have pen and paper at hand (or an iPhone) too...to notate shorter motifs of tracks which I might like to reference. Always taking notes. :)

The fun for me is the process of then loading up a massive Ableton Live session, with literally hundreds of random clips. I'll drag in elements I've previously constructed and jam them out just to see which loops and sounds synergize with each other. Often, I'll then re-render groups of patterns, layering up the basic elements. Some loops 'talk' to each other, some don't. The creative process is about identifying the resonance between the best sonic elements. The narrative, the flow & the structure flows most organically from these relationships.

My biggest creative challenge is rarely the generation of ideas and almost entirely related to editing. My tendency is to clutter tracks when they'd be better off breathing....it's a nervous habit.

When you've got some ideas down, do you know straight away if it's working or not? Do you like to get another set of ears during the early stages?

Generally speaking, I can judge fairly quickly when a jam has potential to blossom. Often though (due to my often-temporary studio and monitoring setups) it will really require 'club play' to ascertain the finer challenges of a mix-down. Particularly working with a lot of sub-bass, both in kick and bass parts, real low-end synergy is a challenge for me. Moreso, writing material to really work on particular club-systems in Europe (eg Panoramabar, Fabric etc) is something that's important to me and also posesses it's own challenges. A high-end system like a Funktion One can really hold a lot of inaudible sub-bass very well, whereas the same mix might prove unlistenable on a smaller non-pro system, or in a club with hard-wired limiters. I write with an increasing sense of physical context in mind and an awareness of where a tune will be mastered.

Regarding structure and general vibe, I really appreciate another set of ears, though it still terrifies me! Girlfriends are a great acid-test for booty-factor and very forgiving perspective-givers on things. I'm terrible at collaborative works and co-productions in general (my ego is rampant), but the more mature I feel my work becomes, the more (personally) I feel that music creation IS a collaborative process. How could it be anything but? We collaborate with our software, our history, our musical references, and (hopefully) our listeners. Without this reality in mind, I feel that music is worse off.

Do you usually start with the same element i.e. drum track, riff, bassline or sample. Is there any method to the madness?

It's like a game of twister and all the loops are invited! I'll never start 'naked' with a solo-element anymore. I find my richest works come from a non-linear approach rather than a 'slow layering' approach. I start with a big mess of clay and cut away - rather than building a clay person from legs, arms, a head...I find that the only way to hear how a single element will work, is in the context of other parts or, at least, in the context of 'sister' elements. For example, kick+bass parts - how do they glue together? Do they rub against each other? Is there pressure and release? Snare + hats - are their shuffles locking? Are they offering a call-and-response?

I think of these little parts as personalities in a conversation. I think of grouped parts as conversations in a room. I think of the track as a group consciousness, sometimes even of strangers. Micro-narratives, stories re-told. Sometimes the stories told don't even make sense, yet in the context of a greater piece, offer some valuable cultural reference. I think that this has always been the wonder of electronic/sample-based music. The power to re-contextualize disparate elements in a way that may have an unexpected, yet undeniable cultural resonance. I've been involved for a few years with assisting the production of a US documentary called 'Speaking In Code', which I feel is a brilliant insight into this notion of contextual mashup. The name says it all. The doco follows Modeselektor and Wighnomy Brothers, primarily... highly recommended for producers to check out.

You seem to always have a great ear for feel. What defines this in dance music for you? Can you give us any secrets on how to achieve 'feel' in tracks or is it a black art?

Aww, thanks. Stylistically, my ears/heart are still very much lodged in 'Black Music' history...from African music, to soul, jazz, hip-hop, funk and techno. I'm not sure if my 'feel' ticks everyone's boxes, but these are undoubtedly my primary influences. I guess that one thing that the Black musical story has taught me, is that the technology we use is only a tool, a conduit for expression. Most of my heroes (Miles Davis, Jimmy Hendrix, Sun Ra, George Clinton, Derrick May, King Tubby, J. Dilla etc etc) really embraced the technology at hand, yet never seemed intent on letting its restrictions dictate or limit their approach to expression. None of these artists were subservient to the technology - in fact, they largely sought to subvert it. Jimmy played with his teeth...he detuned shit. Sun Ra was a brilliant jazz musician, but began to wholeheartedly subvert accepted tonality. Perhaps, closer to my direct experience/influence as groove-broker would be Dilla (though all of the figures mentioned feature deeply for me). Dilla's approach always reminds me that 'feel/groove' is not necessarily mathematically obvious. There are certain patterns and feels which 'work' (for sure!), but there's a magic in calculated risk in PUSHING a feel or element of groove. A definitive part of my 'Deepchild' sound is a conscious desire to play with elements which might push/pull a little. I'd rather be dirty than clean. I'd rather be loose than tight. Story of my life.

What DAW, or combination thereof, do you prefer to work with? Can you give us any standout reason's why it's #1 for you?

I'm using Ableton Live 8 now as my only DAW. I used to use Reason a lot too, rewired through Ableton. Both these DAWs I chose, primarily because they are quick and fun to work with. Neither have spectacular fidelity (at least, not without some concerned effort/awareness of optimizing their sound) but both are fun, quick and can be extended quite deeply and creatively. I've had to travel a lot so it's been really helpful to me to have tools which aren't processor-intensive, which I can also translate seamlessly into a live performance setting. Many of my tracks are actually generated at sound-check for a gig -when I have the luxury of a loud club system to test out freshly baked loops through. I'll load up a live set, save versions and customize arrangements in 10-15 minutes of 'Rick+Funktion One Time'. For me, the interface between live performance and composition in Ableton is just SO compelling. It's my tool of choice.

So let's get down to brass tax man... What are your weapons of choice? Hardware synths, drum machines, plugins, effects and outboard gear? What does it for you in the studio?

Roland SH-101 - my most enduring analogue synth. Nothing has ever come close to its breadth and richness of tone. Simple, direct, brilliant and gorgeous. The step-sequencer is a stroke of simplistic brilliance. It's squelch-tastic.

Elektron Machinedrum - the one drum machine (and I've had SO many) which I've held on to - it travels with me everywhere. Gorgeous build, the joy of a real machine 'feel', crunchy and tactile, and SO much fun to use live. This tool is as much a reminder, to me, of my roots, as it is a production tool. It sounds warm and crunchy...and any tool which Autechre AND John Tejada have as part of their live arsenal must be worth something. It's just a really gorgeous object with frequently surprising sonic potential.

Apogee Duet (Firewire outboard sound-card) - another simply gorgeous piece of kit. Well-built so it travels well (you have NO idea how much gear I've broken in transit!) and does what the package says. 2-in, 2-out channels of gorgeous Apogee sound. This RADICALLY changed my mixes when I bought it.

Yamaha HS80M Monitors - I love these. And yes, they are fairly similar to the ubiquitous NS10 monitors - if you can pull a good mix on these, your mix will sound good on any monitors. I agree - they are mid-priced and available everywhere. I actually own a pair in my Sydney studio, a pair in Europe and a pair for Berlin. Sounds like overkill, perhaps, but it's cheaper than shipping a single pair around to various studios. Great low-end detail for such a cheap monitor. Listening to anything through these, for me, is like coming home....as strange as that sounds!

Native Instruments Battery, FM8, Reaktor - great software tools, gorgeously designed, and fantastically Hi-Fi sound-engine. I generally avoid the obvious presets in packages like Battery (808 kit, 909 kit etc) as they are just SO ubiquitous and identifiable. There's some really great sound gems in all of these packages, especially when you dig deeper and begin to edit. The open library (user generated) for Reaktor is really exciting to me. Thousands of patches and ideas, ready to explore and build. Love these tools.

PSP Vintage Warmer and XENON Limiter - these are my two special software Rolls-Royces. Great, warm and luxurious compressor and limiter. I find them robust and friendly to use - the Vintage Warmer can be very coloured and warm, which I love....whereas the XENON can be amazingly transparent - great for limiting DJ mixes too. I spent what felt like a lot of money on both of these, but they are great. Shame about the dongle requirement though.

Do you have any favourite production techniques that just make a track work for you?

Hmmm...none too many that I am brave enough to share in my own productions. I usually side-chain a LOT (probably too much), even effects-buses. EQing out uneccessary frequencies from every part is an obvious but really important process for me, and one which took me years to remember! Usually, if a track feels a little too stagnant to me, I'll add noise, hum, rumble. When you feel like you're mixing from inside a womb, things just make more sense. Often, I'll edit out the 'womb' elements toward the end of production...but noise is always a comfort to me. :)

When it came to the mix stage of 'Backroom', did you do it yourself or send it somewhere else? If so, who and where are your first choices for mixing your music? Mastering?

Possibly THE most D.I.Y approach to mix and composition I've ever used on a track. I mixed it down in a girlfriend's sister's bedroom in Maroubra, straight off the plane from Europe. In fact, I WROTE the track in the same room and sung the lyric out in the backyard through into my ER-09. There are some 'chime-like' sounds at the beginning which are recordings of the wind chimes in the yard, near the garden gnome. My mix approach was very loose. I put my head close to the speaker at low volume, for most of the high-end mix-down, and turned the mix loud (whilst sitting on the bed - this was a very small room!) to hear the bass and kick levels. Loud, quiet, bed, school desk. You do the best you can, right?

For mix/master, Timetools in Hannover is my #1 choice. It's Martin Buttrich's studios and their mastering is spot-on. Lovely dudes to work with too. My Trapez material is all mastered in-house at Kompakt/Traumschallplatten by their in-house dude. It's certainly got a particular sound...one I'm still learning to write effectively for, given my distance from the studio over the last 6 months in Australia. Dubplates and mastering, in Berlin is, of course, classic and robust mastering. Very high on my list of favs!

Mixing, I've not had so much experience with as I do this mostly myself. My approach these days is a lot more aggressive than it used to be, but I owe a debt of thanks to Ben Feggans at SONAMAX in Sydney, who's taught me so much about mix-downs after doing several for me.

Thanks for your time Rick. I've always been a big fan! What's on the cards for Deepchild in 2010?

Currently in Seattle after a wonderful week of 'gig-aktion' and Olympic mayhem in Vancouver. I'm playing a couple of shows here this weekend before hitting San Fran for a while, where I'm playing with Worthy and various Dirtybirds at Endup. Then off to Detroit for a show there with Konrad Black...then Berlin for the rest of the year. I've just been booked to play Berghain, Berlin, again in July, which is very exciting. It's my favourite club in the world. Next up, release-wise, is Trapez 107 'Fire' 12" - with a great bunch of remixes from the likes of KiNK, Butch and our own Dopamine. More recently, I've done remix work for [a]pendics.shuffle, Dopamine and the brilliant Portformat (proper Dilla-style hip hop joints from them!) and a few others. I should be returning to play Detroit Electronic Music Festival in late May - so right now, I'm based in Berlin for the indefinite future and jumping to and from the USA. Wacky. :)

Deepchild's 'Backroom' release is available on Trapez now.

Love Always,

Rich.