For years you've been one half of the US underground house duo Deep Dish. Now you're both taking some time to do your own things. What brought about this decision and what kind of new freedoms has this granted you with respect to your creativity in production and DJing?
Well, Deep Dish has always been a shared vision with many compromises made over the years on both sides. Having gone solo after 15 years together has given me the freedom to explore a musical direction or idea that was not necessarily appropriate for Deep Dish. The same holds true for my solo gigs. I am able to really put my focus into expressing my own vision and agenda and that has been very liberating after all these years. But I think that it will ultimately make Deep Dish a stronger unit when we are able to come to the table again in the near future with a fresh perspective on how to up the ante with our music and gigs.
ON FIRE WITH TRAKTOR SCRATCH
Dubfire is one half of the Grammy Award winning and four-time nominated Deep Dish. The Washington based electronic duo achieved considerable mainstream success with a string of high profile remixes for artists such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and Tina Turner, yet balanced this with strong street credibility through genre-bending productions and collaborations with underground dons such as Carl Craig. Currently criss-crossing the globe on his own, Dubfire talks to Native Instruments about DJing, the Berlin minimal sound, his conversion to TRAKTOR SCRATCH, and what the future holds for him and Deep Dish.
Clearly the Berlin minimal scene has had a profound impact on you lately. When and how did you discover this sound and what about it drew you in so much?
This music is nothing new to me and it has always been a part of my influences and DJ sets ever since I can remember. But within the musical boundaries of Deep Dish, i had to keep my personal preferences in check to a great degree. German electronic music from the likes of Kraftwerk, Manuel Gottsching, Klaus Shultz, Basic Channel, etc. have always been the foundation of my evolutionary career path. But I think that within the larger techno genre of today, the music has appealed to me more and more as it has gotten deeper, slower, funkier and generally sexier.
Your latest release, "Emissions," was signed to Richie Hawtin's Minus label and reached the #1 spot on Beatport's minimal chart, in addition to being played all over Germany. Did this quick success in the minimal scene surprise you?
Was I pleasantly surprised? Yes of course! But I never set out to make a particular genre of music. Richie and I have been friends for years and i've always supported and respected his music and vision and just wanted to do something special for his label in my newfound solo landscape. I never expected it to come out the way it did and was really overwhelmed at the reaction; not only to this particular track, but really the overall body of solo work I've done this year. It's just a great feeling for a producer to see that this very 'underground' style of music appeals to so many people out there.
When you did "Emissions," were you inspired by any particular record? What were you aiming to achieve with this track and how did you use sounds and FX to get this across?
Well, "Emissions" was written and recorded in the span of a day which really surprised me and my engneer, Matt Nordstrom, who's my partner in crime in all of the solo work I've done and the majority of Deep Dish's output over the last seven years. The groove is very loop-based and pretty sparse and it's sort of centered around my wanting to recreate those thunderous cryogen blasts you sometimes get in certain clubs. There are only a handful of clubs with those and I wanted to be able to take that experience everywhere I went by putting it into a track. The three "emissions" are the glue that hold the track together.
As a DJ, you played CDs for many years and started using a laptop-based DJ system a year or so ago. What made you decide this was the way to go and what would you say to other DJs who have yet to embrace this technology?
In a nutshell, I just got tired of burning CDs (or getting read/write errors when trying to burn them!), making labels, maintaining my CD book and lugging it around from gig to gig. Not to mention the fact that I always had to carry a good supply of blank CDs. It just seemed so much more practical to just maintain my iTunes library. I have personally steered many of my fellow DJ friends towards this technology and continue to do so as all are extremely glad they made the switch!
How has technology changed or improved what you can do in the DJ booth versus when you started just playing records? Do you think having a laptop in the DJ booth takes away from the art form and would you ever see yourself going to a completely software/controller-based system when the right technology comes out?
I had always been a vinyl junkie and to this day, really miss that period of my life when I would spend hours wading through the week's newest releases. But I miss the cover art the most; with laptop DJing, I now have to try and remember all of the names of the hundreds of new music I accumulate every week. But as an artist, I believe that you must constantly evolve and with electronic music, it's important to my career that I embrace new technologies which allow me to be more creative with my performance in the studio as well as on the road. Laptop DJing has been a major turning point for me and has created an entirely new set of parameters to work within. Having said that, I still enjoy the marriage of hardware and software so I still like using the Pioneer CDJs with Traktor.
You recently switched to Traktor Scratch. How did you hear about it and what was the transition from your previous system like?
Pablo La Rosa (Native Instruments International Director of Marketing) literally dragged me to the NI booth directly after my Beatport pool party set during the 2007 Winter Music Conference in Miami and gave me a five-minute demo and I was hooked from then onwards. Although learning all about the Trakor at first seemed very daunting it only took me a couple of weeks of gigs to really feel comfortable with the program.
What are the main reasons you switched to Traktor Scratch?
Pretty simple really: the easy looping feature, the multiple screen views, the ability to set up "hot keys" for virtually every function as well as the ability to use external controllers for greater effect. I LOVE the FX as well, especially the reverb and its intensity - it really helps to create dramatic peaks during breakdowns and even better is using it to CREATE your own breakdowns! I also love its simple hookup.
How did you like the sound quality of the software and the Audio 8 DJ?
It was quite obvious from the first gig I used Traktor that the sound quality was literally the difference between night and day compared to Serato! I had always had problems following a DJ who was playing vinyl or CDs as the sound of Serato's box was just so digital and harsh and I could never quite match levels. Trakor really made my 320kbps MP3s sounds more like AIF or WAV files.
You've been touring with Traktor Scratch for the past month or so. What are some of the bigger gigs you've played and what do you think of the system's reliability and performance?
Well, the biggest event I've done had to have been Creamfields Buenes Aires where I payed to about 10-12,000 people. Traktor performed beautifully and really elevated the kinds of sets that I'd been doing prior to making the switch.
You recently got into the MIDI assignment part of Traktor Scratch and have a custom-configured setup for your FaderFox controller. Tell us how you've got it set up and how this has changed the way you are able to interact with the software and your crowd.
Having the Faderfox DX2 controller has made a huge difference not only in the way I use all of Traktor's FX, but also the way I perform and interact with my crowd. I love its simple setup, color-coded buttons as well as its easy layout. Laptop DJs get criticized all the time for focusing their attention onto their computer screens for the majority of their sets which can interrupt that connection or chemistry with the crowd. But the Faderfox liberates you from all of that. And even though it comes with a few presets, it was a lot more fun and useful to create my own.
Have you started using Traktor 3.3 software with Traktor Scratch yet?
Well, up until about two months ago, I had been a Serato user for nearly two years. And towards the end, I started to get really bored with its limitations; it seemed that the company never really took into account the needs of the more electronic-based DJ, predominantly favoring hip-hop or scratch DJs. And so once I began using Traktor Scratch I was completely blown away, not only by its interface, but by its incorporation of internal FX, looping, true waveform display, and the list goes on and on. The other thing I noticed was how vastly improved the sound quality was over my Serato box. And now that i've gotten very comfortable with Traktor Scratch, I'm actually slowly testing out Traktor Studio, especially for its ability to use four decks and its customizable interface.
You recently started a new label"SCI+TEC. Where can we find your releases?
Well, initially the releases were exclusive to Beatport and iTunes but we've recently inked a deal with German-based digital distributor Zebralution so they will be available on virtually every download site in the coming weeks.
What's your favorite club/city to play in and why?
Probably Womb in Japan although I have had the pleasure of playing at some amazing venues this year. But the Japanese crowds are just on another level; you can really feel the love in the room and you know that they're there for the music first and foremost and that ultimately ups my game and makes me play better.
What's in your studio these days equipment-wise? What NI plug-ins do you use regularly and why?
I'm going to let Matt answer this one.
Matt: The heart of the studio is an Apple G5 running Logic and Ableton. Working primarily in the box, I rely on the NI plug-ins like Massive and FM8 a lot. The sound is amazing and the interfaces make them very easy to manipulate. Battery has always been a mainstay for me as well, especially with its incredible sound library. My hardware setup is very minimal but that said, i couldn't live with out my Fatso.
The minimal sound is difficult to achieve because it's all about making the track sound big but with just a few basic elements. What's the secret to doing this?
I wish I knew! LOL! It really boils down to picking the right elements to fill up that space. So while the production may be sparse, you've got just a few key elements playing off one another and creating an atmosphere. It can be just as complicated to produce a so-called "minimal" track as doing something with layers upon layers of parts.
Any new mix compilations coming out to follow up your recent Global Underground release?
There are no specific plans as of yet but I have been in talks with both Global Underground and a certain German label about doing something in the fall of 2008.
