In this episode, we ask James Rockhill, aka D‘n'B producer/DJ Kove, to imagine his perfect studio. Although he's had UK Top 40 success and also remixed for John Newmann, Bastille and Rag'n'Bone Man, his studio setup is remarkably minimal. But when he's presented with an unlimited budget and all the time in the world, will he be able to keep his cool? Listen to find out.
Will Betts:
Hi, I'm Will Betts.
Chris Barker:
And I'm Chris Barker.
Will Betts:
Welcome to the MusicTech My Forever Studio podcast.
Chris Barker:
In this podcast, we talk to artists, engineers, producers, and industry leaders about the studio they could live with forever.
Will Betts:
The rules are you can choose a computer, a DAW and audio interface, and then we let you decide on six other pieces of studio kit, hardware or software, and one other non-gear luxury item.
Chris Barker:
And no bundles.
Will Betts:
No bundles.
Chris Barker:
So today we're talking to James Rockhill aka drummer and bass producer in DJ Kove. He'd get his break in 2012 with Viper Recordings. Kove went onto sign to Chase and Status's MTA Records, since then he's entered the UK Top 40 with his own single, remixed huge acts like John Newman, Bastille, and Rag'n'Bone Man, and he continues to release new music until the world is a DJ, recently coming back from New Zealand in fact.
Will Betts:
Okay, so let's meet Kove then in another episode of MusicTech's My Forever Studio.
Chris Barker:
Kove, welcome.
Kove:
Hello. Thanks for having me down.
Chris Barker:
I guess we should kick off straight away with Mac or PC?
Kove:
Mac.
Chris Barker:
Mac.
Kove:
Longterm Mac user from Logic 7 I think when it came on six discs. I think it was about 800 quid back then as well. So yeah, not that I'm particularly happy that I'm locked into Mac permanently because obviously the price keeps on going up and up and up as it does. But yeah, I'm stuck on Logic. I know how to use it. I can't use Ableton. I've tried, but yeah I don't like it.
Chris Barker:
So we've got Mac and Logic.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
There's your DAW. So next choice and these are the three free ones, before we go into, it is audio interface. Remember you can have anything you want here. What would be...
Kove:
Yeah, funny enough, I don't really tend to use one an awful lot at home. But-
Will Betts:
What, you just run off the Mac headphone output, do you?
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
What?
Chris Barker:
Oh my God.
Kove:
I'll come around to why in a mo. Yeah, but I suppose if I needed to input– because I have a little Focusrite for guitars and things like that.
Will Betts:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Kove:
So you know what? I'm happy with the small Focusrite. That does me-
Chris Barker:
Forever? You could-
Kove:
Maybe not forever.
Chris Barker:
It's time to upsell some dreams.
Kove:
Upsell the dream!
Chris Barker:
Upsell some dreams once again on the podcast.
Kove:
Maybe a nice big Motu or something.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
A nice big Motu. How big?
Kove:
24 in.
Will Betts:
24 in.
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Kove:
Just in case I need that space down the line. I think it's all that future proofing, isn't it?
Chris Barker:
But the Focusrite has served you well?
Kove:
Yeah, very well. Very well.
Chris Barker:
Cool.
Will Betts:
And what is it that you're using right now?
Kove:
Oh.
Chris Barker:
It's a little red one?
Kove:
A little red one. Yeah, so the scarlet-
Will Betts:
2i2 or something?
Kove:
Yeah, I'm glad you know my stuff more than I do.
Chris Barker:
We know all the model numbers.
Will Betts:
I just bloody love an audio interface. What can I say?
Kove:
I just plug stuff in, and it works.
Chris Barker:
There you go. We read Maplin catalogues and-
Will Betts:
Oh, RIP Maplin.
Kove:
RIP Maplin. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah. No more of that bedtime reading.
Kove:
They always had the nicest staff on the planet, Maplin.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
Yeah. Always. I miss that shop.
Chris Barker:
I need an adapter. Okay, that's 8.99, sir. Damn it! But it was the only place you could get it from.
Kove:
True.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, many a DJ's lost that little gold adapter and had to run to Maplin.
Kove:
Yeah, that's the only place.
Chris Barker:
In their hotel searching for nearest Maplin to buy that 8 quid gold adapter. Okay, so we've got the audio interface. We've got the DAW, and we've got a Mac. So Logic, the Motu, and a Mac. And now we have to look at the studio vibe.
Kove:
The vibe. Well, that's an expansive term. I'm originally from the sticks out in the country, so I think going back there and having an old barn conversion with lots of natural light and beams and wood. I like that sort of organic feeling. I've never really liked being in studios without any natural light and having that feeling of being lost in time and no idea of what's going on. And I think it's so nice and important of all that vitamin D and all that natural stuff coming down towards you. And also being able to look out into the world rather than just being fixated on a screen.
Chris Barker:
Do you find, obviously being a DJ as well, in a scene that is heavy on the parties.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Do you find that being remote is quite good for not being distracted as well? Do you find yourself every right now getting pulled into like, oh it is a...
Kove:
Well, I do like that sort of remoteness, and it is nice. I think just because it's what I'm used to having grown up. And also was quite a lot of why I got into doing this, because I never had any problem spending a lot of time by myself. Working from home every day, that doesn't phase me at all. And also not being close to anything and not having your mates down the road or anything meant you really didn't have anything else to do apart from sit there and fiddle around on the computer all day. So I wouldn't mind going back to that at all.
Chris Barker:
So what was your first entry point to that then? How did you get say like an £800 copy of Logic or did you have a-
Kove:
I mean essentially just through begging and begging my parents until they gave in because we had, must have been 2003 or even earlier when that first Mac Mini came out, which was the tiny little box.
Will Betts:
I remember the one. Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Kove:
And that had garage band on it. So I think it's one of the first iterations of Apple Loops where you could drag everything and it would tempo match and all that. So I just got fixated of sitting up in the office just dragging this and dragging this. And it was at that time when I was going to pursue a musical education in a proper, formal way. And it was either go down the guitar route, which was my main instrument from about the age of eight or this newfangled thing that I got into. And so I just got fixated on that, dropped the guitar and was like, "Right. I want to do this." And they said, "Okay. If you want to do that, we'll get you this but you have to put all your effort into it."
Chris Barker:
And you did.
Kove:
And I did.
Chris Barker:
Here you are.
Kove:
Yeah, I ended up at Guildhall and got kicked out after a year, so that went well.
Chris Barker:
Oh. What too drum and bass-y?
Kove:
I just didn't turn up to-
Will Betts:
Oh well that doesn't do-
Kove:
And I was a real kicker with university, because all your mates tell you that you don't really have to do anything in first year, but I don't think that applies to music school.
Will Betts:
No, no. I didn't find that.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Shame.
Kove:
Yeah, it really is.
Chris Barker:
And so barn conversion, so inside the barn are we talking like that kind of same country, wooden aesthetic?
Kove:
Yeah, rustic.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
Let's get some big rugs knocking about.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
Yeah, candles. A lot of wrought iron. I love wrought iron. Big fan of that. I mean this doesn't really sound like the most sort of soundproof place on the planet but-
Will Betts:
Sounds like there's going to be a lot of resonating scythes.
Kove:
Yeah, but as someone that rarely uses monitors it wouldn't affect me too much.
Chris Barker:
Wow, we're getting some insights here like no audio interface, no monitors.
Will Betts:
No monitors.
Chris Barker:
Well is this going to be one in the same? Obviously almost everybody on the podcast as we move into your first item is picking some monitors.
Kove:
Well, mine would be I suppose the equivalent of that. I'm picking the Audeze LCD-3s or whatever their latest headphone line is at the time. But the LCD-3 is what I use at the moment, and what I trust.
Chris Barker:
So first item, you're going for headphones, not monitors.
Kove:
Yeah. No.
Will Betts:
Controversial.
Kove:
Controversial.
Chris Barker:
And original. So tell us about like if you grew up in the countryside, I would think you would be used to blasting it out with-
Kove:
Yeah the noise thing was never a problem, and you would think, yeah, I would start with monitors. And I did start with monitors, but it was just something I found hard to use, and then you just start writing at home and you'd be sitting downstairs or whatever and you'd just be plugging in headphones. And I just got so used to that over time that now anything to do with reverb or stereo image, I can trust implicitly because, I know it's a slightly odd thing to say because often people say you can't trust things like stereo image on headphones but I've become so used to that process and through analyzers and thing like that becoming used to how things should look and sound.
Chris Barker:
And I guess you're listening to everybody else's tracks and know the tracks.
Kove:
Yeah, through the same reference thing, and I've found a combination of the Audeze-
Chris Barker:
Is it Audeze or-
Will Betts:
Aud-a-z they call it.
Chris Barker:
Aud-a-z.
Will Betts:
Because it's an American, yeah. Audeze.
Chris Barker:
Ah, okay. I've learnt something new today. I've been saying it wrong for years.
Chris Barker:
I'm staying quiet on that one.
Kove:
But I've found a combination of them and using the Sonarworks headphone plugin.
Will Betts:
Oh Reference?
Kove:
Yeah, Reference. A combination of those two have worked really well and given me good results, but I have started writing recently on the Nuraphones, which if people don't know are the all-singing-all-dancing adaptive hearing headphones because also an integral part of what I do is using a SubPac for getting those bass frequencies and thing like that.
Chris Barker:
Hang on, though, because you're listing so much gear here.
Kove:
I'm listing items now.
Will Betts:
This is interesting though, because the drums in your productions they really hit hard, and I was going to ask about like how are you making sure that the air moves in the right way if you're listening on headphones?
Kove:
So that's a combination of using analyzers and just over time if you're using a transient for a snare, I'm always just going to be using that transient because I know it works and then build the rest of the snare around that.
Will Betts:
What, so layering up?
Kove:
Yeah. I mean I find the spectrum analyzer in Logic is just fantastic for working on drums, and it shows you exactly where stuff needs to be hitting. Again it's just one of those things that I've become so used to over time, but the SubPac, this will link into one item. The SubPac is super useful especially for drum and bass of giving you an idea of where those notes are hitting.
Chris Barker:
So for those that don't know, the SubPac, I mean have you got the one that sits on your chair or you've got the vest one?
Kove:
It's wearable bass. Isn't it?
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
So it's a subwoofer that can sit in a backpack configuration or just sat behind you on your chair, and wobbles as much as you want depending on what frequencies you're putting through it.
Will Betts:
And do you find it to be accurate because that's one of the things that there have been people saying, it's a lot of forum talk. That should be another section, by the way. Forum talk.
Chris Barker:
Forum talk. Yeah. This is going to be all in the forum talk, isn't it? I don't want to go in those forums. I'll cry.
Will Betts:
How accurate do you find it for bass referencing?
Kove:
Very useful in terms of levels of notes, especially if you're making a bass that isn't just using a pure sign as its main fundamental. So if you're like creating a big, warpy bass, quite often those can be up and down depending on the note of what it's hitting or anything like that. So with the SubPac, that can give you a lot of information of where it's hitting and if it's hitting right essentially.
Chris Barker:
So item number one down.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
As the headphones.
Will Betts:
Audeze. And just to be clear, you're not allowed Sonarworks. That's going to be another thing.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
Let's get rid of the Sonarworks.
Chris Barker:
No bundles.
Will Betts:
No bundles.
Kove:
Let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of it.
Will Betts:
Okay, no Sonarworks.
Chris Barker:
So you're definitely going for those headphones over the Nura's?
Kove:
Yeah, well I mean they're not coming with me, but I was just going to mention them as something that's a good, almost a replacement for the SubPac because it's got that same bass intensity.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Kove:
But just on your head rather than your ass.
Chris Barker:
So item number one-
Kove:
Yep.
Chris Barker:
On your head, rather than your ass.
Will Betts:
Where bass should be.
Kove:
And they can put that in the marketing.
Will Betts:
Okay, number two then.
Kove:
Number two would be, for the computer my first plugin I think, which would be Omnisphere. Or Omnisphere 2. 2.5 or where are we at now? 2.6 I think.
Chris Barker:
The latest version-
Kove:
The latest version. I've been a longterm user of Omnisphere. I mean it's just so powerful. It's so deep and so complex that quite often you can just load up a preset, because I think a lot of people have the preconception that it's just an organic sampler and, "Oh, it's got great Gamelan sounds." Or great plucked strings or something like that, but you can get so deep to the point of whacking in a bass sound, FM'ing it. It's got granular synth in it and all this stuff. Incredible effects section. That really unless you're making crazy dubstep basses or whatever, it really is all you need. And the sound samples are so good, and now I think they've integrated the Trilian library into it. The bass sounds from that library are absolutely incredible, because it's all sample based. It has this really nice thick tone to it that I think especially in a lot of these new wave table synths are missing quite a lot of that warmth.
Chris Barker:
It's that consistent that you get with samples is well worth.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
You're talking about bass notes popping out and that kind of stuff. You don't get those sample start times moving along the wave that you have in some of the wave table ones where it's dancing around. So you're not getting that same impact. If you've got a really nice sample note, that hits the same every single time in terms of phase and all of those kinds-
Kove:
It's all been done before. Yeah?
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
I really enjoy manipulating samples. That's really fun for me. So more than creating a bass in Serum, I'll create like a fairly basic bass patch and then re-sample and modulate and stretch. Now you can do so many things with the different algorithms in Logic, it's time stretching abilities. Even by changing from polyphonic to monophonic, you get a crunchier tone, a smoother tone. And if you stretch something out, cut it out, and you can create some really interesting bass tones just through this relatively old school sampling technique. And once it's in audio, it's locked, you can't fiddle with it anymore, so that's a really fun way of working. But with Omnisphere, I love atmospheres and background noise, and I feel that if I'm going to start off a track, I won't start with the drums. I'll normally start with the tone or just some sort of washy chord that maybe isn't-
Chris Barker:
Again, quite unusual. This is really interesting.
Kove:
So rather than it being say like F minor, I'll try and get a chord that's got some other voicings in there and just something a bit interesting where you can jump off tonally from there. But Omnisphere is great for that because it's got so much of that going on that you can literally leave it running in the background and come back to it. And then it's only recently that I've really started getting into bass synthesis with it. Well, maybe not synthesis but re-sampling idea, and it's endlessly powerful. Hogs your CPU, but it's endlessly powerful.
Will Betts:
So are you bouncing to, are you committing once you've-
Kove:
Yeah, yeah.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
Well, maybe you won't need to do that in the forever studio because you'll have the best-
Kove:
The most powerful, yeah. All the RAM. It won't be a problem.
Will Betts:
All the RAM. The latest cheese grater Mac you can have.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah.
Kove:
Oh God, is that the 30 grand one or whatever it is?
Chris Barker:
[crosstalk 00:15:50] But it's your forever studio, so. Not even a problem. Yeah, it's going to have what? 256 gigabytes of RAM or something.
Will Betts:
Just enough.
Kove:
Just enough, just enough.
Chris Barker:
Item number three.
Kove:
Item three would probably be the Roli Seaboard.
Will Betts:
Ooh. Interesting.
Chris Barker:
Is this something you have already?
Kove:
This isn't something I have already, but something I've tried and I really want to invest in.
Will Betts:
Is it the stand alone instrument? The grand?
Kove:
Yeah, yeah.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Kove:
If we're doing this properly. Yeah, let's go whole hog. No 25 keys.
Will Betts:
Fair enough.
Chris Barker:
And a custom finish.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Kove branding white.
Will Betts:
In white.
Kove:
No, that would just get so grubby with your fingers rubbing all over it.
Chris Barker:
Oh yeah, because it's a very tactile-
Kove:
Tactile instrument.
Chris Barker:
That's probably why they made it black actually.
Will Betts:
Absolutely it is.
Kove:
It's like the old Mac keyboards.
Chris Barker:
Oh yeah.
Kove:
They become so grubby over time.
Chris Barker:
That's not a hot desk you want to sit at, is it?
Kove:
No.
Chris Barker:
When you sit at somebody's desk, and it's like, "Oh. What has happened here?"
Will Betts:
What are all these crumbs about?
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
That would always happen on my desktop, and you could just see which Logic keys I was using all the time. Like the "A" key was just so filthy over the course of three years.
Chris Barker:
Just wearing out.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. One yellow key. Anyway.
Will Betts:
So the Roli Seaboard, what is it exactly about the Seaboard do you...
Kove:
So as I mentioned I come from a guitar/bass background, so a lot of those sort of playing techniques transfer onto the Seaboard in a really interesting way, like vibrato and things like that. It's a near copy of what you'd be doing with your left hand anyway, so that's a really interesting idea and also the way that it's going to be integrating more and more with instruments. That's really exciting. I mean that gives a lot, like you said, a tactile idea because everything is so dual-based at the moment, to have something where you can modulate it and physically do it while it's going on rather than having to assign a mod wheel or a knob or anything like that.
Chris Barker:
Is Omnisphere already connected in that kind of world?
Will Betts:
It does MPE, yeah. It's a recent update. But yeah they put MPE into it.
Kove:
You're convincing me to waste more and more money now.
Will Betts:
You've convinced yourself.
Chris Barker:
Yes. But yeah, for again those string instruments and stuff in Omnisphere as well as obviously all the weird and wonderful stuff you could do, it's like getting a much more realistic touch to that kind of thing.
Kove:
Yeah. I've got a lot of the Spitfire libraries, and the idea of being able to play them with expression just opens up the potential of that sort of thing so much more. I just think it's such an interesting idea that combines the techniques of playing several different instruments really creatively and really interestingly. But you can just sit there play a regular piano if needed, so that's just as good.
Will Betts:
And what are your keyboard chops like? Because I know that a lot of keyboarders have trouble translating to the squidginess.
Kove:
I think it's not necessarily as close as having weighted keys, but even within half an hour it felt relatively close to what I'm used to. So yeah, I think if you're reasonably proficient at a keyboard, then you shouldn't have any problems at all.
Chris Barker:
So I mean in regular day to day life you could just have another MIDI keyboard, but obviously in the forever studio you're probably not going to want to lose an item on another keyboard. So that's going to be your MIDI controller and the whole interface for it.
Kove:
Yeah and essentially that will be it, won't it?
Will Betts:
Yeah well that's your only input right now.
Chris Barker:
But doesn't the grand have sounds as well?
Will Betts:
It does have sounds, yeah. It has built in sounds.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Kove:
Really?
Will Betts:
Yeah, it's got a sound engine in it. Yeah.
Kove:
All right.
Chris Barker:
Because when they first launched they didn't obviously have that MPE technology to interface with other devices as such.
Will Betts:
Yeah, that's a good question.
Chris Barker:
So obviously the first version had to have its own sounds to really show off how you could interface-
Will Betts:
Oh yeah, because there were no other instruments with MPE compatibility at that point.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah.
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Exactly.
Kove:
Yeah, because I've only just played it as a MIDI controller hooked up.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Right.
Chris Barker:
But now there's loads, I think. There's iPad apps and loads that can-
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
There's a whole list.
Will Betts:
There's a whole list of them.
Chris Barker:
But obviously you can't have any of those.
Kove:
No.
Chris Barker:
Unless you select them as part of your Forever Studio.
Will Betts:
He's got Omnisphere, it's fine.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, that's true. That works with it, so that's good.
Will Betts:
Yeah, Omnisphere, we'll allow it, but that's getting dangerously close to a bundle.
Chris Barker:
No.
Kove:
What Omnisphere?
Will Betts:
Dangerously close.
Kove:
No. Is it an instrument or a sample library? I'd consider it an instrument.
Will Betts:
Okay. We'll allow it.
Chris Barker:
And it's a one purchase thing.
Will Betts:
It is a one purchase thing.
Kove:
Like sample libraries don't tend to have like FM or anything like that really, do they?
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
That's true. I think you've played this well. You found a loophole.
Chris Barker:
Well that's item number three down. Item number four next.
Kove:
Item number four would probably be another plugin, which would be Gullfoss.
Will Betts:
Ooh yeah.
Chris Barker:
For people who don't know, like me, tell us about it.
Kove:
So Gullfoss, in my somewhat limited understanding of what it does is an incredibly adaptive dynamic EQ that reacts at something mad like, oh what is it? It can do 30 EQ changes a second or something. And it has four controls on it. It's a very simple plugin. It's four controls, which is tame, recover, brightness and bias. And used correctly, it's an absolutely incredible bit of kit, and it will clean up especially mid-range and top end of a mix or individual buses or even individual instruments. Clean them up like nothing I've ever heard before, and it's so useful.
Will Betts:
When you say cleaning up, what exactly do you mean by that?
Kove:
So I'm using it, so say if I've got like a vocal bus, you would essentially be notching anyway and this is doing that adaptively over time, different frequencies for you. In a similar way that Soothe works for instance.
Will Betts:
Oh, so it's taking out resonances on the fly basically?
Kove:
Yeah, but also adding frequencies where it feels that they're lacking.
Will Betts:
This is where I get a little bit wary, when you said, "where it feels." "Where IT feels." Yeah.
Kove:
Yeah, you mainly will use it to tame frequencies and then by using the bias control you can then bring everything back up so that's interacting.
Chris Barker:
But is it like an AI thing. I mean I'm looking at it now on the laptop in front of me and...
Kove:
Well this is the thing. There's been so much, looking at forum discussions, they haven't said explicitly how it works. But there has been a lot of forum discussion trying to work out exactly how it works. I don't think anyone's knocked it on the head yet.
Chris Barker:
Could it be a team of retired sound engineers somewhere in a call centre in real time listening to people's mixes going, "Oh God!"
Will Betts:
Yeah the developers, because I've met these guys one time at a show, and they are all academics and this is research they've been working on for years.
Kove:
Really?
Will Betts:
This is really, really complicated stuff. And no one else has quite that tech.
Chris Barker:
Wow.
Will Betts:
I mean Soothe is similar in some ways.
Kove:
Yeah, I feel like Soothe is much more of like a tool like for say if you've got a really rowdy drum break, I'd go to Soothe rather than Gullfoss.
Chris Barker:
So to give it a full shout out, it's Soundtheory Gullfoss.
Will Betts:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Chris Barker:
For a change, I feel a bit out of the, I didn't know about this at all.
Kove:
So it's a mathematics sort of based company then? Is that-
Will Betts:
No, they're audio based, but I mean Soundtheory-
Kove:
But behind it are-
Will Betts:
There's something very, very clever maths going on.
Kove:
Right.
Will Betts:
As I understand it at least. I mean-
Kove:
I mean it looks like there's lots of maths going on.
Will Betts:
Yeah, even if it is 1000 engineers in a call centre.
Chris Barker:
But I mean it's not that expensive either. 139 pounds I think it says on the...
Kove:
But I think it's one of those plugins that when you first get it you go mad on, but then if you start using stuff incrementally, so you're only using it 10 or 20% on each bus, then the sum of the parts is well worth it. Because obviously you could just turn tame up to 100 or 200 in this case and...
Chris Barker:
Always the way when you get things like that. The Oxford Inflator.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
A bit more, a bit more, bit more.
Will Betts:
Ruined it.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, but the next day is when you go back, "Oh that's ruined it." But at the time, your ears adjust and you go, "bit more."
Kove:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris Barker:
"A bit more." So yeah.
Kove:
Everybody has a plugin that was very applicable to, as Inflator. But yeah if you're sort of using it incrementally and then just a dab on the master, and I've found especially it's fantastic for that sort of 300, 600 Hz around there. Cleans it up fantastically.
Chris Barker:
Which must be a real problem area for when you're doing so much sub in-
Kove:
Yeah, you don't want that. You want to separate the bass as much as possible but try and keep some warmth and roundness there. That can be often the constant battle.
Will Betts:
So just to understand what you're using it for then. It's like you're creating better separation between instruments? Is that what it is?
Kove:
Yeah so essentially I'm looking at it as a separation/cleaning tool.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Kove:
The separation idea, I think really that's one of its main intentions is to separate instruments, and it just does it fantastically. So I'm a big proponent, and it is on every mix and pretty much every bus nowadays. So yeah, big fan of it.
Chris Barker:
Definitely everyday a school day for me. I need to check this out. It sounds incredible.
Kove:
But I think there's so much of this adaptive EQ'ing, because I was quite cynical towards this stuff because the closest I've really come to any dynamic EQ was what was in Ozone.
Chris Barker:
Sure.
Kove:
And I'm sure it would just notch the same places everything you put through it, and would just react in the same way regardless of the mix.
Will Betts:
Well the new one is pretty-
Kove:
Is that-
Will Betts:
Ozone 9.
Kove:
Nine, yeah, right.
Will Betts:
That's more, "juh, juh, juh, juh, juh."
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, the demos we saw in the US were just insane.
Kove:
Oh because often their upgrades have not been massive in the past, have they?
Will Betts:
This has got a thing called "low end focus" in it, which is-
Kove:
All right.
Will Betts:
... a similar thing to what you're describing actually.
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
I don't think it's quite the same, but yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, I went and spoke to the Izotope guys, I was like what you said, I said, "When you invent stuff like this, like Gullfoss and like some of the things like the Izotope plugins, how do you go, 'Oh my God, what are we going to do for the next version?'" It's like how do you even keep progressing, but they always come up with new stuff that's better. You know what I mean?
Will Betts:
Yep.
Kove:
I mean surely we are going to hit a ceiling soon.
Will Betts:
Well, won't you just go "auto mix?" It's done.
Kove:
Yeah, finish the song for me.
Chris Barker:
But that can't surely be the only peak point of that.
Will Betts:
Oh, no, no. We'll get Neuralink.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Will Betts:
Which is the Elon Musk brain fibre where you directly compose presumably in your sleep or while tripping on DMT.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
But essentially that's just going to be the same as the song that's in my head right now.
Kove:
And that would be transmitted.
Will Betts:
"D a duh duh duh, dee dee doo, buh buh buh buh, bah bah bah."
Chris Barker:
How did you know?
Will Betts:
You've got that look.
Will Betts:
If you're into music production, you should also check out MusicTech magazine. In this month's issue we share 100 tips from the pros on songwriting, production, mixing, recording, and loads more. We also give you our verdict on the Moog Matriarch. Two mics from newcomers Austrian Audio, and we also try out the Behringer VC340 vocoder. In our interviews, we talk to up and coming house producer Cody Curry about process and ping pong. We find out about London producer O'Flynn's sampling approach. And we have a stack of tutorials for Logic, Cubase, Live, Reason, and Studio One. You'll find all that and more in this month's issue. Subscribe now at musictech.net.
Chris Barker:
Okay, so that's number four down.
Will Betts:
So you're very in the box here. Very in the box.
Kove:
That's just sort of the way I've got used to things really.
Chris Barker:
You're not tempted by the forever studio idea of having gigantic monitors and an SSL mixing console or do you think that will just not be something you want to live with forever?
Kove:
I think I would probably just use the SSL as a laptop stand probably.
Will Betts:
At least that's honest.
Kove:
Honest. Honest answer. Yeah and I think that's all fantastic and all well and good but when you're making music as fast as it has to be made now and quickly as release schedules go on-
Chris Barker:
But you've got forever in this studio.
Kove:
I need to look more into the future. I just think stick with what you know. Let's not-
Chris Barker:
And if it's what you enjoy, that's the main thing.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
It's like if you enjoy these products and this method of making music, that's what you've got to stick with forever, so.
Kove:
I suppose if we're thinking about the forever studio, I'd like to have the option of moving around so being able to pick up the computer and go sit on the sofa for a bit. In the back of this barn conversion. I'm getting really good planning ideas now for 10 years. Yeah and just being able to move around and that sort of thing. I like that. I don't like being chained to the same place and this is where you can work, because my monitors are-
Chris Barker:
Yeah. That's definitely important as well especially if that's the way your creativity flows out of you by getting inspired by different locations and different environments. And I guess working with other people, that would get you-
Kove:
Yeah, and that sort of thing because I was on a big desktop iMac, but that broke. And that was always difficult, physical collaboration and stuff like that.
Chris Barker:
You always look weird in Starbucks with one of those things.
Kove:
But people do.
Chris Barker:
Slowing up my Pro Tools session here, guys.
Will Betts:
Putting up the-
Chris Barker:
Projectors. Yeah, they don't like those either in coffee shops.
Kove:
Projectors.
Chris Barker:
Right. Number five.
Kove:
Number five. So this was a bit of a toss up for me because I was really thinking about whether to go in the box or out of the box, so I was thinking about we're going to need some decent reverb in there, and so I think it may be an original Lexicon 400 L. That could be a shout. I think.
Will Betts:
Interesting.
Kove:
Interesting. Why do you say interesting?
Chris Barker:
Will you be bothered to balance everything out? I mean you've got the Motu. I guess it's not too bad, you can [inaudible 00:31:14].
Will Betts:
So it being the current year-
Kove:
Oh, have a hit a snag?
Will Betts:
You haven't hit a snag. No, no, no. So but you could go for a Bricasti.
Kove:
Ooh.
Will Betts:
Which is like-
Kove:
Do tell.
Will Betts:
... the Lexicon but the one that everybody's using now.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, they are insanely good.
Kove:
Ooh.
Chris Barker:
It's the one with the kind of remote control with red LED screen.
Kove:
You know what? I haven't come across one.
Chris Barker:
Upsell your dreams. The Bricasti M7. That's the one.
Will Betts:
That's the one.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
But yeah so, we can go Lexicon if you want and it is a classic. No doubt a classic. Or-
Kove:
Or.
Will Betts:
... we could upsell you-
Kove:
Spend 40 grand on that. Okay.
Will Betts:
I mean it's dream studio.
Kove:
It's my Forever Studio. That's a fair point.
Will Betts:
And I don't think you're actually paying.
Kove:
Right. Okay. Well that's handy. But yeah something like that. A real outboard reverb unit would be fantastic, because I do love the sounds of having used that Lexicon one before, just the sound is incredible.
Will Betts:
But is there something that you find about algorithmic reverbs especially in an external, like having the-
Kove:
It's just a thicker sound. It doesn't feel in the box and whether that's a psychological thing because you know that you're running it through it, but I use in the box, I use AltiVerb quite a lot.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
So that is convolution.
Kove:
That's convolution, yeah. And that's got, what are they? Impulse response files?
Chris Barker:
Yeah, I was going to say you can still do impulse responses from hardware in combination, can't you?
Kove:
Yeah, yeah. So that's go all the Lexicon ones in that, but it would be nice to have something out of the box.
Will Betts:
And I guess you get that degree of control as well.
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
And that tactility especially with the Lexicon with the sliders on it.
Kove:
With the sliders on it, yeah.
Chris Barker:
The Bricasti does have a little remote controller and a little dialer.
Will Betts:
It does, yeah.
Chris Barker:
But I do like that white , 80s thing. It looks like Patrick Bateman's remote control, doesn't it?
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Good. So we're going for the Lexicon. Let's go for your original choice. The final-
Kove:
The final one.
Chris Barker:
The final sixth item.
Kove:
The final sixth item, because I'd love to have a guitar in there. That would be a big thing for me, but whether that's tech for a studio or not. I'm not sure whether that counts.
Chris Barker:
We've had grand pianos on this podcast, so-
Kove:
Well let's whack '59 Gibson Les Paul in there then.
Chris Barker:
Les Paul?
Kove:
Yep.
Will Betts:
Go big or go home.
Kove:
Go big or go home.
Chris Barker:
Always been the Les Paul guy?
Kove:
So I started off with Epiphone Les Paul's and then I've got quite small hands, so the necks are very thick on them, but the sound of them is beautiful. And I've got a PRS at home, which I use pretty much for everything. That's my workhorse guitar, and then we've got a couple of Fenders as well. They never get used a whole tonne, but when I do use them, because I think electric guitar is one of the instruments where we're not there yet in terms of emulation and playability through a sample library. And I'm not sure whether this is because of a guitar based background or not, I'm not sure whether we will ever get to a point where that sounds like someone playing it. I think there are just too many nuances and the touch of a pick or whatever.
Chris Barker:
The point for me as well, I've seen incredible realistic emulation of guitar on people playing the Seaboard that you've chosen already for instance.
Kove:
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Barker:
But once it gets, there's that amazing video of that guys playing the Purple Rain solo and stuff on the Seaboard. It's absolutely phenomenal.
Will Betts:
It's Marco Parisi I think is that-
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
I'm not dissing on it, but at that point, I'm just like, "Would you not just get a guitar [crosstalk 00:35:18]?" Do you know what I mean? It's like there's a point where, "Oh, that sounds like you need to get a session guitarist." I guess because guitar's your early-
Kove:
That's my sort of early go to. That sort of pretty much-
Chris Barker:
You sort of need that as a way to interface with music. I mean do you still come up with melodies and ideas?
Kove:
Yeah, and it's a different way of coming up with ideas rather than playing it on a keyboard or whatever. And I think it's a double edged sword, because there's not a lot of guitar in dance music because quite often it can sound incredibly cheesy. Because often like people will go down, "Well it's a guitar. It's got to be heavy metal." So you end up with bizarre dubstep crossovers with-
Chris Barker:
You end up with the music that's in every sci-fi movie of the '80s when that's when nightclubs in America. People dancing in cages and it's like RoboCop walks in [crosstalk 00:36:05] "dun, dun, dun, cha, dun" with a breakbeat behind it.
Kove:
Scoop mid chorus on. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
What a lot of the American Hollywood market seem to think was happening in German clubs in the '90s.
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
It was all industrial.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, and the people in cages as well, "duh duh duh duh."
Will Betts:
Or it can go disco of course.
Kove:
Yeah, true.
Chris Barker:
That's true.
Kove:
I mean I suppose those sort of sample libraries are quite good with the disco.
Will Betts:
All Nile Rodgers-y stuff.
Chris Barker:
Tell us an example of what you use guitar or one of the tracks or remixes you've used it. Even if it didn't actually make it to the recording.
Kove:
The last one which featured it heavily was, what was that? My first single this year, which is called Echoes. And that was just I wrote it with a group called Fenech-Soler.
Will Betts:
We like their stuff, yeah.
Kove:
And we wrote it like a band would write and just on guitar and piano in a room and then thought, "Okay, we're going to have to transfer this somehow." So the initial idea was from guitar, and then I really wanted to come out with this washed out lo-fi sound, which you don't really hear a lot in drum bass because it's all pristine. And so it's just a really fun session of getting these surf guitar effects and reverb everywhere and delay, just chords slowly. And it was all slightly out of time and it was lilting and it wasn't perfect. And it's probably one of the tunes I'm most proud of that one. And because it featured things like that and a lot of the pads were guitar put through a tape echo, and then put back in again and stretched out and manipulated, so it was a really fun way of making a track. But I think it's sort of the gentler side of drum bass, the liquid side. It can work, but I tried putting it on some other records, and it just, "Nah. It's not happening."
Chris Barker:
But all it takes is one idea and it's worth having, isn't it?
Kove:
Yeah. 100%.
Chris Barker:
So obviously that's your last item. So you're going to be going straight into the Motu, the high zed input on the Motu, which I'm sure it has. I haven't looked that up, but I'm sure it does.
Will Betts:
I should probably just Google that.
Chris Barker:
Some top end Motu will have that.
Kove:
Oh, so presumably the computer in this forever studio with Logic loaded on it will have all the bells and plugins.
Chris Barker:
In Logic yeah. For sure, yeah.
Kove:
That's fine.
Chris Barker:
That's the exception to the bundle. That's why-
Kove:
Yeah, okay.
Chris Barker:
That's why we give you the door choice up front.
Kove:
Well you know what? I think a lot stock plugins are incredibly underrated, especially with the latest Logic updates. Fantastic. Things like the ChromaVerb, things like that. Absolutely fantastic.
Chris Barker:
So you're happy going straight in with the guitar. I mean, well you have to be.
Kove:
Yeah, I am.
Chris Barker:
That's the choice.
Kove:
All leads and cables are included.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, leads, cables-
Will Betts:
You don't have to worry about that.
Chris Barker:
That would be a boring, well.
Kove:
Well, there's nothing wrong with DI'ing.
Chris Barker:
How boring are we, Will? Could we do a podcast about leads?
Will Betts:
I'm ready.
Chris Barker:
Okay so now moving on to the luxury item, now this could be an item, it's non-gear related so we've had people choose things like they take from studio to studio on a session or something that makes their day to day studio sessions better and whatever. I don't want to influence you.
Kove:
Influence me. Well, I was thinking about this earlier and I think as a luxury item, if it's applicable, I think I would like it to be my dog.
Chris Barker:
We've had dogs before.
Kove:
Now there is a musical reason for this. There is a musical reason for this.
Chris Barker:
Bass dog.
Kove:
I feel like you're a tad cynical towards this.
Will Betts:
Not at all. I'm just waiting for your answer.
Chris Barker:
I think what Will was eyebrowing at possibly was the fact that, so we've had dogs before and it's really cool item but we kind of think maybe it's a bit cruel saying that you're not allowed your dog or your loved ones there. So that should be sort of a given, and the luxury item could be something maybe-
Kove:
Ah, because I had quite a musical reason for said animal. It's because I've found ever since I've had him, my workflow has increased so much higher because it forces you to take time off throughout the day. I mean it's so easy to sit there in front of the computer for 12 hours, mix yourself into a hole, and then come back to it. You're totally frustrated. It's horrible. So if you've got something, and it's not the same as like if you're going to, "Right, okay. I'm going to join a gym. I'm going to go. Ah, okay, I'm not going to bother." And then I'm still going to mix, but if you've got something that forces you to go out-
Chris Barker:
Looks at you with those puppy eyes.
Kove:
Looks at you with those puppy eyes.
Chris Barker:
Like, "Come on, dude. It's been five hours. The mix isn't going anywhere. How about we throw that ball around for a bit?"
Kove:
And you go out and for instance I live in Wimbledon so we're close to Wimbledon Common, go out there. It's green space. It's fresh air. Nowhere near the computer. Don't have to take your phone, don't have to do any of that. And you'll come up with ideas and you'll think, "Well, why didn't I do that?" And you go back, and that mix will sound fresh and that will be, "Okay, right. Now I've got another." It's forcing you to have a break, because I feel like especially as solo producers, it's so easy to just sit there and you don't move all day.
Chris Barker:
If we're going to let dogs and loved ones and stuff be free on the podcast, I know we've kind of changed the rules on a luxury item a little bit depending on, just it felt a bit cruel that people would have to go, "My dog or my wife? Oh my God."
Will Betts:
That one did get weird.
Chris Barker:
I guess we're going to say that you've got your loved ones around.
Kove:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
And you've got your dog.
Kove:
Ooh.
Chris Barker:
Maybe it could be something for him. A giant bone.
Kove:
Yeah I do have a painting by an artist called Roger Dean. He used to design all this '70s prog albums for guys like Yes and Asia and those sort of bands. And my mum was super into prog rock and still is, and that was her upbringing, so when I was coming up through music that was what I was listening to and I was used to hearing 30-minute songs and stuff like that. And it's stuff I still like listening to. And yeah that's one of my earliest memories of music is listening to these bizarre albums and King Crimson and Camel and all this sort of bands. So yeah I've got this painting by him, and that's always sat in my studio actually. Thinking about it, I've just never really thought about it, but it is always there. So I'll probably have that up on the wall.
Will Betts:
So just to explain to the listeners, Roger Dean is, his artwork is fantasy artwork, the sort of thing you might see on a 1970s sci-fi novel cover.
Kove:
Well, he ended up suing the makers of Avatar because of the quite flagrant copying that went on.
Will Betts:
Their images-
Chris Barker:
Yes.
Kove:
To give you an idea of his style of that sort of thing.
Will Betts:
Fancy worlds of dragons.
Kove:
But yeah just sort of very fancy.
Chris Barker:
Kind of like Bob Ross on drugs.
Kove:
Yeah. That's a good way to describe it.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's wicked. That's not a diss. That's not a diss, it's cool. Definitely. Yeah, kind of the floating islands and stuff. That's very Avatar, isn't it?
Kove:
Yeah. And I love all that era of music and things like that. So yeah, anything to keep the prog alive, because songs now are just getting shorter and shorter.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?
Kove:
Yeah, now you Spotify it, it's going to be one minute 50 or whatever it is.
Chris Barker:
Surely, that's mental.
Kove:
Now that's a bit too short but probably two and a half max.
Chris Barker:
You probably have to get to the vocal in like 12 seconds or something, don't you?
Will Betts:
This is something that people seem to be running into. People who are making more experimental stuff. Especially stuff that's through written for long periods is that you're trying to get as many content IDs in as possible, so you're having to break at certain points that maybe you wouldn't artistically want to break at. But if somebody's going to listen through to the whole thing, as a concept piece, then you get paid for individual tracks.
Kove:
That's the bizarre thing of where we're at, where you make a song. "Oh, that's good. Can you hack three minutes out of it please?" When it comes to that progress of making it radio ideal, it's a really destructive feeling. You're thinking, "Oh I spent ages making that, but now I'm just going to delete it." The only people that really like it will listen to it. So it's a bit of a funny situation but now that that is the case we're listening to algorithms and stuff now. That's the cards we're dealt.
Chris Barker:
"Chuh, chuh."
Will Betts:
Do you find that affects the way you approach composition then, knowing that you're going to have these two different deliverables.
Kove:
I think if you're making club records, it's not necessarily as applicable because streaming isn't necessarily your core audience, but for instance bringing about that tune Echoes that I was talking about. That was, "Okay we need a radio edit of that." So you spend all this time floating around with lovely 16 bars of the intro to cut that out and then it almost is thinking, "Why'd I bother?" I think that's why quite a lot of, especially new tech house records, it's just drums for the first 32 bars because that will go and once it's on Spotify, yeah straight into the first breakdown. I don't think it necessarily affects drum and bass as much as it affects other genres, but it's definitely a funny situation.
Chris Barker:
Well, if you're every in doubt when you're making tracks, you just stare at that Roger Dean painting and you go-
Kove:
No! I'll make this 30 minutes.
Chris Barker:
No! It's what Roger would want.
Kove:
Do it for Rog.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, exactly.
Will Betts:
You need that e mbroidered somewhere I think.
Kove:
I do, yeah.
Will Betts:
Do it for Rog.
Chris Barker:
Do it for Rog. Okay so that's the whole studio. Do you want to do the rundown, Will?
Will Betts:
We'll do the rundown. So we have a Mac laptop running Logic. We did decide on a laptop, so you can move around.
Kove:
Has it got a chair?
Will Betts:
You can have a chair.
Chris Barker:
You can have a chair.
Will Betts:
You can have a chair.
Chris Barker:
Chair preference? One of the...
Kove:
Ooh, I don't have a favourite chair.
Chris Barker:
There you go. You brought it up, it's just...
Will Betts:
A Mac laptop running Logic with a Motu interface in a barn conversion with loads of natural light for the vitamin D.
Kove:
Yep.
Will Betts:
Listening on Audeze LCD-3s, running Omnisphere 2.6, controlling it with a Roli Seaboard, mixing using Soundtheory's Gullfoss.
Kove:
Gullfoss, yeah.
Will Betts:
With audio reverbs provided by a Lexicon 480L, and then playing some sweet, sweet licks-
Kove:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
... on a 1959 Gibson Les Paul.
Kove:
There we go. Sounds good.
Will Betts:
With a Roger Dean painting on the wall.
Kove:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
And your dog.
Kove:
And my dog. I think let's replace that Lexicon with what you suggested.
Chris Barker:
He's going to risk it for the Bricasti M7.
Will Betts:
For a Bricasti biscuit.
Kove:
It sounds good, and you were very eager to show it to me, so I think there must be something there.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, I mean it is good. It is good. I've heard one and they are fantastic.
Will Betts:
Dreams upsold.
Kove:
Yes.
Chris Barker:
As long as we get one dream upsold on every episode, me and Will are happy. Yeah. We're like the greatest virtual shopkeepers ever. "Or what about this one, sir?"
Kove:
Great.
Chris Barker:
Well, thank you so much for coming to join us on-
Kove:
No problem.
Chris Barker:
... MusicTech My Forever Studio podcast.
Kove:
Thanks for having me on.
Will Betts:
It's been fantastic.
Kove:
Thank you.
Will Betts:
Thanks so much.
Kove:
Cheers.
Will Betts:
If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcasting app, and also think about rating and reviewing MusicTech's My Forever Studio. Don't forget to check back every Thursday for new episodes. Thanks for listening.