©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

I’m in Phenix City, AL to take a weekend class on educational psychology. Well, do you remember the Lego helmet I made? I decided that I wanted to lighten the mood a little since everyone was so serious last time I was there, including myself. I sat in my car trying to decide whether or not I was going to walk in with the helmet on. I almost talked my self out of it, but i stepped out of the car, grabbed the helmet and just went with it. On the way in the professor walked passed and shook her head, but I did get a little giggle. I poked my head in the class, and a few heads turned. I walked in, signed in, and danced a little with Flat Beat by Mr. Oizo (that’s WAZO,not OIzo) playing on my phone in my pocket. I high five-ed one of the girls sitting at her desk..though she didn’t seem amused, at least she entertained the high five. It’s pretty hard not to high five someone back right?

Class went as classes do. A bunch of the guys last time we had class talked about spending an evening on the town in downtown Columbus, which is 10 minutes down the road. However, no one mentioned doing anything this time. I went down town anyways to get eggplant parmesan at this pretty cool place called The Loft. My waitress was really nice, and she had a NYish accent, which was cool just because it was different than the typical redneck ebonics I get submersed in down here. As I was about to leave town and walk to the car I heard some house-ish music being played outside. I was stoked on getting to hear some music and maybe even just dance for fun. I walked up and saw a DJ who was actually pretty legit. There wasn’t too much going on in the gated area, but I asked about getting in. The guys at the gate kind of ignored me for some reason. I had to really butt in their conversation to find out if there was a cover. Sure enough it was $10 to get in, even though there was essentially no one in the place yet.

I walked back to the car an sat there. I had thought, what if I brought the Lego helmet in and danced. It would be likeL LMFAO style fun right? There it was. The chance to be normal and go home, or do something extraordinary and open myself up to possibilities. After about 5 minutes of ramping myself up, heartbeat increasing, I said what the hell. Got out of the car, put on the helmet, and headed towards the  outdoor club/bar thing. On the way heads started turning. I didn’t even get to walk 10 steps on the sidewalk before people wanted to take their picture with me. It was a cool feeling. A few pictures alter, I’m back in front of the bar/club thing. I didn’t even get to say anything and the 3 guys working the door told me I couldn’t get in with the helmet. I asked why? One guy said “People rob places in masks.” LOLI said “Yeah dude, I’m going to show you my ID, pay $10 cover, so I can get in and rob the place.” We were off to a bad start. One of the guys working security seemed to be cool with the idea. I bet he listens to LMFAO. I told the guys to go ask the owner. While the security guy went to ask, one of the other guys working the door came out and said that he hated my helmet, and it was stupid. Keep in mind, i don’t even know this guy. I told him that he was just mad because I was cock blocking him. The best response he had was, ‘You’re not cock blocking me.” I didn’t hit me until later the genius of what I had said. Think about it. It’s pun-a-liscious. Manager came out and straight up said that I couldn’t come in with the helmet because if someone punched me in the face or some stupid bullshit like that, that it would be problem etc. People are so ignorant nowadays. They’re all so afraid of getting sued and the Facebook mentality is just killing me. Anyways, 3rd guy working the gate chimed in and said that I couldn’t come in with the helmet, but if I did and I put it on he was going to do something or something like that…I don’t really remember. I cut him off and said that I wasn’t coming in because he was a jerk. I mean really, this dude was a total d-bag. So 2 out of the 3 dudes working the gate were d-bags. The manager was up front and honest so I can respect that. The thing that gets me are the 2 guys that worked the gate. How can you not like someone before you even know them? How much do you  have to hate yourself to be so negative towards other human beings right off the bat? Moving on.

So I walked all around downtown, talked to a few people, took pictures with them, booty-danced with a random girl while a musician (Taylor Dobbs??? Maybe, I forget, I gave him 5 bucks and told him that I was a musician so I really appreciated his playing in the street) played music for us on the street corner. It was fun. I tried to get into more clubs, but they all had the same responses, but everyone was cool about it. My first run in just happened to be with the #1 and #2 d-bags of Columbus, GA. I made a few laps around just talking to people, sat with some random guys on a bench, high five-ed a ton of people, and was about to leave…wheeeen. I ran into a bike petty cab driver. He rode by, and I thought what the hell again. I yelled out him, and asked what it costs to ride. He said that he worked for tips. I asked what a good tip was and he said a few bucks. We got the name thing out of the way, his name was James. Super nice guy. I told him that I would give him $20, but the goal for the night was to get a girl to take a lap with us. Just for the sake of the challenge, which proved to be extremely hard, he accepted and we were off. I needed a break from walking around anyways, and the breeze proved to be worth the $20.

We must have done like 20 laps. James, who was from California, helped out. He was yelling “Legoman needs a companion to ride around 1 lap with him!” and off shoots of the same idea. We tried and tried and no one would ride with us. We even got flagged down by some random skater dudes, who we were willing to take lap with, but they were scared too. Everyone was content with an ordinary evening except James and me. I went back to the coffee shop I visited earlier in the evening for an espresso shot. I had had a long conversation with the barista, who I found out hated Columbus and where she was at. She was from Alabama, but grew up in Columbus. She said that the town was the biggest small town ever, and talked about how she didn’t have a car so there wasn’t much to do. I told her she should just pack up and go somewhere new like the places she wanted to go like Atlanta or Colorado. So here was an opportunity for her to step out of the box. I asked her to take a lap with me, and she declined making some excuse about having to stay in the shop for hours or some BS like that. A lap around the downtown loops takes a while 5 minutes to complete. A smoke break, or a bathroom break and you’re done. The owner suggested asking the 2 guys at a table, one of which was a musician Jack Lennox. Check out his Twitter @jacklennoxmusic. He happily obliged and we were off. Now we were a tripod trying to a get a female rider. One lap around, and still no success Jack was a cool dude too. We completed the loop and Jack had to pack his stuff up so we dropped him off. As james and I were riding away I was shooting video on my phone. I totally didn’t say this on purpose, but I said “Well, Jack’s off”. I instantly paused and busted out laughing. I love puns you guys.

I told James numerous times that he could kick me off anytime. We made another lap or two and I told him to drop me off at the garage down the road. I was ready to pack it in. Seriously, I was ready to call it quits. I had given James the $20 30 laps ago so he definitely earned his tip. We were on the way to the garage, when James spotted 2 girls on the median. he pulled up and spilled out story. When I said I was done, I really meant it. I just help up my hands and didn’t say a word. I had already given up. They got in the cart! Yeah, that’s right. The 2 coolest, nicest, and best looking girls in Georgia got in the cart and took a lap with us! Julia and Nikki were their names. We just talked about random stuff, and everyone had a great time. We dropped them off on the other side of the median and Nikki smacked a kiss on my helmet cheek. Julia gave James a hug and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She also gave me a hug. I know that made James’ night because he thanked me for the great time, and said that he really appreciated it as we rode off successful knights on our quest for out one lap companions. Those two girls stood out from the crowd. I bet they are a lot of fun to hang out with. I saw James off, and thanked him for hanging out with me. The night was a success. I even said somewhere in the video that “we were successful right when we were about to give up. There’s gotta be a life lesson in there somewhere.” And there is.

For me, the experience wasn’t about girls, taking pictures, or anything like that. It was about the pivotal moment when I had the choice. I knew there were exactly two choices when I was sitting in my car. Be ordinary or take a chance to be extraordinary. I know we put a lot of smiles on people’s faces. I only wish that it didn’t take a silly helmet to make those smiles happen. People careen through this life without taking the time or chance to get to know each other, even for a moment. Everyone is so afraid of each other all of the time. We are all sewn from the same seeds, yet we let petty differences divide us. I hope that girl in the coffee shop steps out of her box someday to fulfill her dreams, and that those 2 guys working the gate at the one bar/club/outdoor dining area thing get in touch with their childhood, and stop hating on themselves so much. I’ll have a video posted soon of some of the high lights from the evening.

Having said all of that I found a question that is an answer to a question. Whenever I go to music seminars, I’ll ask these successful people random questions, and I always end with this same question. If there was one thing you could tell someone, one single piece of advice that you would give based on your experiences, what would it be? I often got a heavy sigh and an I don’t know or some stock answer like “Just keep doing what you’re doing”. If I was ever asked that question, well, I now have an answer.

If someone asked me “Tom, what is the one greatest piece of advice or wisdom that you would share with someone.” My answer would be

“Take every chance you can to be extraordinary.”

Because no one has every accomplished anything being just like everyone else, ordinary. You never know what may come of it.

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

It’s the beginning of May and everyone is starting to wrap things up in schools. I learned a lot this semester. I took an interesting class that showed me how much adults are different from kids and why we have lost so much. I worked witha group of 5th graders for 8 weeks. I got to show them all of the wonders of music. I got to expose them to a variety of music from the works of Bach, Beethoven, to Hans Zimmer, and Netsky. In return they taught me about what it was like to be a kid again. At first, my lessons were terrible. They were full of technical jargon, and the kids would just sit in their seats politely, but passively taking in the information that I was giving them. Something had to change. My teacher showed us an amazing video on Dalcroze teaching method. Simply put, it’s the body in motion to music. I read the method on paper, and it seemed so trivial and boring to me or at least the activities did. For example: Walking to the pulse of music. Sounds really simple right? It is. How do you teach someone that? Try to put it into words and you spit out all of this technical jargon about underlying pulse, time, timing, rhythm, beat…etc. I was about to too, but I hit play on the song I was playing for the class, and before I could even say a word, the kids all started moving. In time, to the pulse, on beat. Now you wouldn’t initially be amazed, but these same kids couldn’t clap the beat to a song all together just minutes before, yet now they can walk perfectly in time? 5 seconds into it waling turned into laughter, skipping, and running around. I observed, envying what I knew I had been missing for so long.

I used to see producers on YouTube bobbing their heads heavily to a beat. I thought it was silly and all for show. I would think “Why is he so into it? He’s just playing quarter notes on 2 and 4.” The truth was though was I had been told, somewhere along the line, that bobbing your head to music was stupid, unnecessary, and well…all for show. So when I make music now I don’t really do anything. I’m not smiling, or bobbing my head, because society conditioned me to be that way. To conform to the norm. Yet, I’m working on  a masters in music education and am supposed to understand music to an extreme degree? Well, luckily after that day, I spent the rest of the semester letting go of the notion that I’m supposed to really care what other people tink of me. That’s what it really comes down to. Caring about what other people think about you. The problem is that no one really cares about what you’re doing because they’re so worried about themselves and what you think about them. I went against the grain and deleted Facebook completely, except for my artist page, but that’ll probably go too. I never check it and have someone else post new videos or events. Since the economy has been down the creatives are coming out of the woodwork. Everyone is a “DJ” or a “Producer” now. It makes it easy to stand out as far as what I have to offer in better sounds, mixes, equipment, etc, but harder because everyone is so used to hearing garbage on crappy sound systems, that they’ll accept the guy who will play their event for a case of beer or whatever. It’s really sickening actually.

Moving on this brings me to tonight. We did the bi-annual semester rave tonight. I made this Lego helmet just for the event. It took all day. To get back on topic the idea to make one hit me a few days ago when I was talking to my friend, another DJ, about the event. I said “It would cool if we had Lego man helmets”. A semester ago I would’ve just said it and found all of the reasons not to make it. Like, it would be hard to make, or it would take too much work or whatever. However, since I was in post childhood revelation mode I said what the hell and just went to the store, bought materials, and started cutting and taping. I felt like a kid because it was just like dumping a pile of Legos on the floor and just making stuff. That was fun! That was childhood! As adults we lose that. We lose the idea that we don’t have to be perfect, and that we shouldn’t care about what others think. That’s what we lose growing up. Helmet in hand, or rather on head, we setup and threw the rave. It went so so at first. The new generation doesn’t know what to do when they don’t hear rap or whatever is on the radio. Everyone’s to shy to dance and shake their booties for no reason, think Dalcroze. It’s natural to want to move to music. Everyone ended up forming a circle leaving the best place on the dance floor open for anyone who dared to let go of their inhibitions. Their were a few, but these people of course practiced in their rooms alone before going out to show their new moves. It was cool, but the whole situation was just awkward. It’s only awkward because they made it awkward. Nick told me at one point that he wanted to jump in and play some of his music because he thought I was losing the crowd. The only problem was that the crowd wasn’t their to be lost in the first place. We had agreed that I would take the first 15 minutes and he would take the last 15 by his choosing. In more words I said that I was warming them up and they needed time. By the end of the 15 mintes everyone was starting to loosen up finally, and it was Nick’s turn to go. I through on the helmet again and jumped into the middle of the floor. Nick was doing well, but guess who showed up. The Troy University Police Department. Understandably so because they have a job to do. We had to shut down. The TUPD was actually really cool about the whole thing. No one really needed to say anything and we just packed up while Nick made small talk with the 5-7 cops. We ended about 10 minutes early so sadly Nick didn’t get to finish out the set when the crowd was primed.

The thing is I get why we had to shut down, but what I don’t get is why not just let it run. Why is there all of this bureaucracy to deal with? Getting permission etc. No one was hurting anyone else or getting hurt, we were indoors so any residents wouldn’t be able to hear us. I sound like a child, but it’s just this big contradiction. The rave was probably the coolest thing to happen since the last semester it happened. It was exciting. It was fun. It was different. For once the DJs got to educate the crowd instead of them demanding the same stuff they always hear. Actually, I did have one guy say, as I was playing some new house tune, “Do you play current music?” Seriously…I just want to stick a soldering iron to my pupil every time I hear these dumb statements. And yes they are dumb because it takes no thought to demand what’s hot, however it takes a lot of thought to ride the fine line of educating a crowd with music and turning them off completely. That’s one reason I told Nick to wait until his set time because as a DJ you don’t have to please everyone all of the time. If people are too shy to shake their asses, then it’s their problem. They need to let go a little. When I say all this, I’m talking about the people who are where I’m at. What we do would’ve been a total hit in Europe or even in places like Denver, or Chicago etc. People here just don’t get dance and club music. It’s either rap, Katy Perry or “you’re gay” because you listen to house music. Yes, it’s that bad down here. Dubstep is making it’s way through here, but I mean you can’t really dance to it like you can to music at say 128bpm. It works for like 2 minutes, then people are tired of getting blasted with noise. And of course that’s referring to the ever present brostep. Speaking of which DJ Mag’s Rave Goblin did a great article on brostep and drops. He elaborated on how everyone thinks that dubstep is just about face smashing drops. You know like the ones that sound like your cat is getting sucked into  a vacuum cleaner. I mean I like that stuff too for about 2 minutes, but I understand that there’s more to the genre of dubstep than brostep.

All right so to sum up what I have so far. We care too much about what everyone else thinks. Kids don’t care about what other people think until society sculpts them to. Dalcroze is a genius because he understood that music and motion are at one with each other and movement comes naturally to music. Moving on.

Tonight was actually kind of a sad night because this was probably our last rave on campus. One because campus police got it figured out, and two Nick is leaving to join the Air Force. I don’t think I’ll be playing again because I’ll be moving back up to Oxford, hopefully to start teaching. I ran sound for another rave the night before ours and that showed me it’s also time for to let some new DJs take over. So it was kind of a sad drive on the way home. A thought ran through my head since it was like 2am to go to Wal-Mart with the Lego helmet on and buy some Legos figurines. To me it was a funny thought. I let the adult take over for a few minutes and tried to talk myself out of it, but it was too late. I wanted to go do it just for fun so I did. The store parking lot was almost empty. I turned my phone all the way up blasting “Sexy and I Know It” as loud as the poor little speaker could go and headed in. A few workers looked and then turned away. A lot of them didn’t even bat an eyelash. i saw one of the workers about to mop the floor and walked up and gave her a hug. She smiled and I know it brightened her night from the monotony of living under the florescent lights. A guy polishing the floor stopped what he was doing and I waved. He waved back and smiled. The cashier was giggling a little and I high fived her after I grabbed my Mountain Dew and my Lego mini figurine booster pack. It was fun, and hopefully it made some people a little happy about some spontaneity happening in my small hometown. I felt like a kid again. The girl I hugged, I wouldn’t have hugged on a regular day with no helmet on. She probably would’ve thought I was some weirdo. But it’s pretty hard not to smile when someone with a big ass Lego helmet runs up and gives you a hug. Anyways, I just wanted to share that.

My professor of the class that required te teaching told me she really appreciated my out of the box thinking and methods. The truth is though that it’s just what I would’ve done if I was a kid. Other students all do what’s expected because they’ve been shaped that way. Afraid to be silly and have no one laugh, but themselves. It’s so easy to stand out now. Just let go.

In closing, if I ever wrote an educational book on a study, it would be about how I believe that the most creative people on this planet are the ones who are in touch with their childhood and don’t care about what others think. They just do what they do because they want to. So I encourage you if you’ve read this far to get back in touch with your childhood, and most of the time, when you think you have something to lose, you have nothing to lose and exponentially so much more to gain. The moment you feel like doing something do it. Don’t let that voice in your head stop you. Just do it.

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

Back to the main point. After picking sounds, almost randomly, I just played around with different combinations until I made the routine. I didn’t have to fiddle with mixing, tweaking synths, or anything. So good sounds make life easy. That’s all. Please comment on the vid, any questions are welcome.

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

Fast forward a few years later. I really wanted to get away from the computer just because of the infinite possibilities it offered. I researched drum machines and the workflows and settled on an MPC 1000 since it was the best I could get for the money split over a Zzounds 4-payment plan with a discount. I believe they price matched down to around $800. I was so excited about the new tool on the way that I shelled out for an MPCStuff fat pad upgrade and the Beatmaking on the MPC 1000 book from MPC-Samples.com. I was ready to go with the new guide and the pad upgrade. The MPC 1000 arrived and it was solid. It’s a well built machine, or so I thought. I’ll get to that in a moment. I dropped in the new pads, which increased the sensitivity dramatically, and started running through the guide. It was everything I had hoped for in terms of limits, getting away from the computer, and workflow. As with any drum machine or sampler, the most important thing to have is great source material for sounds. I didn’t have anything great, but that could be fixed later on. Everything seemed good.

Ok. So here’s the problem with the MPC 1000. It suffers from a huge engineering flaw in the way the pads are “held” on the hardware. The pads are made of one piece of rubber/plastic and the cover, the metal shell, is placed over the pads. As the shell is tightened down, the pressure from the cover presses the pads against the sensors. This would be all fine and good, but since the shell is screwed into place on the sides (and bottom? I can’t remember) the pressure is placed on the edges and not in the middle. The point is that there’s no screw to put pressure in the middle of the pad sheet. This means that the pad sensitivity on the outside perimeter will have better sensitivity. I remembered the bottom pads being the most secure. The pads in the middle of my MPC actually had a small space between them and the sensors that I could feel when I pressed down on them. Total downer. There are some workarounds like adding extra corx, paper etc, to fill in the gap, but this isn’t what I expect from a piece of musical equipment that cost in my case $800, plus the pad upgrade. Other than the pad thing, it was great. I liked pretty much everything about it. The MPC 1000 isn’t exactly new technology, but I don’t see why AKAI couldn’t have addressed a lot of the flaws in manufacturing if people are still buying it. So as a result of not being happy with the pads I sent it the MPC 1000 back. I did gain a lot of knowledge in the process and knew that if I ever went back to Maschine I would have a much better grasp on the workflow. Fast forward yet another year-ish.

I got the itch to get a pad controller after seeing guys like Jeremy Ellis, Dave Haynes, and many others. My AKAI MPK Mini’s pads were getting more attention than they wanted. I decided that maybe the Maschine stand alone wouldn’t be so bad, especially since they upgraded to 1.7 through the years and released the Maschine Mikro. Plus, I liked the idea of having the included sample library as source material. Oh, and another thing that I initially didn’t like about the first Maschine was the plastic case. However, after running an S4 through many gigs, I figured it wouldn’t be so bad. I got the Maschine again. This time around, I was prepared to deal with the workflow, and I knew what I wanted from it. The absolute best thing about the Maschine are the pads and the sensitivity. I am a drummer and play a lot of ghost notes and subtle inner beats so I need to be able to lightly touch a pad and get sounds. This was much harder with the MPC 1000. Even with the sensitivity dialed up and the pad upgrade. The Maschine delivers. After learning the MPC workflow, the Maschine workflow was cake. I don’t really have anything bad to say about it other than it may have been better to put the USB port on the side as oppose the back. The shape of the Maschine is a bit odd, but the layout is functional and conducive to creativity. Occasionally, I’ll accidentally hit one of the solo or mute pads when playing, but that’s not a big deal.

From this whole experience I learned one big thing about workflow. If you browse the forums, many old school producers, or just guys who produced on MPCs for forever will rave about the Maschine. The reason is because it’s so easy to do things that require menu-diving on the MPCs. I didn’t truly appreciate Maschine until I had worked with the MPC 1000. This phenomenon happened when I went from soft synths to integrating a Slim Phatty too. I always hear about how producers dump their analog gear for plugins. I never understood this because the sound is of course better. Plugins are close, but not quite there yet. Same thing with MPCs and drum machines. Things are just easier in the digital domain in most cases. So just be aware that if you go from analog to digital, or hardware to software you will probably appreciate the software much more than someone who has been on software the whole time.

So Maschine vs. MPC? Maschine.

The ultimate drum machine? Standalone Maschine hardware. This would be the ultimate drum pad.

I’ll be honest, I hate my computer, but drag and drop functionality just makes things easy. If I had to choose between the Maschine and the Maschine Mikro, I probably would go for the Mikro. I thought I wanted to use the Maschine’s screens only, but why would you do that when you have a larger monitor in front of you? Doesn’t make sense, at least for me. This seems to be the main argument between the Maschine and the Maschine Mikro. A few features I would miss though are the dedicated group buttons, and the knobs for tweaking plugins. Dedicated group buttons are pretty important for performance so if you think you will miss them go for the full size Maschine.

Well, hope this helps in your decision between the two. This is all based on my personal experiences with Maschine and the MPC 1000 so your needs may be different than mine. As always, do your research, and most importantly demo the gear before you buy.

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

If you primarily produce house like myself, then you’ve already heard how important kick drums are to making a track bounce. I’ve heard top producers say that the kick needs to be fat, tight, tuned, and right. This for me means that it has a nice low-end in the sub range at 80-hz and below. As a result, I always look for these huge fat kicks, and my sub bass clashes until sidechaining. One benefit of sidechaining is that the sub, and most often the entire track, gets out of the way of the kick to let it punch through. This is nothing new.

The interesting find is that you don’t have to have a huge bottom-end on the kick for it to sound huge when it’s paired up timing wise with the sub bass, or bass in general. I used a pitched up Amen break for all of the drums in the track below.

Try this: Get a bass line going, and drop a compressor on the bass track. Get a kick track going with a short kick length (16th note should be good). Sidechain the compressor to the kick, and tweak the settings so that the bass only momentarily dips for the kick. Medium attack to let in the kick’s transient in, and a fast release so that as soon as the kick note conclude the compressor lets off and brings the volume back up on the bass. Ratio at 2:1 to 3:1 ish and the threshold should give around -6db of reduction. The result is that the kick plays, the bass dips, the kick concludes, and the bass comes back up. If you get the timing right, it will sort of sound like the sub is a part of the kick, like the kick has a long tail that happens to be a bass note. I used this when I mixed Revolution, which can be heard and downloaded below.

So that was the surprise. It really makes my life a lot easier because I wont be stressing so much to find these huge, huge kicks that come far and few between. This is just something you can try and maybe use in your arsenal. The reason I posted it is because I was watching Deadmau5 live broadcast from his new studio. He was talking about 1035 Genelecs revealing so much in his treated room that he wanted to remaster all of his tracks. Someone asked if he will remaster Skrillex’s stuff, and he talked about how many dubstep producers have such huge sub bass tracks that the kicks get lost in the mix to where they are essentially non-existent. I thought everyone sidechained to dip basses when kicks played when mixing, but maybe this isn’t the case. Then I thought about it and house, trance, 4 on the floor producers do it anyways since it’s part of the genre, but not so much DnB, and dubstep. Speaking of Deadmau5, he is doing an interesting thing called Mau5hax that everyone should check out. Incredible opportunity if you can make it in. Just some food for thought.

If you can make it to WMC, and/or Ultra this year, definitely do it if you can. I wont make it mainly because of school, but also because of the financial commitment required to ensure a good time. You can do it on a budget, but life is so much easier when you have some bread …and wine.

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

Watch the whole video. Don’t just talk about it. Do something.

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iTunes and Barnes and Noble Nook releases are pending. 

©2012 . All Rights Reserved.

Up on deck we have George Loukas founder, owner, and operator of 6N7 music, an independent Canadian recordlabel. He wears many hats. He DJs, produces, writes for magazines, and somehow finds time to sign artists in between.

KBB: So George, tell us about yourself and how your adventures in electronic music began.

First and foremost I’m a husband and father of 3 wonderful kids who love music. My oldest daughter Alyssia (12) writes and produces; she has a couple releases out with Lunatics Of Sound and some solo remixes. My middle daughter Lexie (9) is the youngest all-ages club DJ in the country (www.lexieloukas.com). She’s played dozens of clubs, outdoor events and radio shows. My son Stamati (5) is only now showing real interest, so we’ll see where that takes us. Lastly, I have an incredibly understanding wife, who puts up with my late nights an busy schedule. I’m truly blessed.

Electronic music for me is exactly that…An Adventure! 20 some odd years ago I found myself in a nightclub on the island of Rhodes, Greece. It was 4am and the place was completely out of control.  3,000 people on the beach dancing to a Brooklyn Bounce track. It was nothing like I had ever seen before. The music was so different from what Canadian radio stations were playing. This was my defining moment.

KBB: What’s it like juggling all of these projects while creating your own music? Would you say that they contribute to your creativity since you’re working with new artists all of the time?

I balance things well with the help of my Label Partners James Makris, Rene Tavares and Stewart Graham. Without them 6N7 would be completely unmanageable. They’ve all put 100% into this label and the our success is solely based on that effort.

I would definitely say our artists contribute to my creativeness. We have some outstanding artists signed; keeping up with them is a challenge all on its own.

KBB: How’s the electronic music scene in Canada? And where does dubstep fit in? Is it taking over like it is down here in the southern US?

It depends on who you ask. House Music purist are not happy with today’s blend of Top 40 Electronic music. House music or Electronic music has always had an underground edge…it seems, in my opinion, it’s lost that. Not to say that today’s top 40 dance music isn’t electronic but its far from underground.

Dubstep seems to have made its place in the mainstream here in Canada and the Sates. It came in hard and fast and I believe it’ll go out the same way it came in.

KBB: DAW of choice?

I’m a huge Ableton fan.

KBB: Have you seen the new Bitwig Studio DAW? It’s in the pre-Beta testing stages, but what do you think of it so far based on their preview video and website info?

I’ve had a chance to read up a bit on the new Bitwig DAW…it presents like an arcadic version of Ableton mixed with Reason. Some of the functions lead off where Ableton comes up short so I imagine it will appeal to some producers. I, myself, will stick with Ableton.

KBB: Favorite gear/plugin/cooking utensil of choice.

I run a fairly modest studio setup but Omisphere, Sylenth and Ozone are my favorite VST’s/Plug-ins.

KBB: Tell us about your process of creating a track and how long it usually takes from ground-zero to a finished product.

I try to develop an idea before I actually get into the studio. A riff or melody to get the ball rolling. Once I’ve got that translated to the machine, I’ll work on the supporting pieces. Usually 2 main leads and 4-6 supporters. From there, I’ll work on percussion and arrangement, then transitions, fills, builds and effects. Depending on how busy I am with non-creative work, this could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.

The real fun begins when you get into the mix. Like most, I mix as I work… but now’s the time where you can really bring a track to life.
Understanding what your desired “sound” is will make this process move quickly. I write mostly Progressive House, so I have a certain sound in my head before I get started.

If the mix is done well, Mastering should take very little time and effort. Stereo Field, Eq, Dynamics and Compression. Maybe a Limiter to catch the odd peak but it shouldn’t be present throughout the entire mix.

From there, I’ll walk away from the project. I don’t immediately test it on several different systems or burn it to CD and run out to the car. I just leave it.
I revisit it in a couple days with fresh ears. Then I’ll test it across the board. I’ll use a reference track as a comparable and listen to both tracks on my studio monitors, computer speakers and in the car.

I work all-in-one sessions, meaning I run my mastering chain in my arrangement. I don’t mixdown, bounce and open a mastering session.
This is incredibly intense on the machine but makes life easy when needing to make slight changes or adjustments.

Its difficult to gauge “how long” it takes to start and finish a track. I’ve started and finished projects in an afternoon and some have taken me months. So each track is different.

KBB: A lot of producers have a hard time expanding a short idea or phrase that may only be a few bars long into a full blown track. How do you go about doing this?

I’ll start by running a vocal phrase through several VST’s and plug-ins. Ableton’s Beat Repeat has some interesting results. I’ll bounce each treatment to audio and fill a folder as if building a remix pack. Then, I’ll move onto chopping them up into smaller pieces and rearranging them, each time creating a new sample. I’ll continue to experiment until I have an ample amount of samples to build a track.

KBB: What’s your favorite track of all time and/or the artist that’s influenced you the most?

My favorite track of all time is Tones Energy – Phantasm (Male VS Female) it came out in 1992. The track isn’t overly complex its actually its very simple but extremely catchy.

I’m inspired mostly by classic house artists like Masters at Work, Green Velvet, MK and Todd Terry. I’m just so amazed with how much depth their releases had. Today’s Electronic music is a lot more linear than the classics.

KBB: What’s the most valuable advice anyone’s ever given you and what is the most valuable advice you would give to artists/producers/entrepreneurs?

The most valuable advice in regards to music production was given to me by my good friend Jake Chec (www.jakechec.com). When I was first starting out and had no idea what I was doing, he took the time and helped me get the basics down. He pointed me in the right direction. His advice to me was “There’s no rules to making music, just do what sounds good”. That always stuck with me and I’ll always be grateful to Jake for taking the time to teach me.

My advice to new producers would be “keep your mouth closed and your ears open”. If someone is sharing wisdom with you, absorb it. Also remember what music is all about. Expression, feelings and most importantly fun. If it becomes like work, take a break. Keep in mind, not everyone will like your productions but it’s important that you like them.

KBB: Any special plans for 2012? What do the Lunatics of Sound and 6N7 have in store for us?

My partner Dimimak and I have taken a bit of a break from the studio since our last release. We have several projects in the works but our number one goal for 2012 is Quality. We are in no rush to put tracks out, so whatever we do put out will be our best work. As for 6N7 Music, our goal is to constantly improve. As a label, Management team and Publisher.

KBB: Any last comments?

I would like to thank my family, partners, friends and fans for supporting myself, Lunatics of Sound and 6N7 Music. Without your support nothing would be possible. I’d also like to acknowledge Mr. Francis Preve and Tom “Everfly” Jones for writing 2 of my all-time favorite books.“The Remixers Bible – Building Better Beats” and “WARPFLOW”. Both books are a wealth of knowledge and have played an incremental role in my production career.

Thank You.

Links:
www.lunaticsofsound.com
www.6n7music.com
www.facebook.com/lunaticsofsound
www.facebook.com/6n7music

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