Sound Thinking with DJA

Join Hooktheory founders Chris and Ryan in our next episode of Sound Thinking  with DJA, writer, producer, DJ and so much more. He's worked with some of the top artists like Diplo, M.I.A., Lana Del Rey and counting. 

In this episode we dive into his creative mind about music, theory, his creative workflow, working with brilliant minds and continuing to show up as a creative. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

If you wouldn't mind just kind of saying who you are and how you found out about us, I go by DJA, but uh I've also released music under under my name Derek Allen. I've been a musician and a DJ for probably 25 years at this point. I grew up playing music and then started to kind of get out of being in bands and start to get it more interested in the studio and DJing and making beats and things like that. I worked quite a bit in the early 2000s with bands and friends doing remixes and DJing. And then eventually I worked with Diplo for quite a while. Um we started the record label Mad Decent with a handful of other people. This was in Philadelphia around 2006 or seven. So I worked with Diplo as like an engineer, a co-producer. We co-produced quite a bit of stuff together, and you know, I worked with him on all sorts of different projects, whether it was his own stuff, production for other people, or things related to Mad Decent. Eventually, the the major laser projects started to get bigger, and we moved out to LA. Um, and so I was out there again. We had a studio, we were in the Beastie Boys old G-Sun building in Atwater Village in LA, which was really cool uh to be a part of that history. And I was there for quite a while. And then eventually, after having uh a child, I moved back to Louisville, Kentucky, and since then continue to do the same thing. I'm primarily a beat maker, you know, or producer, whatever you want to call it. But I've managed to work on really diverse projects from things like, you know, hip hop artists like Lil Wayne, Two Chains. I signed the artist Riffraff to Mad Decent and have worked with him for gee, at this point, 15 years, I think. Um I've toured with him. But then I've also been able to be a part of things like Lana Del Rey's album, Hollywood, just a lot of diverse things, which I'm really, really proud of that. At the end of the day, I'm a DJ and a beat maker, but I'm also just a music nerd. So I'm really, really proud to have been a part of so many diverse, you know, projects and sounds.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

How cool. So I would love to hear from someone like you, in your mind, what is a beat? Like everybody talks about, I make beats, I do beats, give me a beat, you know, like what does it actually mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, it's it's funny. I mean, it's really, you know, a hip-hop term, but I I do find it fascinating how like it's referred to as rhythm, you know, in in like a lot of dance hall music and things like that. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that you're a track writer. You may or may not write top-line vocals and you sort of create music that is designed to work with another vocalist. That's that's how I think of a beat, you know. It could be singing or whatever, but at the end of the day, like I generally will write, you know, beats and tracks and instrumentals and don't usually don't spend that much time trying to write, you know, top-line vocal ideas and stuff. That the idea is to collaborate with someone else.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

Got it. So it's like everything other than the vocals. Like it's something you could just hand to somebody that just is like great at singing a melody and coming up with a melody. I'll just use like Justin Bieber, for example, and they just they just sing over it and it's like basically done at that point.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Generally, when it comes to things being handed off and being kind of done, that's that's more of like a hip-hop thing for me. Like, you know, rappers can kind of do things really quickly. But when it comes to other people, I I really prefer the collaborative effort of it. Uh, I like to kind of have different versions of things. And a lot of times, like the writer or the artist, if they're writing, like what they write and what they come up with will influence the track itself. Um, you know, a lot of these songs that have been known over the last 10 years or so that kind of sample the vocal of the singer, and then they go back in and use elements of that. That's really my favorite way to do it. I absolutely love sending beats to rappers and having them just kill it. That's the best feeling in the world. But I've always thought of myself, you know, I grew up in bands, so I'm a collaborative person. I like to work with other people. That's that's my favorite thing. Whether it's remixing something that somebody's already done, we're trying to collaborate together to come up with something new. That's that's always been my goal.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yeah, that is so that is so cool. So, okay, you you create beat, let's say it's like version five. I'm assuming you like you iterate a lot before you ever like put it in front of the artist, and then they lay down their contribution, and then so it sounds like there's another step where there's there could potentially be sampling and things like that. Like I'm curious, and I think a lot of our our audience would be very curious. And yeah, like how long does that whole process take? Maybe some beats take you three months, maybe some take you three minutes. Is there a range or is there a common absolutely a huge range?

SPEAKER_00 5:18

I think it's it's one of the strangest things in the world. Uh, you know, sometimes like things just feel done. Sometimes things get kicked around forever and never seem to be done. You know, it's a really fascinating thing that I'm that I'm always curious about psychologically. I'd say for everything that I've ever done that came together quickly, there's probably it's probably 10 to 1 of other things that that took a very long time. It's always funny to me to hear the stories of things. Just just yesterday, uh, I don't know when it was posted, but I think recently, DJ Shadow on his Instagram has been posting a lot of classic history type stuff. And if I'm not mistaken, he posted like the, you know, when you're recording on tape, he posted like the piece of paper that people would have that track sheet thing from the late 90s. And it was a song he did with Richard Ashcroft from the Verr for the Uncle project. And the post basically said this is the track sheet of a year where we were always gonna do the final version, you know, oh, we're gonna fix it and it's gonna be great, and we're gonna do the final version. And then after like well over a year, he just kind of ended up you if I understand the post, he just kind of ended up using most of the original demo vocals, anyways. So that stuff is fascinating. I I do think that working it too hard, it's just not it's not a good idea, you know what I mean? Like sometimes it ends up in gold, uh, but man, you got to be really careful that you don't just burn yourself out.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

So a lot of people, when they say, Oh man, like I love the beat of this song, they're talking about like the vibe of the song. And in many ways, I feel like we use the word vibe because we don't have words really descriptively to attach to our emotional connection with music. And I'm curious, as a beat maker, when you know Lana Del Rey or you know, these big artists want you to collaborate on a song, how are they communicating to you what the vibe is of the beat that they want? Or are you starting with something and you know giving them options? Or do they say, they come to you and they say, I want a track that's like this, help me make this.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

I mean, honestly, it's it's sometimes all three, or maybe a combination, like maybe someone. So, in the case of the Lana album Hollywood, I worked with her producer and songwriter Rick Knowles. He's a really incredible songwriter. I mean, just decades of hits, especially with with uh women artists. And in that situation, they were aware of there was there was a session musician, and he was working with them, and they were asking him for things that were similar to what I had done. And so he was like, Well, hey, you know, this is a friend of mine, check this out. And so they were asking for it, but then it was stuff that I had already done that they were kind of referencing. And then once we kind of came together, it was then me showing them things that I'm interested in and them showing me things that they're kind of looking for. And then just trying to pull that together. You know, again, I think that's the example of really being collaborative. It's no different, I think, than being any sort of playing any instrument well, where, yeah, you're gonna do your thing because you're good at it, but you really need to be able to work with the with the people that you're playing with to play to the full extent, you know, especially like if you think of the Wrecking Crew type band or the Funk Brothers or these amazing like session musicians, I think they were just really gelling together, and then they were gelling together with the artists or producers that they were working with. I find it to be very similar to that kind of music making.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

You use the word songwriter to describe who's working with Lana Del Rey, and then like you connect it up, but you don't use that word for yourself. And I'm really curious where's the difference? Where's sort of the discrepancy between what you consider a songwriter and a beat maker?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, it's funny. You know, we use all these words. I mean, I work professionally on a team that that works on DJ mixes for streaming, and uh we we call it mixtapes. You know what I mean? Like still, and it's funny because we might not call like EDC gigantic, you know, Rave EDM festival. We might not call those mixtapes, but then when we get a mix from a hip-hop style DJ, all of a sudden it becomes a mixtape. And yeah, it's funny because producer isn't even technically the correct word. That's been a funny thing. Personally, I kind of feel like songwriters are people who who write lyrics, you know. You're a songwriter when you're making an instrumental and working with an artist or with a writer, that's how you're credited. You may be credited as producer as well, but you know, you're writing a song. But somehow to me, it's just these, it's funny how we use these these words. There's like some sort of a definition, but almost none of them are really technically correct. You know what I mean? So that's why I say producer, beat maker. I might produce songs, but I don't necessarily get together with five or six artists and produce their live recording, you know. So it's funny how we use these words. None of them seem to be right.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Yeah, and I think maybe that's a good place to start. I think that many people feel like the beat, what we call the beat of a song, is most strongly related to the presentation of the song, to the way that it kind of manifests in the end. And so, in many ways, you're starting from the beginning and really setting the tone for the way that the song is going to come together. Where do you start? Where do you get inspiration from? Maybe you could talk a little bit about your music training. Do you have any music theory background? Is that informing the decisions that you're making, or is a lot of it intuitive for you at this point?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Just like a billion other people out there, I took piano lessons as a kid. I wasn't a very good student, you know. I learned more how to play by ear and how to be intuitive. I wish I was a better student. I do. I regret that for sure, but it's pretty standard. And then, you know, I got bored with it and went and played in like punk rock bands where basically it was all intuitive. So I do wish that I had more traditional knowledge, but I've also found sometimes that, and I mean, this is it's not a black, it's never a black-white issue, but sometimes I've met people or known people or just have been aware of people who do have a lot of really traditional knowledge, and they it's almost like that's a weird roadblock, too, because they don't seem to be able to be intuitive or just write a hook over three or four chords or or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

I kind of respect both sides really, really heavily. I also think mixing has a, you know, again, these terms to me, like the sonics or the overall mix or the sound selection, because a lot of times, like the mix is often based on this, on the sounds that you select, very similar to how it would maybe be different microphones or different instruments, you know, if you were doing traditional recording. But to me, I I have for years thought that the overall mix, the overall sonic, whatever, that drives a lot of it as well. You know, a lot of the music now, and I mean, you know, hip-hop is is goes through these waves, but last five, ten years, trap beats, you know, hi-hats, eight oh eights, big bass, you know, the history of this stuff is very interesting because the mix and the sound selection is is what drove it a lot. You know, I'm a big fan of like Memphis rap, you know, from the everything, the late 80s when it started to get in the 90s when all that stuff, whether it's, you know, 3-6 mafia or kingpin skinny pimp or whatever, that influences things today. And what's odd is that a lot of that music was made because what was available was kind of cheap, or it was, or it was just what you could get your hands on. Kind of like uh, you know, maybe like the Ramones, you know, like very strange sound for that time, and Tommy Ramone is this producer and engineer, and everything about it is very strange. I I don't think that they went and bought the nicest stuff they could get, but they but they bought stuff that they liked. So yeah, not to get too into the weeds, but I am I'm I've been obsessed with that for a long time. I feel like it's a it's it's composition, kind of the vibe, which to me, the vibe is often like how it sounds, and that goes back to sound selection and mixing and stuff. You can you can write a lot of different ways, but like if you're not honed in on what it how that genre sounds, what it is that appeals to people, I don't really think it's it's gonna fly. Obviously, I love eclectic stuff, there's always awesome stuff, but it's it's a thing, you know. Like if you go and look at popular EDM music, that stuff has some rules. The kick and the bass has to work together a certain way. The sound selection is almost just as important as the composition, as the as the chords or the vocals or anything, if if not more, because if it doesn't work in the context of how people like to consume it, which is an unfortunate word, but it's just not gonna fly. It's not it's not gonna hit the right way. It applies to a lot of stuff, I think. It's it just everything has to come together to to feel like it makes sense to the way that the listener expects it to.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

So you worked with Morgan a little bit and found out that she was she was working with us, but you had heard of of hook theory before. Curious what you think of our tools and how someone like you uses tools like ours to to help you in in your creative pursuits.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

I've been aware of hook theory and hook pad for quite a while. I've I've always had a bit of an of an obsession with, I always jokingly call them, like cheat, you know, cheater things, music theory cheats, and ways for me to work around the fact that I don't quite have the academic technical knowledge that others do, and also to try to keep myself from getting lost and overthinking things and to sort of like keep myself grounded or or or whatever, whether it's chord progressions or I just love that stuff. And I became aware of hook theory, you know, was blown away because it was so easy to look at chord progressions and then to get them out as MIDI, which was the game changer for me. Considering that's how I make music, whether you're sampling from somebody's record or whether you're using samples that are intended for that purpose, or I'm recording someone, at the end of the day, I'm just trying to get it all into my DAW, which is Ableton. And I've used Ableton since like 2006 or seven or something, and uh, you know, get those pieces in there and figure it out. Start working them together. So to be able to have something that was so concise with chords and progressions and keys, and then have a top line melody feature and to be able to export that at MIDI as MIDI was a game changer. The part of hook theory that shows how chords connect is what really blew me away, though. I talk to anybody who will listen about that. When we're in the midst of something else, you know, again, I work on a team of DJs. Sometimes we're trying to track down like what is this, what is this mixed with this other thing, we have to figure it out. And being able to look at how songs work with each other and look at the keys is is pretty incredible. I mean, to me, that's that's like what I love about it the most for um like a research kind of a way of thinking, you know, sort of like trying to think of, oh, look at these progressions that are common in this genre or this sound that I like. I I wonder why, or you know, how are they related? Why why do people often write in this key? You know, just like maybe um bass music, dubstep, whatever, heavy EDM, is often in the same key. RB, I think, is often in like a G sharp or something. But a lot of that, I think, you know, it pertains to the mix. It's gotta fit that that end result and work. It can't be, it can't not, you know, work the way that it's expected to. I absolutely love that. I just recently had heard a DJ blend note uh Fourna Blondes with one of the biggest Bob Marley songs, one of the really popular ones. And I was really surprised. It was like a very recent Pride Festival, and I went on hook theory and was like, oh yeah, same key, almost the exact same chord progression. And I just love stuff like that. I'm not necessarily like a DJ that does the harmonic mixing. I sort of feel like that might, I don't know, I'm sure it's great and it probably works great, but I feel like it's sort of overthinking it, and I don't want to lose just the, again, the vibe of just putting something together and they sound good, even when they're not exactly meant to go together. But being able to analyze songs and make mixtapes and blends or mashups or whatever you want to call them, that's I mean, that's been something I've done from day one. I've worked on mixtapes, you know, Diplo, Major Laser, whatever, or just sourcing samples and figuring out how they're gonna maybe work. And uh that's it. That's how I often do it. It's it's it's through things like hook theory where I'm able to kind of feel like I'm I'm able to like analyze data or look at it more broadly. Again, like a DJ, like you've got a big crate of records and you're able to have this kind of matrix vision where you can see everything and see how they can work together and very quickly try things. And so, yeah, hook theory has been huge for me when it comes to stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

If Morgan were to just be like, hey Derek, I want a new beat for like a summer 2025 song, and I want it in 30 minutes or an hour, let's say, how would you start, right? So it's like there's gotta be like the kick, you know, there's some chords underlying it, there's a bass line underlying it, and then there's like all the actual sound patches and the sonic expression of that. I'm sure there's like multiple variants with how you get to like an end result, but I'm kind of curious what is that like, and like do you see any of our tools as possibly being useful in that flow, or have you ever used them in that flow, or like where do they fit? I'm I'm I'm super curious about that.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

If I was just trying to make something from scratch, like as quickly as possible, and I was going for a very specific vibe, I would definitely reference a lot of music, like stuff from the last 50 years, you know. I mean, just stuff from all over the place. And I would go into hook theory and use it to build a progression straight away. To me, it's kind of like writing on an acoustic guitar or writing on a piano. You just want it, you want to get your idea down and then you can figure out how you want to arrange it and how you want to produce it or mix it or whatever. But to me, that that's how I think of it. I think of it as sitting down with a piano or an acoustic guitar, which I think is very important. I don't always start beats like that, but I do often start stuff like that. I specifically want to start from a very bass chord progression, you know, and then figure out everything, tempo arrangement, all that can come later, you know?

SPEAKER_03 20:42

So if I'm hearing correctly, you find it quite useful to also reference similar songs that may have a vibe that is kind of aligned with what you're trying to do, and maybe for inspiration, taking a look at those chords, and that that also could be a starting point for how do I want to fit mine within this genre.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

You know, again, I'm a DJ, and I think that's how a lot of DJs think about things. When they're building their sets, they're thinking about vibe and mix and um arrangement. And so, yeah, you know, I am not a person who swipes chord progressions or something, but I listen to music constantly to think about how I want to make music. I'm all I'm often to each their own, and I'm positive that there are people infinitely more successful than me that probably never listen to anything but themselves. But I've always felt like it's kind of like uh you can't really write books without reading books. It would be shocking to write a book and have it be good if you don't read anything. I often think like a DJ. I think about how I build sets, and again, like why and and you know, why are why is this song in this key? Or I'm curious about this genre or this style. I know there's going to be things that are similar because that's kind of what defines it as a genre, you know. So yeah, I think about that stuff a lot and book theory. Is an amazing way to it's very similar to having your record box or Serato library where you've got tempo, you've got all this information, and that's how you're building your sets. You're kind of looking at everything instead of just, you know, songs individually or ideas individually.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Yeah, actually, and maybe this is a little bit of a tangent, but because we're a fairly small company and uh we really love feedback from our users, from people like you to tell us these are things that are useful, these are things that I really like, these are things you don't have that I would love if you if you did have. In the past, we're kind of fantasizing about a tool that leverages our data in the TheoryTab database to basically build a map of songs that have proximity in terms of key and tempo for the express purpose of helping DJs do mashups or mix-ups or whatever you whatever you call them. Did that sound like something that you think that other people might find useful?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't want to I don't want to talk about other other companies on your all stream. You know, I use a lot of tools together. And something I use alongside Hook Theory is mixed and key, which is very popular with DJs. It's and and to be honest, a lot of the Record Box and Serato, they analyze things very well nowadays. Mixed and key has been around since long before Cerato and Record Box were as powerful as they as they are. But absolutely, you know, when I'm trying to make creative, just the other day, so there's an artist, a rapper from from Louisville, he put out new music. So I wanted to send him some things and get his attention. So AI, get the a cappella out really easily. I mean, I've got logic, but I just sometimes use the free, you know, some free ones online. Have his a cappella, I start building ideas, I look at um the key of his original song, I look at what I've already got that's in that same key, I look at ideas or you know, chord progression things, I look at other songs that I can sample. And that's how I start, you know, I made a bunch of blends and sort of then blends, meaning like uh took his vocals and just put them over like an existing instrumental, and then was like, oh, this is cool. And then you then maybe take the instrumental and start chopping it up and remixing it and making so for example, it was his vocals. I had a very old Drake song, like 2007, the very early days uh when he was doing the underwater, all the beats had that underwater filter. Sounded great, had like a little blend, and then oh, let's save a copy and let's try to chop this up. Oh, let's see what it sounds like if it's a little faster. Let's make like a little bit of a dance beat. Okay, cool. Now it's like kind of a like a housey, you know, like an artist like Duskus or something, something that's kind of chill but and and vibey, but you can still dance to it. Just that's that's what I love. That's uh and having these tools, it's how I do it. I I guess I could figure it out without them, but it it wouldn't be as fun. It would be a lot more tedious. But no, that's literally this is just that story's just a couple days ago. I'm I'm gonna try to get these tunes together and just send them over to them. Just like, hey, I'd love your new song. Here's some remixes, here's some ideas, maybe we could work together. It's exactly how I got Morgan's attention. Great stuff, really like it. Would you mind letting me try try a remix? So, yeah, it's it's absolutely I I go into just about everything that I do with that kind of thought process in mind. Like, let's get some sounds and and elements and ideas and get them together, and we know that they work together, and then let's see what happens, you know.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

So, Derek, I'm curious, like one of the things I've often felt is that many times with kind of an end product, there's like something that feels new about it. Obviously, is maybe more than one thing, but like sometimes there's like a specific trigger, like, oh, I made I made the kick like new in a certain way, or like I sampled something and layered it like 17 times, and no one's done that before, and it just has this slightly new thing. Like, and this is all not really related to the underlying chords or the or the bass line, that but these are these are things that are like how you express that. And I'm curious, are you aiming for that? Like with many of your your beats, where it's like you could almost write down in a sentence like here's the thing that I think is sort of the the unique splash on this, like why it's different, or like it's a literal hook, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Like that sorry, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but it's you know, it's like a hook. It's it's a literal hook. It's it might not be a like a vocal hook, you know, or a or a melodic hook, but there's an element of it. I absolutely love that stuff. I often reference hip hop and EDM and things like that, because that that's what I've worked in the most. But you know, there's certain types of 808s that are just completely unique. You know, people like me are love the history of that stuff. Most of those things are resampled so many times that by the time they come out the other side, it's a completely unique thing that will often define the song. You know, for quite a while there was an 808 people referred to as the Spins 808 that DJ Spins had popularized. It had a very specific sound, and that was a big part of the hook that would draw people into that stuff. Or if you look at like um, this is going back to early major laser, but the major laser song Panda Flor, that vocal bend thing was just the freshest idea at that time. It was the most exciting thing. And yes, it it's it can be stressful because you don't want to worry about that stuff too much. But a lot of times that can kind of make the song. I think that's kind of similar to maybe like, you know, how um bands, especially maybe going back to like the 70s, like bands like Boston, like they they got that crazy stadium sound, and that was, I mean, the songs are great, sure, but like the the production and and that was a big part of the hook of that stuff, or you know, weird underground music, like uh like Pacific Northwest stuff, having a very odd part of it that hooks you in and kind of makes you immediately know what it is, it sets it apart from everything else straight away. I yeah, I think that stuff is amazing, but also it can drive you crazy to try to chase it too, too hard.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

What I love about the way you've described your creative process is that a lot of the music that you create is based on instinct. Oftentimes it's helpful to just get started somewhere. And, you know, the start of a beat or a song on paper, maybe with the help of some tools, can really jumpstart the process of, you know, your ear now kicks in and thinks, oh, I hear this. What if we did this? What if we do that? And I think that just parallels how so many different creative processes work. And it's just cool to see that these tools can really help someone like you who's had a career out of making successful records for these artists.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

For as much as I love the idea of like your Jay Dilla, you sit down, you just grab sounds off a record, and you just see what happens and you just you just make gold. Like I love that, but a lot of times you can sit down and grab stuff and and get lost or work in a weird wrong direction. And so having again, like having that idea of, you know, well, if I kind of know what my end goal is gonna be, and I'm not gonna sit down and kind of sketch out something on the piano or the acoustic guitar or whatever, being able to be grounded can be incredible. Again, it's not to say that I mean, I love stuff like that. You think of old Timbaland stuff. I don't think when they started they knew exactly where it was gonna end up. It just kind of happens, and that's great. But like you can also burn yourself out really bad because you are trying to get to that magical point and feel like you're spinning your wheels or things are too messy, and so being grounded can be incredible, you know, just incredible. Especially for, like I say, sound selection, sound design. Having a roadmap means that you can now really get creative because you know that you have something that works and is sensible and has a beginning and a middle and an end, like a good movie or story, you know. Now you can get you can get wild and try all kinds of stuff and try crazy sound design. But if you're not, if your um composition is maybe a little too random or you're not quite, you know, working in any known key that anyone actually listens to songs in or whatever, it can it you can get very burnt out. And so that that's the worst thing. You know, there's nothing worse, everybody's guilty of it. There's nothing worse than unfinished ideas and letting music just rot on your hard drive. It's just the worst, you know.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

So, Derek, one of the things um, you know, we've obviously tried to do it hook theory is really help shed light on the underlying chord and melody structure of, you know, basically pop music, you know, and we've actually made a lot of intentional decisions to leave the whole, I guess what you'd broadly classify as the production element of it to not be part of hook theory, you know, in a sense. I mean, I know hookpad has like you can select different instruments in different ways to play things, but it's not the front and center thing. And I'm kind of curious, you know, I think specifically for our users, if you know of similar resources that are for the production side that sort of help explain the filters and the sort of techniques, the same way that we explain, like, oh, the one chord often goes to the four chord, and then maybe sometimes it goes to the five chord, and hear the notes and the melody that might sound good over the, you know, like that's what we do. And a lot of our customers are they like to think for themselves, they create for themselves, uh, they get passion out of it. And I think some of them are probably very interested in understanding the production elements in that way, you know? And I'm kind of curious, you obviously have gotten developed these incredible skills over these couple few decades. Are there tools out there that you'd recommend people check out to help kind of get started? Or not even get started, but just you know, improve, like level up.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Absolutely. I, you know, I think that that is a very underrated element of sample libraries because people have been joking about it's funny how many classic songs were, I mean, I mean classic stuff like late night, like old, 30 years ago. Get your freak on, you know, it's a it's a composition, but it's a sample from like uh the sounds of India, you know, a very big, a very popular 90s sample CD when you still had to like buy the CDs for $300 or whatever, which was really crazy. People love to hate on sample libraries. Oh, it's uncreative. You're just throwing loops together. Whatever. Secondary to that, I think what's really underrated about libraries is when you can go in and take a look at how people are doing what they're doing. A lot of great libraries that are out nowadays, yeah, they have whole songs in them. You know what I mean? Like, I guess some people want to sit around and get mad. I who cares? What's really cool is that you can see those things, you can put them together and use them as a reference for your own stuff. You know, yeah, if you want to use the loops, great. They're there to be used. But I think a lot of people forget that you can also just go, oh wow, you know, uh, I want to make heavy bass music. And uh, oh look, Virtual Riot has a bunch of sound libraries. So of course I can just cut up his sounds, that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. But you can also go and see, you know, take them out, put them on an analyzer, look at what they're doing, you know, look at how they're moving on the frequency spectrum, look at what frequencies are poking out, you know, drum sounds, stuff like that. I think that's a really underrated use of those things. Because obviously, me, millions of other people, there's there's fantastic people on YouTube who, whether they're just making videos or they make libraries themselves, or they make um, you know, I love plugins, but I'm a big fan of, I mean, you try not to love plugins too much because then people have 10,000 plugins, you don't use any of them. But I'm a huge fan of people who make creative things just with Ableton plugins. And so they sell like Ableton racks, for example. That's such a resource to be able to see, you know, let's say you want to have like a metal core band, you know, like uh shout out knocked loose, who are from Louisville, Kentucky, you know, from where I live. That stuff has a very particular sound, you know, like the composition is one thing, but you've got to know how to make it sound right. And if I was able to analyze and see how they were doing things, look at stems, look at samples the way that I can in a sample library, that would be unbelievable. Because I know that they're not they're probably doing some stuff that I wouldn't assume or initially think to do because I don't produce metal core, hardcore, whatever exactly, you know. But yeah, I think that I think that's huge. Like that's a big part of my love of of uh sounds and sound design and libraries and things, is just trying to figure out how people did what they did. And half the time the people that make the libraries make videos and show you how they did it, you know. So it's it's just amazing. It's it's very underrated. And I think it's funny when people kind of kind of joke on sample libraries and things. It's like, well, you're you're missing out, you know, like there's no reason to limit yourself. You know, the people who limit themselves in music, whether it's through listening or whatever, is just crazy to me. I mean, I don't love country music, but there's a lot of pop country that I really like. There's a lot of classic stuff that I really like. Just limiting yourself, whether it's tools or listening, is just you're missing out. You're really missing out.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Great answer. Well, I just really wanted to thank you for coming on and talking to us. It's just been so interesting to hear kind of the other side of music. We have less experience in and just hearing how your thought process works. I was just wondering, you know, maybe as we wrap up, if there's a piece of of work that maybe our users might be interested in, a song that you are most proud of that people could look up to hear kind of an example of what you would consider some of your best work.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

It feels a little cliche, but I I I made a made a beat and co-produced a song with Diplo on the Lil Wayne album, The Carter 4. It's called Two Shots. It is, I think, three sounds. That's it. There's an 808, a clap, there's a synth, like some sound design-y, LFO-y. You know, this is quite a while ago. This is 2011. This is ancient history at this point. But, you know, I did not have anything to do with the Diplo produced song Look at Me Now, which is probably one of my favorite hip-hop songs of all time. But again, to have something that has three sounds like that, to me, it's no different than I mean, I love Wall of Sound, but uh a lot of the classic stuff in the 50s and 60s was like four people. You know what I mean? Or Green Day, three people for the most part, with maybe some overdubs. I love the idea that something can be so simple and yet be, you know, done and in the pocket, and and people really like it. And in that sense, I think that song's probably one of the things that I'm most proud of. It's just incredible that there's legitimately three or four sounds in the entire film.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Cool. Yeah, we'll have to we'll have to put that on. Thanks so much, Derek, for for taking the time.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

What advice do you have for producers or DJs or songwriters in general that might not have any history of music theory knowledge and might feel like a little bit intimidated by tackling that in their creative process? What advice might you have for someone who is kind of at that level, um looking to maybe find the value of how they can incorporate it into their workflow?

SPEAKER_00 38:32

If it were me, because this is what I did growing up, I would just go and find simple things that that are good that you can tolerate. So, you know, for example, maybe Fleetwood Mac, they're amazing songs, but maybe a little dense. Uh the cars, incredible songs. Three chords, you know what I mean? And just tap them out on a keyboard. You don't have to buy a guitar, you know. Just get a little 25-key keyboard and uh just start tapping out and and kind of seeing how simple these these things really are and how powerful they can be. I love complicated music. And you know, I love the Beach Boys, and they do more chords in one song than I've ever played, you know, ever, ever. I don't even know that many chords, you know. But I think that that stuff can be very incredibly overwhelming, whereas something like the cars or these sort of power poppy kind of, you know, something by the killers. I know maybe you think it's corny, I don't know. But I think that that's really powerful to listen to great songs that are kind of simple and just sit there and kind of look and be like, oh, hmm, they play that one chord a really long time. Huh, okay. You know, like you can very quickly kind of realize, okay, this doesn't have to be that complicated. It's great if it is, but it doesn't have to be. And then I think once you kind of get the your ear a little bit more intuitive to that, then when you sit down with something like hook theory or or you're drawing in MIDI notes or whatever, it'll be more intuitive because you'll be thinking in terms of like, oh yeah, I forgot that that, you know, that was an eight-bar chorus, and there's barely three chords, and they repeat most of them over and over again. I I just think that's really powerful because that's kind of how I learned to make music growing up. Because I was not a great student. I instead listened to things that I liked, which were often kind of simple, and just it started to, it just starts to get get kind of baked in, you know?

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Yeah, definitely. I was interested in that because before finding hook theory, I was almost like rejecting of the idea of music theory a little bit, just because it always felt a little science-y to me, a little analytical. And I was like, I'm a free spirit, I don't need that. I'll just like bang it out on a keyboard or guitar and like pick up an instrument, I can play anything. And now I'm like, oh, okay. So these processes that even the ones that you just talked about, essentially we have a metric in our database labeled like chord complexity, which is like, how complex are the chords? So, what I'm finding is this company's been really great about like plugging those points of knowledge in. So, say you want to find like something with not that complex chords and you don't have a keyboard to like plug it in. You can literally go into Hookpad and drag and drop the chords in there and listen to them without having to play an instrument, which I think is another cool tool for yeah, just someone who's new and wouldn't be able to even know what 135 means. Like I hardly know what that means, you know what I mean? So I think that's been really cool for me as someone who's new to like music theory, but has been writing music since I was 10, you know, just about how those little plugs, those little assist tools, it's kind of like, yeah, passing you the ball so you can make the goal kind of thing. I think that's good advice. So starting simple, because a lot of the times I'm working backwards in the process, I'm like, oh, I want to write a song like this. And then I look at the progression and I'm like totally overwhelmed and it just never never happens. But if you if you start simpler and yeah, work your way up, and then I think that that's a good way to think about it. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

You know, I think that rejecting anything is like I say, that's why I I tend to listen to like an incredibly diverse amount of things, because just rejecting anything is just really silly. Because I was the same way for a long time, didn't really care. You know, I don't care. I sample, you know, I don't even need to know. I do it by ear. But rejecting anything is really foolish. And um yeah, there's there you can you can get so much out of different things. And yeah, not not knowing an instrument, I mean, this is something I've said for as long as I can remember. I've made a lot of things that I'm very happy with or whatever, but it still takes forever. You make 10 things, maybe you like one of them, maybe. The amount of times that I've been in some studio in LA or whatever, and someone is in there, they have an ancient laptop, they know nothing they of playing an instrument, they know nothing of theory, nothing, and they just hit play and it's incredible. And then you go look at it and you're like, I mean, you know, like, oh, you went into a contact and some old contact library and didn't play it in contact, you took the sounds out and it sounds great. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't matter that it's wrong. So again, yeah, that's I I just try to be legitimately open-minded because the amount of people who say, I have no idea how to play anything, and then they show me something amazing is a lot. So and just as many people who are virtuosos and unbelievable piano players or whatever, amazing stuff also, which is why I say just rejecting anything is is foolish.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Cool. Thanks again, Derek.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Thank you guys so much. I really, really appreciate this.