Seeing A Reflection Of Yourself In Your Art - Interview with Grimsin

Had a great conversation with Grimsin.

Soundcloud.com/grimsin

Grimsin Spotify

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For info on sponsoring or being a guest on the show send a message to swishermedia@gmail.com

Transcript

unknown 0:01

Swistles, whistle, swistle, whistle.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Producer Chair. Thank you for listening. I'm your host, Steve Swisher. On the show, we interview people making music in their bedrooms, basements, and home studios. We're going to talk about hardware, software, tips and tricks, everything that goes into their creative process. Our special guest today is Grimson. We're going to listen to a couple of his tracks and talk with him about his process and his life as a producer. So here is Grimson with Lost in Space.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

So when I was in high school, um I always I always wore a black hoodie with the hood up, and people said I looked like a Grim Reaper. I actually ended up getting the nickname Grim Kid. And whenever it came time to create an artist's name and a persona, I thought to myself, I can't always be known as a kid. So I essentially just took that and a little bit of my last name, which ends in Sin, and just took Grim and Sin and put them together. And that's how I got that.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Okay. Nice. Yeah. So how long have you been producing? What got you into it?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Well, I've been producing for like 15 years, and it started off when I was a kid. I I wanted to be in bands and playing bands and stuff. And you know, all throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, I was in several different bands, and you know, they just kept not working out and not working out. And then when I was in my 20s, I was uh screwing and chopping music on a laptop using tractor or something. And um, I was like screwing and chopping like uh Tool and Elvis and uh Elton John and stuff, and I had a buddy who was a bandmate of mine, he was my roommate, and he was like, Hey man, why are you you know doing this stuff? And he showed me what a proper doll was, FL Studio. You know, I started using that, and then the rest was history.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Nice. What genre or category does the music you're making currently fall into? What was that we just heard? What would you call that? Yeah, I don't know what you'd call that.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

I don't know. I I think I tried to make a dance track, and I don't normally make dance tracks. I I tend to usually just try to make whatever it is that I'm feeling, and a lot of the stuff I make is uh more leaned towards hip hop or dubstep and you know that kind of realm of music.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Sure. Uh how how long did it take you to make that track?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Oh, I don't know, about from start to finish. After I found the vocals, I'd say it was anywhere between 30 to 40 hours. Yeah, you put some put some time into it for sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And do you normally stay with the same type of music or do you like to experiment with different things?

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, I tend to experiment all over the place. A lot of my stuff is a lot slower than what you just heard. I usually lean more towards like an 83, 84 BPM. You know, I lean more towards hip hop a lot of the times.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, that's awesome. And how how do you get started making tracks? Do you have a melodic idea in your head? You start off with a drumbeat, chord progression. What what do you think you normally how do you normally start something?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, nowadays, I'd say within like the last five or six years, um, I tend to just pick an audio source, uh, whatever it may be, it could be literally anything, and I will hit record in my DAW and just mangle the crap out of it until it's something completely different. And then I will look for little moments in that or little rhythms or you know, whatever I can find that's usable, and then just start from there. I'll, you know, I'll hear something and be like, hey, that's cool, and then I'll pull it out and I'll toss it into my DAW and just, you know, start building from that.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Okay. Yeah. Is there something unique that you do that you feel distinguishes your music from other producers that are making the same kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Honestly, I try not to think about myself as, you know, doing things in a unique way or that I'm trying to be different or anything. But if I had to absolutely choose something, I'd say, like I mentioned before, the mangling the audio, just taking as much randomness as I can and seeing if I can find something that's, you know, worth building a track out of. Yeah, I'm sure that comes up with a lot of unique sounds. It varies. Sometimes I'll sit here for hours and never come up with anything, and then sometimes it's like right away.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, awesome. Are you uh primarily in the box, out of the box, hybrid? What um if you're hybrid, what what percentage would you say that you lean towards that?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Oh, I'd say I'm 40% hybrid. Um, a lot of my stuff, especially like mangled audio and stuff, I'll throw it into my MPC and try to make chops and see if I can find chops in it. Or specifically, I'll make like sequenced rhythm bass lines and I'll throw them into my MPC and chop them up and play them uh in real time with drums and stuff like that. But everything always ends up back in the DAW, and that's where the rest of my work gets done. Sure. Yeah, what MPC do you got? I have an MPC Live 1. I am way behind, but that's because they're expensive.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Sure, no, and the Live One is still updated to the latest software. That's the cool thing. Akai's been releasing whenever they're putting out new software, they're still letting the uh older machines get updated to that.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah, it's actually really nice, but the newest update really threw me off. I was like, man, I gotta relearn this whole thing again.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Okay. Yeah, I I just got first MPC. Uh just I bought the sample a couple months ago. That that's been really fun. Never owned an NPC before that. Yeah, you can make some really cool stuff on them for sure. Yeah, it's it's fun. I I keep it hooked up to my record player over there and just mess with little chops and then usually bring those into the doll afterwards. Yeah, I do that as well. Awesome, man. Uh, so what was your first piece of hardware that you ever owned?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

My first piece of hardware was a Behringer TD3. My wife bought it for me because I was ranting and raving about how I've been producing for X amount of years and I've never touched any hardware. So, you know, she found like the cheapest hardware she could find and gave it to me. And, you know, I messed with it for a while and I was like, man, this is not for me. But it was, you know, it was a cool experience. You know, it's like a I think it's like a 303 acid-based synthesizer.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, yeah. I got yeah, I got a uh cyclone that does the the 303 sounds. It's really good, it's fun. Nice, yeah. Yeah, it's there's nothing like you know being able to uh physically tweak the knobs and just mess with things. I I like being hands-on quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah, it's definitely you get a better feel for it and it's satisfying, you know, you feel like you're doing something.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah. So uh you use the DAW a lot. What what DAW are you currently using?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Um, so I use FL Studio, and the reason that I use FL Studio is because it's what's what was introduced to me, and I spent so much time learning it and so much effort into figuring out how everything works that by the time I decided that I wanted to go with Bitwig or something, I was like, man, I gotta relearn all that stuff again, and I'm just gonna stick with FL Studio because it's what I know and I mean it gets the job done.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Sure. What's your go-to software synth in FL Studio?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Well, honestly, I don't use much of the uh stock plugins for FL Studio. If I had to choose one, I'd say gross beat because I like to sequence things and create rhythms and that makes it a whole lot easier. But if we're talking like what my favorite synth is, period, I'd I'd go into Face Plant.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Okay, yeah. Yeah, th that's that's a good one too. Yeah. What's the most recent piece of hardware or software you've bought?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Um, I recently bought Sinplant. Um, God, I cannot remember who the uh manufacturer of that is, but it's a piece of software, and the way it works is you throw in an audio clip and it'll infinitely generate audio clips that are based off of that sound. So it really helps in my um my mangling sound discovery thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Nice. What's a plug-in that makes it into every song that you make?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Faceplant for sure. If I'm not designing bases in it, I'm sequencing hi-hats or trying to come up with you know different rhythms or ideas. There's so much to do inside of faceplant, it's like you can get the whole thing done using just that.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Sure, yeah. What's your dream piece of hardware maybe that that you don't have yet?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I think if I like if I had infinite money and I could buy whatever I want, I would buy a Waldorf Iridium. And mostly because its capabilities are basically sound faceplant level and it looks really fancy. And I don't know, something about just seeing that and looking at it and touching it is just like, wow, that's that's really nice. Yeah, those do look cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Other than the iridium, is there any any products coming up that you're excited about?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

The new face plant release seems pretty dope.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Okay. And when when's that coming out?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

You know, I'm not entirely sure. I've been waiting to hear it. Uh something about their seventh birthday. I've been reading stuff online about it on Reddit and stuff, and I'm like, man, let's just release this already so I can see what it's all about.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Sure. All right, what's your desert island hardware piece? If you're you have one thing, one groove box, a synth, a sampler, or something uh that you can you can take with you, what are you taking?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Definitely an NPC, just because I feel like it has the capabilities to do pretty much whatever you need. You know, it's got built-in synthesizers, I can load it up with a bazillion samples on a flash drive or a SD card, and how I'd be sad, you could take away my computer and I'd have that, and it'd be enough for me.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

And is there any hardware or software that you use that you feel like is underrated?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I'd say probably Sinplant, just because I think that people tend to have their get ups about sound generation and stuff like that. I think it's underrated because I can make my own sound and then toss that sound in there and it spits out a new sound that's similar to that. And I think people get hung up on, you know, having their own generated ideas instead of having something else do it for them.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Sure. Yeah, that's a great piece of software. Is there any hardware piece that you've bought and then sold again because you didn't gel with it? Like what's your biggest buyer's regret?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Uh, I don't have any buyer's regret. I I bought the Arteria Micro Freak and I used it for I'd say about three or four months, and I was just like, Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's okay, but I I don't necessarily regret it because I was able to sell it and I upgraded to my to a PS5 using the money that I got from that, and I was able to get uh more money out of it than what I actually paid for it. So I mean that was a cool deal.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Nice. If there was any software or hardware engineers listening to this, um, what's something that doesn't exist now that you would like to see in the marketplace? Like, you know, a piece of software that does something that nothing else does yet, or or hardware that does something that you haven't been able to find anything that does that specific task yet?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I I was thinking about this for a long time, um, over the past several years, actually. And I do believe it actually just came out. Actually, I don't even think it's out yet. I think it's still in beta, and I haven't gotten my hands on it yet, but I think it's called Mesh or Mish. M E S H perhaps? Yeah, so it it's a modular ecosystem that instead of just throwing you into it and say, here, connect all this stuff, it guides you on where things should connect and you know what the best route for your workflow would lead based on its ideas. So basically, there's a little bit of AI involved, but it's a fully modulated system that can build full ecosystems of whatever you can, and you can build it, you can pull in your DOS VSTs or any third-party VST, and they all just snap in. Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Well, yeah, let's go ahead and we're gonna listen to your second track here, then we'll get back into the interview. This next track is called Sledgehammer, and again, we're talking to Grimson, so let's check this out.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

You have to hit the much legal. And then you'll notice you've got their strict attention.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

At one point I wanted to be a professional, but I think that, you know, life and things kind of bog you down sometimes. So I'm definitely a hobbyist.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Sure, yep. Is there a long-term goal that you you have in mind that you would love something you'd love to accomplish?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Nah, I bounce back and forth. Sometimes I'm like, you know, let me make something that other people want to listen to. Let me make something that people can dance to or something, but then I get in the studio and I start making stuff and I'm like, man, this is what vibes with me, so I think I'm gonna just stick with that.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Sure. Yeah, and then a lot of times my favorite stuff that I make is, you know, stuff I just made for myself. I wasn't didn't have anything in mind and just started, you know, messing around and something I, you know, just did to make myself happy.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, it's good to have fun, I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Absolutely. That's what I mean, that's what it's all about. What's your favorite part of the creation process?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Discovery. You know, just when you're messing and tweaking knobs and you get that bass tone just right, and you're like, oh man, that's nasty.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, can totally relate. What's your least favorite part, you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Uh, mixing. Just because it's like so mundane, you know, and you're doing all this stuff and you're like, okay, I gotta get this to fit just right in there, and then you know it gets tedious and you can spend, you know, 60, 70 hours just tweaking one little thing and it never sits right. And I don't know, it gets old after a while.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Sure. Do you normally mix as you go or kind of wait till the end until you have a whole bunch of things ready and then you start mixing at that point?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Uh, I've discovered that I have to mix as I go, because if I don't, then later on I'm like clipping, and then I'm trying to figure out this weird artifact's coming from, or you know, what's causing this to do that. And so, you know, I try to get it everything where I need it to be as I'm putting it together.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, I do the same. I kind of mix as I go. What specific thing do you feel like you spend the most time on while creating a new track?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Hmm, probably trying to get my bass to sit where I want it to. Um, a lot of the music I've been creating nowadays, I'm I'm trying to make hip hop, but I want it to be bass heavy. So it's like, where do I find that place where the bass can sit and still be distinguishable, but also still have room for somebody's vocals?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah. Yeah, that's just a lot of work with the EQ and maybe even putting a compressor and side chaining the vocals to the base. So, you know, it'll duck a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, side chaining is definitely uh my go-to for a lot of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Oh, absolutely. What's one of your secret tricks that you use to get your sound? Distortion. OTT. Okay, yeah. You like to put a lot of a lot of saturation and distortion on things.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, just to get it nasty. Uh I have a go-to rack that I've built that basically turns everything into a neuro bass. It'll turn your your voice into a neuro bass or just a couple chords in a stack.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Nice, that's fun. What's the weirdest thing that you do during your creation process?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Um, so there's this plugin called Audio Dice, and it hosts VSTs, and there's basically a big dice button where you hit that dice button and it just randomizes everything in the plugin. You throw on a limiter to make sure that you're not gonna bust your eardrums and just hit the dice button. I think that's probably one of the weirdest things I do.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Okay. Right on. Do you get writer's block?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

And if so, how do you get past it? That exactly. Um, that's actually how I discovered something like audio dice, is because you know, I'm throwing things at the wall and not sticking, and I'm like, man, I'm running out of ideas here, you know. So I'll just open that up. And if I hit the dice a couple times, I'm like, oh, actually that's a cool sound. Let me see if I can play a melody or, you know, get some weird noises out of this. And it definitely keeps things going, especially when I'm like, you know, super into a funk or something.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Sure. Do you struggle to call a project finished?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Kind of. It depends on the track, but a lot of my stuff, I tend to want it to sound a little unpolished. I want it to sound not radio ready. I want it to sound, I guess the word is grimy. So yeah, I struggle to finish projects in the way of like, is this where I want this to be? But as far as like, you know, tweaking everything, I try to cut that stuff off because the uncleanliness is a lot of the times what I'm going for.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah, you kind of got some some lo-fi grit and things like that you're wanting in there.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, that's awesome. If music is your main hobby, what's number two? What else do you eat for fun?

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Um, I like playing video games and hanging out with my kids. Nice. They usually keep me pretty busy, and I think that being a good father is above all else. 100%. So yeah, I spend a lot of time like hanging out with my kids and playing video games with them or arts and crafts or you know, whatever they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, that's oh, that's awesome, man. I'm glad to hear that. Yep, same, same for me. Um, what what's your biggest influences? What are you listening to riding in your car right now?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Um, you know, I I tend to tilt all over the place. I'd say my biggest influences at the moment uh is a producer called Chew Beats. He's the producer for a rap duo called Dope D O D. And he makes a lot of the same stuff that I'm in the ballpark of. If I had to contain myself, I also get really inspired by like 90s uh New York hip hop, um heavy metal. I mean, I'm all over the place, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Sure. What advice do you have for someone that's just starting out in the production world?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

The internet probably won't like this, but don't spend all of your time watching YouTube videos and trying to get things the way that they are because a lot of that stuff is pumped out for views and a lot of that stuff is overrated. You can make good music in your room without all the extra polish. You can do what you think you need to do. There are no rules when it comes to music. Just make what's in your head or in your heart. That's my advice.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

That's that's great advice. What else would you like people to know about your art?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Good question. I've never really thought about what I would want people to know about my art, per se. That it's not from a place of commercialism, that it's a place of internal feeling coming outward. It's a reflection of me as a human being. And I think that's what everybody should do from their art, whether it be music or paintings or writing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Absolutely. Yeah, it's an expression of their emotions and you know the of that person.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, I think people tend to get hung up on polish, radio. Club ready, and don't get me wrong, I love a club banger as much as the next guy, but also like don't let it because I spent a lot of time letting that kind of stuff hinder me and being like, oh, it's not good enough. Oh, it's not, you know, whatever, whatever. And I wasn't even making music. I was just concerned about how it sounded. And at some point I had a realization coming to grace, if you will, that you know, that's at the end of the day, a lot of people aren't even listening to this stuff unless you're, you know, getting a million plays or whatever. You're just making this stuff and uploading it, and maybe somebody will listen to it, maybe they won't, but at least you had a good time doing it.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to find a good balance between just having fun and then, you know, also spending some time to get it sounding good.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Sure. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to put out just really bad stuff because I mean, then that's not good. You know, you gotta put a little bit of effort into what you're doing for sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Yeah, and you don't you don't want to put out stuff that a month later I've learned about so many production tricks that immediately pulling it down because I don't like the sound of it anymore, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah. No, I've definitely been there, especially in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah, I definitely have like an abandoned SoundCloud account that, you know, I haven't put anything on since like 2008. I'm sure I'd be pretty embarrassed if anyone came across that. Yeah, yeah, I've got some of those. Yeah. Uh if you could have a creative session with any other producer in the world, who would that be?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

There's a YouTube content creator named Alchemy Nero, who basically he's the guy who taught me how to do Nero bases and a lot of the techniques and stuff that I do now. I think he has a Patreon where you can pay the money to have a one-on-one session from him. And I've just been waiting until I have the money so I can, you know, have that moment with him and you know, sit there and talk. And, you know, he's a huge inspiration of mine.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Oh, that's awesome, man. Yeah, that's interesting that he that he has something like that set up. If you could have any singer or rapper in the world hop on one of your tracks and make it a hit, who would that be?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

So I mentioned earlier a rap duo called Dope DOD. One of the guys' name is Jay Reaper. Uh, he's a rapper, and if I could produce for him for just a short period of time, it'd probably make my life, honestly. Just because he's, you know, he's, in my opinion, really good, and I really enjoy the way he makes music.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

That's awesome, man. Hopefully he's listening right now. Grimson wants to make a track with you, man. You guys need to link up.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, sure, man.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

The show is called Producer's Chair. So what kind of chair are you sitting in when you're making your music?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

You know, I don't know the exact model, but it's a it's a lazy boy. Uh, one of the office chairs, but it's like stupid comfortable. I think I picked it up for like 200 bucks because I had been sitting in like a kitchen chair for several years, and I was like, man, I can't do this anymore. I gotta get myself a nice chair, you know, gotta sit here for hours. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's a it's a lazy boy.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah, the chair, the chair can be important, man, especially when you're spending that much time, you know, staring at the screen and Yeah, it hurts the back after a while. Yeah, and then with the and with the live one, you're able to travel around a little bit, you know, go take the music to the couch or kind of wherever you want. Yeah, I enjoy doing it outside. Yeah, that's nice. You got you got a nice outside setup where you can take it, you know, back patio or something.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

No, I'm talking about like like in the woods, you know, just put in a backpack with some headphones and hike out to the middle of nowhere where there's nobody and nothing going on, and just plop down on a log somewhere and start tapping away, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah, you ever had any animals approach you while you're wearing your headphones, you didn't hear it? Nah, that'd be that'd be really cool, but no, that's never happened. Maybe that'd be pretty wild, wouldn't it?

unknown 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, that'd be terrifying. I wouldn't even know it until it's too late. One would want to hear the last beat you were working on before you got mauled. Right. Where can our listeners find your music online? How can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Uh, you can find me on SoundCloud under Grimson, and I'm also under the same name on Spotify. So Spotify.com forward slash Grimson.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah, and we'll get those links put up and connected to the podcast episode uh once we get this released. Man, Grimson, I really appreciate you being here with me today. This was fun to get to know you a little bit and talk about your process, and good luck with the music making, man. I hope to hear some more from you guys.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah, absolutely, buddy. All right, thank you for listening. If you're interested in becoming a sponsor or a guest on the show, use the provided email and follow me on social media for more updates. We have a lot more interviews coming up, so until then, I'm Steve Swisher, and you've been listening to the producer's chair.