Producer's Chair
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Producer's Chair
Enjoying The Downtime - Interview with Ron S
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Had a great conversation with Ron S about production and working in the industry.
Ron S Website - Instagram - YouTube - Spotify
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Intro
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the 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 gonna talk about hardware, software, tips and tricks, everything that goes into their creative process. Our guest
Track 1 - Force of Habit
SPEAKER_00today is Ron S. We're gonna take a listen to a couple of his songs and talk with him about his life as a producer. So here's the first track from Ron. It's called Force of Habit.
Interview Part 1
SPEAKER_00And I have Ron today with us to talk about his production process. Ron, how are you doing? Doing well, doing well. Awesome, man. I appreciate you joining me on the show. This is gonna be fun. Yeah, happy to be here. Tell me, Ron S. Is that a stage name? How'd how'd you come up with that?
SPEAKER_02Shortened version of my actual name back in uh mid-90s when I was getting booked to play at a party, they couldn't fit my full last name, which is Schlepper, on a flyer, and it was easier than trying to tell people how to spell it all the time. So I just kept it Ron S and uh made some records and made a bunch of mixtapes and played a bunch of gigs and stuff, and the name kind of stuck.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's short and sweet, and you never are caught off guard when someone says, Hey Ron, my guys with uh some other stage name that's way different. Takes a long time to get used to someone calling you out using that. Yeah, no, no, it's just my actual name. That's great. How long have you been producing? How'd you get started?
SPEAKER_02I have been producing for uh a little over 30 years now. Was just always drawn to electronic music sounds, late 80s, early 90s, you know, high school era for me, stuff like New Order and Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. Eventually I found a little more aggressive stuff like the EBM and Industrial at the time, which was like Front 242 and uh Nitsarib, Frontline Assembly, when Nine Inch Nails first came out, uh, that was sort of right along the lines of stuff I was listening to at that time. Very cool. So, yeah, that's the stuff I was listening to and a lot of hip hop too. But uh I also hung out with a bunch of skaters and punks and all the sort of weirdos and outcasts in my high school. So uh as I kind of got older and found more dance music, specifically the industrial stuff and the EBM stuff along those lines, it just kind of went with it, you know. And then another year or so later, in like late 92, is when the rave explosion sort of happened. So that's when the you know, the lid blew off of parties and shows and stuff all the time. So I was going out to clubs and parties like every weekend that I could, just taking as much in as I could eventually, like, okay, like I know, like I'm hearing all this stuff. I know there's technology involved to make it, so I've I'm pretty sure I can do this. Growing up, my dad uh was a drummer. He played in when I was a little kid, he had played in some cover bands and stuff. And my brother, he was two years older than me, he played guitar and bass eventually. And so I was around people like participating in music, but as a kid, I didn't really know how I wanted to do it because they were listening to country and classic rock, and I didn't want to have really anything to do with either one of those styles. Sure. Yeah, it was really something that I had to come to on my own, and I had messed around with a computer program that came with my uh Sound Blaster sound card for my uh my 286 PC in like 1992. I think I got that.
SPEAKER_00Now you're aging yourself there a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but that was like there was a MIDI sequencer built in, and you could use the synthesizer, which years later I would learn was a Yamaha FM four op synth. I forget the chip number offhand, but uh the same one that was used in the DX100 and the FB01 and all these famous Yamaha synths. Yeah. So it was like this power, but I had no idea like what I was doing. So of course everything I made sounded like trash. And then uh through the club party rave scene, whatever, like got into DJing because everyone's like, oh, this is how you play music if you're in this scene. I'm like, okay. So I learned how to DJ and DJ'd for you know a couple of years, but in my head it was always, oh, I'm gonna figure out how to make music. And then after a couple of years, I you know, moved out and was living with a buddy of mine and uh had a little extra cash from like uh summer, like extra summer work and whatever. So I bought a drum machine, uh Yamaha RX5 from this used uh music store. It was a full featured machine that took me, I mean, I had it for five years and there was I was always learning new things about it. So it was uh super complicated machine, like super deep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, is that a sample or is it just the stock sounds in there is what you're stuck with.
SPEAKER_02No, it's uh it at the time it was stock sounds. Uh, there are folks now that have uh uh ROM adapter cards where you can drop your own chips in and load them with whatever you want. Yeah, so it's it's interesting from a retro aspect, all this gear that I've like had over the years, like now seeing all the hacks for it, that I'm like, man, that would have been super dope in 1996. Right. Yeah, so it kind of started there and uh just started picking up uh Casio CZ1000 was my first programmable synthesizer. Of the stuff that Casio did, CZ lines, arguably the coolest, fully programmable phase distortion, which was their version of FM synthesis, but it was approached a lot more like uh analog subtractive synthesis, so you had to program your ADSR envelopes. Uh still using a stupid little membrane keyboard and a two-row L C D screen. Yeah. You could get through it. Do you still have that keyboard? No, I've had three of them over the years, but uh yeah, I don't have much permanence with regards to gear.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, we'll talk some more about gear uh coming up here. Tell me a little bit about that track that we just listened to. The um Force of Habit, and how did how did that come about?
SPEAKER_02Uh Force of Habit, I don't know exactly what triggered the name, but um I sort of keep a running list of track names, like ideas for songs or whatever, that I usually pick up from like documentaries or podcasts or nature shows on TV or whatever. Sure. Whatever science stuff just sounds fun or some weird little tidbits of language. Uh force of habit. So that was one that uh I had in my folder. And then as I was making the track, it was kind of a typical Ron S kind of raw techno track. So I wasn't trying to do anything like out of the ordinary. I was not doing the same stuff, but uh, you know, revisiting and and reworking some of the same themes that I always do with similar sound palettes and drums and structures and whatnot. So yeah, it's just sort of another take on uh the latest iteration of of my sound.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was very cool. I really like the groove in there and I like the instrumentation. What did you use to put that one together?
SPEAKER_02This one was entirely Ableton. I actually uh pulled up the file a minute ago. The sort of main synth line was just a little chord snippet, dropped into simpler, and then came up with a little arpeggiation, you know, load up some uh some LFOs and get the modulation working on uh on the filters and some basic stuff, and uh that can kind of carry you through a good little dance floor groove.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like it. And the other one we're listening to is kind of the same dance floor vibe. Do you experiment with other type of genres too, or do you kind of stick in that vein now?
SPEAKER_02I'm kind of hyper-focused in a pretty specific lane of techno overall. I mean, over the years I've experimented with a lot of different stuff. I produced hip hop beats a ton back in the 90s, uh, and a little bit in the early 2000s. Had a couple of guys that I would have liked to have kind of seen things through a little further, but that's the music biz and people are flaky and stuff happens and some stuff doesn't, you know? Sure. So yeah, pretty much since like the early 2000s, it's been strictly techno, except for uh I had a small hiatus. Basically, when my son was born, uh, my wife and I had uh you know, we've been married for a couple of years and we were living in a different city when we got married, and we were in Denver, Colorado. Uh, we're originally from St. Louis, Missouri. And so we were in Denver for like five years, and we were moving back to St. Louis, and I had always played shows in St. Louis regularly when I was living there and felt like I had a good feel on the scene. And then when I moved back here, I played like two shows, and there was like hardly anybody there, and it was just kind of lame. So uh I'm just like, you know what? I'm kinda done with this for now. So uh I'm just gonna chill. And uh, you know, my wife is pregnant at the time. I'm like, I'm just gonna work on making stuff for a while and not not sweat it. So I laid super low for a couple of years, just did a few uh like nut relatable releases, free download stuff. And then after uh after a couple of years, when I sort of started to get the hang of uh being a parent and realized that I could carve out a little more time, I started kind of going out again to some shows that my buddies were DJing or whatever. Because I still had a couple uh couple of folks locally that I knew. Yeah, and eventually worked my way back into playing a couple of gigs. I had uh around 2014, 2013, 2014, I had a little side project, like when I was trying to decide how I wanted to get more active into making music again, where I did uh house music stuff that's a little slower, a little groovy or deeper, whatever, vocal samples, that whole business under uh an alias. And I did about 50 or so tracks, had uh a couple of them that did okay, got to work with a friend of mine on some vocals for a few different things, so it was kind of fun. But uh eventually as I started playing out more, I'm just like, you know, the techno sounds really just just where I'm at and what I want to be about. And that's yeah, been uh pretty much all guess, no breaks on that since like 2015.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, that's that's cool to have a focus like that. Leaves a lot of the guesswork out about what you're gonna make when you go sit down at the computer.
SPEAKER_02Focus in a sense of like, yeah, this is the framework, the sort of default expectations for modern techno, which is roughly 135 to 140 beats per minute, and this, you know, darker sound textures, whatnot, but that still leaves a huge playground that I enjoy exploring all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh absolutely. Yeah, you you talked, you said that one was made in Ableton, and you talked a little bit earlier about some of the hardware that you started off with. Do you currently use any hardware?
SPEAKER_02I have a giant wall of stuff sitting next to me that I look at for inspiration and then just turn around and do everything in Ableton right now. Yeah. Okay. Uh for a really long time I was uh I was an Ableton denier, not a hater, but I'm just like, no, it's not for me. I don't want anything to do with it. Like, I'm gonna stick with what I know, and that's like hardware, but somewhere along the line, used cakewalk for sequencing, and then that moved into sonar and then reason. Yeah, so software was always like like computers. You know, you always knew computers were gonna be a part of it. It just took me a while to like lean fully into it. But yeah, for years I was sequencing my hardware using a computer. Sure. Yeah, I hold no standards of purity for in the box or out of the box or anything. Like for anyone out there, just do what works for you as an individual because no two people are gonna do it the same anyway. Absolutely. I've gone through so many setups, so many different machines trying to to have uh the hardware option and to find the best one. And there's been some great tools that are missing one or two things, and uh there's been some stuff that should have been amazing, but was a giant headache. And yeah, I kind of crashed out eventually a couple of years ago. I just decided, I'm like, look, I'm not happy with basically anything. Like, I I can't get everything to sound cohesive in the way that I want live, no matter what kind of gear I try. And eventually I decided, you know what, I'm gonna cut doing live techno out of the mix just to sort of relieve the burden, you know, to just take one thing off my plate. So it was time for me to get a new computer. And when I'm getting a new computer, I'm like, you know what? In doing all this live stuff, there's like there's only features that I've seen easily handled by Ableton. I'm like, so maybe it's time for me to just give Ableton a try. And uh yeah, after about three weeks, I was hooked. Okay. That was it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How long would it take you, you think, if someone replaced some of that gear along that wall with cardboard cutouts of that gear? To how long would it take to notice? Uh I mean, I can tell the lights weren't on, but that's about it. Yeah, being in the box, it's definitely uh it's a lot faster to get to something, to come up with an idea and get it going. That the hardware just takes it takes a lot longer to set up and start getting something going and making it sound w the way you want to.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's different tools for different jobs, is sort of how I look at it. Like the hardware was always more of a live jamming kind of process, you know what I mean? Like you plug this, everything, you get everything synced up, you figure out which patterns you're gonna work with, and what can patch into what from because I got like a bunch of the semi-modular stuff now. Yeah, just not really having to engage in any of that part of it, just sitting down opening up a session, and I have like a few templates that I built in Ableton, so I have like good starting points.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's not like you know, the tracks aren't built, but I've got the basics laid out and uh it's easy for me to get moving on new stuff. And that's the part I've always enjoyed the most anyway, is just putting new stuff together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the dance tracks and stuff, it's all about the drum sounds and then the tones because a lot of them are pretty minimal. The amount of instruments that are playing at once, it's about the slow transition of sounds over time sometimes in and stuff like that. And are you sample guy, drag and drop into the arrangement right away, or are you spending hours tweaking kick drum sounds to get the perfect thing?
SPEAKER_02A little column A, a little column B. Okay, sure. From like a Ableton workflow point of view. I built uh I do you use Ableton? I don't, I'm I run on Logic. Logic, okay. I used to use Logic, so yeah. Um Ableton has a drum rack, which kind of like an MPC or like uh whatever the drum sampler in Logic is where you assign samples to drum pads, but it's uh so similar to the MPC, it's like six pages deep. So you can have up to 128 samples in this one device. So I've went through and like sorted through when I was making the transition to my new computer and everything, like picking out only the kick samples that I want to work with. So I've narrowed it down from folders and folders and folders to like 85 of my favorite kick drums. Sure. And so like that's my kick drum where I start with, and then just program a simple pattern in and add a MIDI uh transpose knob, and then that allows you to just scroll through samples to figure out whatever works with the particular groove you're cooking up. Yeah, that's awesome. And then within those samples, you can adjust the envelopes and decay and tuning and all that stuff as well. So there's yeah, it's it's all the flexibility of any hardware to add, but in one easily accessible package.
SPEAKER_00It's good that you know you find something that works for you and you stick with it and keep pumping out music. What's a plug-in that makes it into every song? What's like some of your favorite software synths and stuff?
SPEAKER_02A lot of the Ableton basic stuff, obviously, EQ8 compressor, their uh hybrid reverb is uh is kind of a fun one. Corpus is uh is a fun Ableton one that's it's like a resonator and you can uh adjust the tuning. So it it kind of adds like an FM texture to a lot of different sounds, and you can be either overt or subtle with it. That I use that on a lot of stuff. For synths, there's actually a freeware synth I really like. I'm not too big on going crazy on plugins. I feel like Ableton Suite, which is the version I'm using, has enough of a well-developed ecosystem within it that like it can do whatever I want. But I will check out freeware stuff. And there's a freeware synth called Odin, like the Norse God. Yeah. It's a fun sort of module environment where you can have different voice modules going through different filter modules and different amp modules, and you can stack them, and there's effects, and there's tons of Flexibility there. Uh the preset library is like super deep as well. So you can just kind of go through and find something that's in a crazy wild direction and then, you know, kind of work backwards and say, okay, well, I would adjust this and yeah, like really start to develop new stuff, but from a different starting point using a different train of thought. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That sounds like a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02I like having some stuff like a different sort of mental challenge or a different approach to as I take on like new projects or a new series of tracks that I'm trying to work on sometimes just to keep it interesting.
SPEAKER_00Sure. What's something that you found in Ableton that you love and coming from Logic, that you know, Ableton does better? And then what's something in Logic that you miss that Ableton's not really doing?
SPEAKER_02I believe the newest version of Logic has some version of like scenes or clips that you can then drag into arrangement view.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's uh like once I understood how that was sort of set up as it relates to hardware. I'm like, oh, this whole system makes way more sense than anything I've ever used before. So yeah, I like the the scene, which I I I feel like logic solved, but some of the other effects chains, the uh like LFO that you can just add an LFO onto literally anything and get some wild modulations super easily. Yeah. That's an easy one. Uh from Logic, I missed a hell out of Logic's stock compressor.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02All the different models on there, like the red, you know, I'd I'd slam kick drums through the red uh, you know, the focus right one, and then uh the SSL, the the blue and white one for like uh buses or for the master. Yeah, yeah. I just I love all the different character variations in their compressor. That was an extremely well done tool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love all the stock stuff in Logic. It's it's been great for me. There's definitely some cool stuff in Ableton, though I keep hearing everyone talking about, and I've seen some videos and things like that. So maybe I'll have to check that out some at some point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's uh it's modular enough that you can think about a a goal or how you want to achieve something or even how to do something differently. Yeah, it it allows you it it's pretty powerful to build fun stuff, and that's not even getting into Macs, which is just nuts, and I don't understand how people's brain comprehends that level of stuff.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, so with Max for Live, you're you're talking about the community-based stuff that they've people have come up with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, there's a number of devices that are amazing. I think uh the Sting sequencer came out of that, which is the uh it's like a rolling acid pattern generator, but it generates MIDI data, so you can plug it into whatever synth sound you want. I use that a lot just to get little ideas or to even get the start of a sequence and then build something else off of it. Very cool.
SPEAKER_00What's your desert island hardware or software? One groove box or synth sampler or acoustic instrument you would have?
SPEAKER_02You know, I was thinking about this. I think it might actually be the MPC, my MPC one. Okay. That was a device I had to uh uh devote a lot of time to as a hardware sequencer, sampler, groove box, whatever. Yeah, and like try to make it do what I wanted to in the best way I could. It comes so close in a lot of ways to what I would love for a machine to do, but it misses the mark and a few key areas that I just couldn't live with anymore. Sure. In terms of that being like the brain of my operation. But it did also help me realize that I like working with samples and just manipulating a sample-based workflow a whole lot more than I do having a wall of temperamental gear.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You can get a sound a lot quicker, starting with something that's already been processed and everything, get a musical idea going faster.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I mean you can even like get into uh essentially wavetable synthesis where you're using just tiny loops of little fragments to just define a pitch and then shape the envelopes and everything from there.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, that's fun too. What's something that you use regularly that you think is underrated? I don't know, my trusty push one.
SPEAKER_02And it still works totally fine, and especially with just learning Ableton and the ecosystem, and it's enough uh it reminds me enough of the MPC that I'm like, oh, okay, this is kind of how I work through this part of it, and here's how the programming's laid out and everything. Yeah, so it helped me sort of get up and running with a few things, Ableton quicker. And since I'm not really doing anything live and I'm not really reliant on a dedicated hardware interface, I'm not in any hurry to upgrade. That's my underrated piece of gear.
SPEAKER_00Okay. The original push, yeah. Very cool. I like the hybrid stuff like that that connects to your DAW, so you're still getting the full experience of the DAW, but also gives you some of the tactile feel of hardware that some pushing the pads and turning knobs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's definitely something to be said for recording filter sweeps and you know, uh effect swells and stuff in real time. Yeah, I absolutely that's yeah, that's what I use the push for primarily is yeah, having a knobby interface.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very cool. If a hardware or software engineer is listening to this right now, what's a plug-in or piece of hardware that you would want that doesn't exist yet?
SPEAKER_02Ooh, plug-in or piece of hardware that doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, is there anything you can think of that?
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. Here's the one feature that I wish MPC had that would have for sure kept me on that platform. So back in I think they were released in the early to mid 2000s, the emo had a groove box called the command station. So there was uh the MP7, the XL7, and uh uh I forget what the hell the silver version was. At any rate, it was an expandable, super powerful like rompler uh groove box, but you could add ROM cards with different synth engines to it or different Romple presets, and then there were blank ones that you could save your own customized presets to. There was a super deep modulation matrix. You could actually hook uh hardware insert through the master outputs of the device on quarter-inch TRS cables. Yeah, just super feature-packed design. And my favorite part about it was on the sequencer, it had this feature. I can't remember the name of it. It's like mega mix or the whatever mode you triggered had kind of a cheesy name like that. But it would allow you to mix and match parts from various sequences in real time. So if I built out, you know, the sequences behind the track Force of Habit, I had my kick drum, my low ton, my chord stab line, my effect swells, and other percussion. And then I built out, and say I put those on patterns one through five with each one of those tracks on patterns one through five, and then I could go through and program my next song, whatever, hologroove on patterns six through ten. So again, I'd keep the same standard where I'd have kick drum, bass, melody, percussion, whatever. And then uh this particular mode would allow you to take the bass line from pattern seven and play that on pattern three just whenever you want, but just that one the bass line, not the whole pattern. Sure. So it allowed you to get super creative with mixing electronic music live, like performing live and transitioning from song A to song B or coming up with new themes on the fly. Yeah. So uh yeah, I want someone to integrate something like that into a hardware sampler. There's my missing feature.
SPEAKER_00Okay. That's basically how Ableton's clip launcher works, is that correct?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And then once I figure that out, I'm like, oh yeah, this is exactly what I should have been using for the last 15 years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so someone could just put that into a hardware sequencer.
SPEAKER_02Which I mean, the Akai is sort of done with the force, and you know, Ableton with the push three standalone. So it's uh the point's somewhat moot, but yeah, the command station was awesome for that, and it was a fun machine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's any obscure hardware groove box enthusiasts out there, I highly recommend at least playing with one for a year or two. It's they're super deep and super fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's fun to see all the stuff that those guys put into those boxes that a lot of people never even discovered, kind of stuck with it at a surface level.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00The manual's huge row. Yeah, yeah. Big book. Yeah. What skill are you trying to improve right now?
SPEAKER_02The never-ending battle for the perfect mixdown. Yeah, mix downs and uh overall sound design, especially with like using different tools, which is another thing that's super awesome about Ableton, and one of the reasons I kind of gravitated toward it eventually is that anytime I was trying to figure out how to do something on MPC or in Logic or whatever, all the default tutorials on YouTube are in Ableton, and I'm just like, all right, let's see what they're doing here. And so I'd watch them, and then I'm like, okay, well, if I use these tools and do it this way, here's how they achieve, you know, a rumble kick or whatever. But it's easier for me to get my head around it now that I'm in the Ableton ecosystem.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So do you tend to mix as you go, or do you put everything together and then mix afterwards and in kind of a mixing session?
SPEAKER_02A lot of mixes I go, yeah, I try to knock out a rough balance between stuff, you know, as I'm putting it together. The subtleties, sort of the the ear candy, the bell, the, you know, the little noise swishes and the tension builds and all the weird atmospheric stuff in the background. That takes me a while. That's like the stuff I'm still trying to fine-tune in my mixing process. But the basic elements, you know, the basic drums and bass or whatever, sort of melodic lead theme, chord stabs, whatever. Yeah, I like I get that rough mix with reverb delay and all that stuff mapped out pretty quickly in the process.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I'll do the same thing because I go quite a bit, you know, as soon as I have my hi-hat track down there, I can throw an EQ on and roll off all the low end. I know I'm not gonna need it, and it's gonna be fighting fighting for the frequency spectrum later, so might as well just do it now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for standard stuff, and then it allows you to say, Oh, okay, it's got this weird, you know, room sound right here. Let me kill that before uh I stack six of these together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What's the hardest part about producing from home? Hardest part about producing from home?
SPEAKER_02Maybe focus.
SPEAKER_00What kind of distractions do you have around there?
SPEAKER_02Oh, family, pets, a big TV and a soft couch. Yeah, that's uh I mean, I would say that's a a minor detriment, but I'm I'm pretty disciplined about getting in the the studio most days, at least for an hour or so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, awesome. And do you have a goal with your music that you're currently chasing?
SPEAKER_02Uh global techno domination. Um, I just uh I'm just happy to be doing it and to still be a part of things on the level that I am. So uh I'm just gonna keep writing it and keep enjoying
Track 2 - Hologroove
SPEAKER_02it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, awesome, man. Well, let's go ahead and take a listen to that second song you got for us today. So I'm here with Ron S. And this next song is called Hollow Groove.
Interview Part 2
SPEAKER_00So, Ron, what's your favorite part of the creation process?
SPEAKER_02I love just getting lost in an idea. Like early on in the process, when, you know, I f for me it's generally starts with a a drum loop or drum idea or something I want to try or whatnot, but then whatever sort of melodic or top layer interests, like seeing what what develops there is always a fun part of the process because occasionally I'll come and sit down with a strong idea what I'm trying to to start, but usually I'm just like, well, let's let's just fire up the workstation here and see what surfaces.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just conduct some experiments and see what you come up with. That's fun. Uh what's your least favorite part?
SPEAKER_02Least favorite part? There tends to be like a a tedium stage for me somewhere. Like I'll get the original idea done pretty quickly, and then uh, or at least the concept, the main loop, theme, whatever. And my goal is to get from that loop to the arrangement as quick as possible, and just to get a rough four and a half, five and a half minute arrangement mapped out, and then uh I can go back and work on how to fill in any gaps or where other layers might fit in. But yeah, there generally gets to a point where I'd say I'm probably like 70% done with the track. Like I've the mix down is not a whole lot different than what the final is gonna sound like, but there's just maybe one or two little things missing or some polish that isn't there, or maybe there's an extra thing that I just haven't realized just stands out and needs to come out. Uh yeah, so there's always like a sort of 70% done plateau that I hit that uh sometimes it's a little hard to push past that.
SPEAKER_00I feel that either I'll be mentally checked out because I'm already like moving on to the next idea, you know, just having trouble calling it finished. Do you have trouble calling tracks finished and putting them out?
SPEAKER_02No, that's actually I feel like one of my stronger suits, but uh it also allows me to finish more kind of mediocre stuff that doesn't need to surface. Um but no, I can get the rough idea down pretty well. My sort of my goal is basically to get a track to where it's like 90% done and then put it to bed, start on the next one, and then over the process of a few weeks or a month, go back and listen to some of those other ones, and then it's super obvious what I need to fix to get that last 10% done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I kind of do the same thing, except for a lot of times I never go back and I forget about them. And then I mean there's some of those linger in our play too. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about that track we just listened to, Hollow Groove. Uh how'd that come about and what did you use to make that?
SPEAKER_02So uh the track again is uh it just made that one uh using Ableton simply, but I was sort of born out of a concept to make a record using a bunch of disco samples. I had seen a bit of chatter and noticed that there's been a a bit of a disco house resurgence in uh in dance music. And uh I was around for, I mean, I guess technically I was around as a child for the first run of disco. I don't remember much outside of you know the bee gees and staying alive and whatnot originally, but in the mid-90s, like some of my best friends, uh local DJs were all about disco house. Uh so I was super steeped in that sound. Yeah, though a lot of the techno I make still has a ton of 90s references, and it's you know, I'm of that era, so it's I'm going to sound like it whether I'm trying to or not. So I I'm like, okay, I want to make a uh a harder-edged record of disco tools. So uh I listened to uh satellite radio in my car pretty regularly, and uh I have the disco station on one of the uh presets just to we're to find little samples and grooves and stuff. Yeah. And maybe hear something that's new. And they had this uh they had a show on. It was on Sunday nights, and it only ran for a little while, or I only heard about it a couple of times. But it was called Red Light Disco. And so uh I was driving around and I like heard this, so I just pulled out my phone and took a picture of something that I thought sounded cool. I'm like, I've never like vintage old disco track that I've never heard before. Like, that's the kind of stuff I was looking for. I get home later, and whenever I decide to to look up whatever this song is to start this project, I realized that the whole premise of this red light disco show was that it was all disco from uh adult films. And so uh So uh so I rolled with that on this whole record. So all the disco samples are from the same composer from a couple of different uh late 70s Italian adult films. So it's uh got that vintage funk to it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool getting influence from stuff like that and then trying to make something that fits that certain vibe.
SPEAKER_02You know, it has a bit more of a poppy, sort of upbeat feel to some of the parts, and there's like it definitely has like a an A and a B section. Whereas most of the stuff I do is just like, here's a theme, you're gonna listen to this for four minutes, and then you'll hear the next song. So there's a little you know, there's space in the realm of dance music for all of it, and there's space in my life for all of it too, because I don't want to try and listen to the exact same thing all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, more arrangement stuff going on. Um, what's something that you wish someone would have told you early on? I don't know how deep you want to go with this answer. As deep as we can, man. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01Let's get weird.
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, it's that it's really up to you as an individual how far you want to take this whole business in any direction or level that you choose. You know, it's more possible now than it's ever been. But yeah, it's certainly not a not an easy road if you're trying to like make a living with a pretty narrow focus.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I'm fortunate enough that I uh have a career in the audio industry. I'm an audio engineer for a company that builds commercial uh sound systems that you'd see in like airports and uh hospitals and stuff like that. So it's not like, yeah, I get to play with speakers at my job, but it's not like cool, glamorous sound system stuff or good studio stuff. It's like aging background music speakers. But uh but hey, of uh of the people I went to audio school with, I think I'm literally the only person I graduated with that works in anything remotely related to the industry. Right. What what school did you go to? Uh I went to University of Colorado, Denver. Okay. Cool. For the music uh industry studies technology focus. Very cool.
SPEAKER_00Tell me a little bit about putting together a sound system for an airport. Like how do you decide how far do you need speakers spaced apart and what do you need to think about when you're doing something like that?
SPEAKER_02My company, we don't actually do the like the layout and design work. We do have specifications for our various products that say at a you know a height of 10 feet, this speaker has a dispersion of 110 degrees, so it's good for roughly a 12-foot circle. So then you overlay that on your blueprints and draw out circles and there's software that you can do it, and we've got some models, uh software called Ease that's uh like kind of an industry standard that allows you to see how sound fields emanate from speakers.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's cool. Do you do the installs and and test everything?
SPEAKER_02Uh I did for a minute. After school, I did uh like corporate AV stuff for uh AV events and like corporate events and stuff in uh in hotels for a company, and then uh I went to work for a university as a technical director for their performance, one of their performance venues until the pandemic sort of blew that apart. And then I went to work for a friend of a friend doing installs of all kinds of crazy A V systems and uh integration projects for uh for a few years, and uh that was demanding physically in a way that you know we're not getting any younger.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there was a level of that I just wasn't trying to do for the next 20 years, so I was able to find my current gig where I get to sit in a comfy cubicle and design relatively simple uh products, but yeah, it uh it it doesn't suck too bad. So good.
SPEAKER_00What's the craziest job that you had? What's the craziest place you've installed a sound system?
SPEAKER_02I'd say the sound we I didn't go overboard with too much on the integration work I did. Uh we did like some outdoor pool sound systems where there's uh subwoofers that basically you have to dig a giant hole and bury this subwoofer except for one little tube that comes up that you know would look like a mushroom cap or one of those goofy uh like green sound speakers. It looks like that, but it's actually a subwoofer, and then there's little satellite speakers that you'd mount all around. Yeah, so they're pretty interesting sounding systems. Yeah. Especially for that kind of application for people that have way too much money on their hands. Yeah, that's cool. Is that stuff where you can hear the music when you're underwater? No, we didn't do any underwater transducers. I know they make products like that, but I don't think that it's really anything that would generate any quality at all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I know sound carries really far underwater, like a subwoofer. If you could get one, you know, where it was pumping directly into the water.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, you could move some low well, I mean, that's how like whales communicate. Right. Like at super low frequencies like that. But yeah, for the human hearing range, I think uh water's not the best uh substrate.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, that would be fun though. What specific thing do you feel like you spend the most time on while creating a track?
SPEAKER_02I'd say probably crafting the main element to ride and develop throughout the length of the tune. Talking about like the melody? Yeah. Or texturally, because like in techno music, the more hypnotic and like groovy side that I lean towards, there's not a lot of like outright melody, and there's uh in terms of like chord changes in that. It's usually like here's a sound, here's a little theme. There might be a few variations on it, but in addition to melodic variations, there's sonic variations, you know, where you're messing with synth parameters or effects send or layering it with other textures. I mean, there's all kinds of techniques of manipulating and distorting and stretching and discombobulating sound to whatever end you wish. It's just I guess uh corralling that process throughout the course of uh four and a half minutes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Do you have any secret tricks that you use to get your sound? I do.
SPEAKER_02I have one fantastic secret trick. On drum rack, I use uh basically the 909 core kit for a bunch of stuff for hi-hats on nearly everything I do, or at least one layer of hi-hats. Um, but one thing on drum rack that I love is that you can make it a tiny bit more analog sounding by selecting the the sample on drum rack, and then on the LFO section, you activate the LFO to uh re-trigger on each note, and the wave shape is random, and then you set that to affect the pitch and the volume by two percent. So every hi-hat hit can be up to four percent different than the last one, but usually it's not. So it gives this level a sort of quasi-analog randomness to one sample.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um when we're talking about a like a hi-hat and a percentage as far as pitch, like how many how many semitones would that be, you know, if you're talking about two or four percent?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it would be like fifteen cents, twenty cents maybe, like not even a full semitone.
SPEAKER_00Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, it's just you know, and that's that was the fun, the character, whatever uh of of all the the analog gear is the randomness. Yeah. The tiny randomness like that, the unexpected quality. So it's a way to to inject a little bit of that into some otherwise static sounds that aren't like outright perceivable, but if you do that sort of stuff, just those tiny little differences on enough little layers, then uh, you know, it does kind of give some of that feel, even productions that are still a hundred percent made in the box.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. That's a great tip. That's really cool. What's the weirdest thing you do in your process?
SPEAKER_02I don't know if there's necessarily a thing. I mean, I I try out a lot of ideas and sequences and sounds, and yeah, I come up with some pretty out there stuff that uh, you know, like I have mentioned before, sometimes I finish tracks I probably don't need to. Like, yeah, I come up with ideas that I I will like turn on the next day. I'm like, wow, that really just isn't at all what I was trying to do. So yeah, I don't know. I can just come up with some pretty out there ideas and themes that just don't belong and I'll ride 'em out for too long sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_02Do you get writer's block? And if so, how do you get past it? I do go through phases. I don't I've sort of been at the production game and releasing and stuff long enough that I recognize that I'm not gonna be uh fully productive a hundred percent of the time. Like, yeah, it's great when I'm in the zone and in a flow state with production, and I can sit down and rip out two or three tracks a week. And yeah, it's cool when I can do that for a month or six weeks at a time, but that's not gonna be like I understand that's not gonna be like that all the time. So I just have to enjoy it when I am in those states. And uh, like I had mentioned earlier, I get a lot of tracks that are like pretty far along the way done, but maybe not be a hundred percent done. So if I'm not in the mood to create something new, I have old stuff that I can revisit or uh polish up. In terms of like shopping tracks to labels and stuff, I try to build up a a decent batch of what I'm working on before I release those. And it it it kind of helps me to have a little time and space between when I'm eager and making all that stuff versus when I actually decide to to send it around and see what's worth sharing and releasing. Uh, I think it's actually good to have a little little downtime in there sometimes to to balance it out, especially with like a regular, you know, a day job and a family and all of other life's business. The creative juices aren't always flowing, but you just gotta do the best you can wh while you can.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. What are you doing in your other downtime? Do you got another hobby?
SPEAKER_02So my other downtime is basically other facets of techno music. So I'm involved uh locally with uh DJing shows as well as promoting shows where we book DJs and artists that that me and my crew of folks like. Cool. We build our own sound system, like we built our own subwoofers, and uh so in addition to getting to play around with that at work, I also like I'm in the process of figuring out what system I want to build next, but I want to build uh build something new that'll be a little easier for us to transport than the big thing I got right now. But uh yeah, so messing with sound systems, promoting techno, listening to techno, DJing techno, making techno. Okay.
SPEAKER_00You never really get away from the music.
SPEAKER_02And uh well, I do like running. Like I train for a half marathon, usually once or twice a year. Um sort of run regularly and trying to exercise regularly. That uh also helps to keep some sanity in my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great. What's the best feedback you've ever received?
SPEAKER_02I think the best feedback I ever received was uh just that some random kid from somewhere in the UK tracked me down on my personal Facebook page to show me a video clip of one of my tracks that uh had gotten played at uh Deckmantle, which is this techno festival in Amsterdam. Uh, and this was in like I think 2017 or 2018 when this happened. Uh, but the record was from like 2009. So it was this record that I made a hundred copies of and basically had totally forgotten about. And uh the pretty big time British DJ played it at this huge festival, and this like random dude sends me a video of like 20,000 people completely getting down to one of my tracks. Oh, that is awesome. That's uh that's pretty good feedback to receive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I bet that feels great. That that's cool. Uh, what's the worst advice you've ever been given?
SPEAKER_02The worst advice I've ever heard would be in my younger days of like DJing and trying to get known in that dance music scene is to let it happen organically, which I never that just I'm like, how the hell does that happen? Like, you just have to be chosen by some mystical force to be approved to do whatever you're doing, like that, you know, and the further along in my air quotes career I've gotten in music, like it's the more I've realized that uh I have to do as much as I possibly can uh in every possible direction to get as far as I can. Like nothing's going to happen unless I, you know, instigate that happening.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta put in a lot of effort to get your stuff into the ears of the public. Yes. Okay. What habit has improved your music the most?
SPEAKER_02I would say d making a a daily commitment to get into my studio, and uh I'm fortunate enough that I actually have my own room in the basement of my house that's got a bunch of treatment up, and uh it's it's relatively quiet, and I can I can get down here. I usually wait till you know my wife goes to bed and then dip away for an hour or two. But I've uh Yeah, I've been doing that for most of the last 15 years, and I'm kind of amazed because I've known several like full-time DJ producer techno artist types, and I know I get a lot more music made and finished than some of them do in far less time. And I think it's just because I'm like dedicated and consistent and I have a a strong routine about it. I don't just wait for divine inspiration to strike and you know hope that I can catch lightning in a bottle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How do you feel about AI taking a bigger role in the software and tools we use?
SPEAKER_02So I have not embraced AI tool yet. I've a couple of friends of mine and I have talked about it, and there's there's some approaches that I can understand, but I'm not trying to have AI write songs for me, and I while there's some humor and it's kind of scary how good some of that stuff can be, I uh I prefer to make my bad music the old-fashioned way by hand.
SPEAKER_00Sure. What advice do you have for someone just starting out in the production world?
SPEAKER_02That can be a loaded one there. Um to be patient. It's if if as a producer, it's going to take some time for you to figure out your own workflow and what suits you and how you work best to have some patience through that and to understand that you're going to be making bad stuff for quite a while, and that's that's part of the process. You know, just take what you can from every step of the journey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Your first stuff's not gonna be great, but you just gotta keep making it, and uh by the time you've made a hundred tracks, that hundredth will be uh could be something special. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You gotta enjoy that process too. That's gonna take a long time to get good at just just like anything, any hobby you pick up. So you make music from home, but if you could be transported with your computer and your gear to anywhere in the world to make some songs, where would it be?
SPEAKER_02From an inspiration standpoint, Berlin is cool. Uh I need to get need to get back there. But uh yeah, I'm not sure I have any other inspirational spots right now.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, yeah, Berlin sounds cool. I'm sure there's some really cool, cool old buildings there that you could post up in and create some tracks. Yeah, there's yeah, there's uh all kinds of stuff there. Yeah. What's something that you're trying to get better at outside of music?
SPEAKER_02Well, I try to, you know, stay in shape and maintain a good level of fitness.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're gonna bump up to a full marathon at some point?
SPEAKER_02No, I've done I have done three full marathons. I don't think I will be revisiting those days because that that's that's a level of work I don't feel like putting in again everything. Yeah, I get it. It's uh a lot of time and dedication to that. Uh leveling up my sound system is I think my next goal.
SPEAKER_00Okay. As far as what the your monitors that you're using? The no, my uh like my PA system sound system, sorry. Oh, okay, yeah, for the live stuff you're doing with the DJs? The shows, yeah. Yeah, very cool. If you could have a creative session with any other producer in the world, who would it be?
SPEAKER_02I'd probably like to see how Truncate works. He's uh he's been one of my favorites for a while.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, that'd be fun. And what about a vocal artist? If you could have any vocal artists jump on one of your tracks, who would that be?
SPEAKER_02Uh, vocal artist. Well, I mean, if we're going to anyone, it's gotta be like some old school early 90s house stuff, like probably Barbara Tucker or Dager.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that would be cool. What would you say is the most important thing in your life right now? Uh, my family. Cool. Yep, that's a great answer. Uh, I'm I started adding a listener question to these episodes that none of the current ones that are out right now have them, but it'll uh I think the first one will appear here in another couple weeks that I started doing it. And so our listener question for this week is Bob from Sioux Falls, South Dakota wants to know what microphone you would recommend for a beginner.
SPEAKER_02Uh interesting question to pose to the electronic music producer that doesn't really do much vocals, but uh yeah, when they send these questions in, they're not they don't know who I'm interviewing next. It's just it's okay. I uh it's alright. I've I I have formal training. I can give good recommendations. Um for a dynamic mic, I mean the Sur SM58 is a classic for a good reason. They're sturdy and they have a reasonable sound. For a a budget uh large diaphragm condenser, I like the Rode uh NT2. I think those are great mics that sound a whole lot better than their price tag. So that would be my my recommendation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, those are great suggestions. Well, the show's called Producer's Chair, so I always ask, do you have a special chair that you sit in when you're making your music?
SPEAKER_02I do. I have the uh Herman Miller Aeron chair. Okay. That uh I got uh from uh an office clearance for the low, low price of zero dollars. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, pretty comfy.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, highly I highly recommend it. Well, it's good like good posture, keeps me basically sitting upright despite my attempts to try and do otherwise. I I used to have a chair in here that would let me lay back far enough I would fall asleep at my computer all the time. And my wife would come down and wake me up like in the middle of the night, like where are you what are you doing? So yeah, I can't fall asleep in this chair and it's comfy and I can sit in it for hours and it still works. So if you see an office in your metropolis closing, go see if they have good chairs to snag.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. There you go. Where can our listeners connect with you online and hear more of your music?
SPEAKER_02So you can find me on Instagram, YouTube, threads, Reddit, etc. Uh, my username is uh Anode8, A-N-O-D-E number eight. On my Instagram, there's uh link to my link tree that has Beatport, Spotify, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, all the places you can find some of my mixes and all my uh my produced tracks.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. We'll make sure to link all those wherever people are listening to this podcast. We'll have the links below there. Where you can go and check out Ron S and the stuff he's making. I definitely want to hear that track that the guy sent you the video for that was played over there in in the UK. That sounds really cool. I wanna that one's called Titan. Okay, yeah, I wanna I'm gonna look that up and listen to it. Yeah, Ron, I really appreciate you coming on the show with me, man. This has been a lot of fun to talk to you and learn about
Outro
SPEAKER_00your process and hear about your job, putting sound systems together and everything. Really interesting stuff.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. All right, that's our show for today. And go ahead and keep sending those emails in with your questions for the producers that I'm having on as guests. Those are a lot of fun. And if you're interested in sponsoring or being a guest on the show, use the provided email. I have another great episode coming up for you in two weeks. So until then, I'm Steve Swisher, and you've been listening to the producer's chair.
