What is your onstage setup for the Deltron 3030 tour?
I’m using a [Native Instruments] Maschine+ through a REmindEЯ delay by Enjoy Electronics. I haven’t used that delay in the studio, but it’s good for live performance. I also have an ARP 2600, a Persephone ribbon controller, a Korg KM-2 mixer with a built-in Kaoss pad, and a Bullfrog from Erica Synths.
You bring the ARP 2600 on the road?
Oh, yeah. It’s more for bleepy, washy, up and down things. It’s a good unit to put an accent on the one, to fade things out, or provide movement. I use the Persephone for melodic counter melodies. Since it’s a slide controller with no keys, I’m able to bend into notes. The REmindEЯ has built-in filters, multi-tap delay, reverb, and lots of options to manipulate the sound. None of these synths were on the original Deltron 3030 album, but the newer synths offer more flexibility and freedom. That album was made with a lot of samples and synths that aren’t quite as versatile live.
What influenced you early on to take this path in life as a producer?
I grew up playing violin, so I know a bit about playing instruments, classical music, and how things sound. Of course, that had an effect on my music, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I’m an Asian kid, so my parents made me play violin or piano. [laughs] It wasn’t like the kid who gets a guitar and forms a band; it was just part of growing up Asian. I would spend all of my allowance on records, and by high school I started to get obsessed with hip-hop. Seeing DJs playing high school parties and getting exposed to mixers and Technics [SL-]1200 turntables was fascinating to me. I started DJ'ing in high school. There is a lot of DJ culture in the Bay Area, so I was hanging out with DJ crews and I linked to it through a love of music. A lot of these guys [DJ Qbert, Mix Master Mike] were better DJs than me, but I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I focused on DJ-ing with drum machines, and my first was a Sequential TOM. My friend Rod [Sepand, "King Tech"] was using one when he and Sway [Calloway] were starting the Flynamic Force crew and had a [Roland TR-]808 cartridge for it. My beat-making began more in an electro vein, as that upbeat NY freestyle sound was big in the Bay Area at the time. From there, I moved towards making songs and records. It sounds like a natural arc, but it really wasn’t.
Did you have a tape machine to record mixes onto?
Yes, my first machine was a TEAC 3340, and I was obsessed with tape cutting. Mantronix was doing super high-end drum programming and sampling in the early to mid ‘80s. “Mega-Mix” on their debut, The Album, was remixed by the Diamond Two and had chopped-up, triplet repeats that I really liked. I moved to an 8-track TASCAM tape machine as I started to make music, but the reel-to-reel was how I learned to edit and chop tape. Everything I learned was trial and error, or from Keyboard and Mix magazines. It was similar to being on the West Coast and learning about hip-hop from watching New York movies like Beat Street. We were studying and learning a bit through osmosis.
Did you have any keyboards in those early days?
Honestly, the first things I had were drum machines and delays. I had a [DeltaLab] Effectron [ADM]1024 delay, a BOSS sample and hold unit [RSD-10] to trigger with the TOM, and that was about it. My first sampler was the Ensoniq Mirage, which had 2.2 seconds at full sample rate, but you could speed up or slow down recording into it to get more time. I would use these with turntables to make mixes at home and really learned how to sample. From there, I got the E-mu SP 1200 [sampling drum machine].
What was the story of mixing your first EP, Music to be Murdered By, and how did that inspire you to have your own studio for future projects?
There was a studio in Sebastopol, [California], that offered weekend hours at a cheaper rate. By this time, I had started making demos at home on my 8-track, so I went to a proper studio to recreate it. The swing just wasn’t there, and it didn’t even sound that much better. I went back to listen to my demos and thought, "Maybe it’s not as crystalline on the high end, but it sounds really close to what we recorded at the 2-inch tape studio." That’s when I decided to do it all at home and started to buy gear. Bear in mind, I had no money, but I knew I didn’t want to go to a studio anymore. If you’re paying $1000 a day, you’re watching the clock. Whereas at home you can take as much time as you want. It’s not wasting time, it’s getting into the right state of mind. That’s important to the creative process and to recording.
What were the pieces of gear that enabled you to get the Glue Factory up and running?
I had gotten an Akai MG14 rack-mount [12-track analog] unit which was hard to maintain but sounded great. By my good fortune, I had dinner with some guys from Davis, California, including Josh [Davis, aka DJ Shadow, Tape Op #11] and members of Blackalicious. They wanted to make records and liked mine, so we started making songs together on the Akai. This was right at the crest of when [Alesis] ADATs and [TASCAM] DA-88s were coming out, so Josh and I each got an ADAT to enable 16 tracks, along with an Alesis 1622 Mixer, as well as some JBL monitors. I had a couple of cheap-ass reverbs and then stepped it up and got a Lexicon PCM 80 and a Mackie 1604 mixer. I had a Shure SM58 for vocals – no real compressors or mic preamps – and set that up in my parents’ basement. Soon after, there was a contest in Keyboard magazine for an Alesis X2 mixer, and I bought it off of Craigslist from the local winner. That was what I used for the final mixes of DJ Shadow's Endtroducing….. and Blackalicious' Melodica.
I heard you spent time in New York making demos for Dr. Octagon [aka Kool Keith], even buying your [Moog] Memorymoog at Rogue Music?
Yes, that’s all true. I like New York and I spent a lot of time going back and forth. My friend Reggie worked for EMI and had a studio apartment by the Empire State Building with a little recording studio in the closet. It wasn’t like I was living hip-hop, but I was getting into the culture of New York and record buying. Music Factory, Downstairs Records, Downtown Records, going to see Lenny [Roberts] at Street Beats. People like Large Professor would be out shopping, but I didn’t know anyone. I dropped $1500 on the Moog, and that was a big deal. Reggie was skeptical, since he was more of an R&B guy and liked Rolands. I just liked the way the Moog sounded. Popular synths of the time, like the Roland D-50, felt pretty to me with sweet digital bells, but I wasn’t attracted to those tones. It didn’t end up on a record until Dr. Octagonecologyst a few years later. It wasn’t like I was clairvoyant; I just wanted it!
What was the workflow like for the Dr. Octagon sessions? Did DJ Qbert record his scratches on-site?
He and the Invisibl Skratch Piklz had been going for a while, but they didn’t really record at home, so he would come through the house to lay down the scratches. Keith [Thorton, Kool Keith] was staying at my house and would come down the hall to the studio. A vast majority of the drums and samples were produced with the Sequential Circuits Studio 440 [sampler/sequencer]. I bought the first [Digidesign] Sound Tools [pre-Pro Tools DAW] when it came out and used it to make 2-track edits. The gear I was using in this period was more transient and didn’t make it to the long run. I used an Audio-Technica [AT]4033 on Keith’s vocals and found it to be very sharp, so that had its time and didn’t stay forever. I probably had a mic pre at that time, as well as a cheap compressor, but I honestly don’t know what it was. None of this gear was good enough to stay forever.
Did you walk away from that record thinking it would have such an impact, or were you wishing you had a better compressor?
I didn’t know what to expect. Honestly, listening back, some of the mixes are a bit bright, or the bass doesn’t hit hard enough. But I’m cool with it. The guitar on “I’m Destructive” was played by Andy Andersen from Attitude Adjustment, and I only had a little Peavey amp in the studio. I’m not embarrassed by the tone – it sounds punk rock – but we just dialed it up and that was that. I didn’t know any better, and it sounds a little thin. But overall, I stand by the album. If you saw what I had to work with in the studio at the time, you’d be amazed. I’m a natural when it comes to sound and mixing. Ever since the beginning, I was kind of good at it. That’s a plus; I have that instinct.
That’s the most important thing. I spoke with Prince Paul [Tape Op #158] about the making of Handsome Boy Modeling School's So... How's Your Girl? That album sounds like a million bucks.
Things had changed. I bought a house with room for a studio, along with a Sound Workshop Otari Series 54 console. Sound Workshop was an English company purchased by Otari, and they were trying to make a console to compete with the SSL. Truth be told, it didn’t really sound like an SSL. I find it to be more in line with an API. It’s a full-sized 8-foot console, and I put it in without really doing sound treatment. That would be my advice to Tape Op readers: Don’t use sound treatment. That’s actually a terrible idea! [laughs] What I’ve learned is that what matters is how your ears are adjusted to any given room. I had started to spend more time in nice studios, and I couldn’t get the tone I wanted. My ears couldn’t adapt. My studio is just an untreated space, but I’ve adapted to it.
Is this the same room that you’re currently working out of?
Yes and no. We are in the age of recall, so having an analog console is a luxury that most of us can’t afford. I do a lot of movie scoring too, and recall is usually demanded. Working with the console can be an indulgence, even though I want to use it. I now have a few elaborate Pro Tools systems and I mix in the box, but in my main room I have around 40 channels of sends and returns going to analog gear. Instead of plug-ins, I’m running all analog back into the computer. I’ll use digital plug-ins for low frequency cuts and straight clean delays but, generally speaking, 100 times out of 100 I prefer analog. I use a Lexicon 300, which is a digital effects unit but it’s hardware. I’m probably running ten channels of analog sends per session – not on every track. I have certain EQs and compressors I use for certain artists. They stay in a ballpark setting, and sometimes I don’t even have to touch them. Bass almost always goes through a dbx 165 into a Moog [Three Band] Parametric Equalizer. For drums, I often bus them together and run them into a Focusrite Red 3 compressor. I just like the way it sounds, and it’s been my favorite for years. I believe a lot more in compression than EQ for shaping sounds.
