I was asked to remix a track from Kurl‘s recent release Visions of an old man and decided on remixing the track Dub Trip, listen at the below Spotify link

The track is released under my more Dub Techno orientated alias TEChSLo and is featured as the second release on Organica Compila Vol 3.

It was an interesting journey, label head Pascal had initially asked for a clubby remix, which under the influence of some of my students at the time resulted in a more Tech House remix. After providing a sketch of the direction the remix was taking, Pascal kindly replied, “you’re professional as usual! So, to be honest this is not my favourite kind of music, but if this is your interpretation, it is! I would prefer something more housy and groovy….but, as I said, you are the remixer, so you can do what u want!”

Wanting to execute the brief and satisfy the label I asked for a reference track to avoid any further misunderstandings. Pascal provided some great mellow groovy house references and I used that as an opportunity to map out some of the “grooves” / quantisation patterns in the references. In particular I was trying to capture the shuffle or groove in the hats of reference tracks such as the below track.

For my students I created a Youtube video on how to map out such groove templates within Ableton, that can be found below.

The second version with a more funky groove and less hard hitting drop met with the following response from Pascal, “This is fantastic! Huge work on it! Perfect!”

In reflection I feel that I satisfied the brief, but on listening to the whole record I feel that my track could have been a bit more dubbed out and ambient. That would have fitted better with the overall sound of the compilation and also been more inline with the TEChSLo sound.

I feel that this has been a good lesson in asking for exact reference tracks and the importance of groove templates. Further, I feel it is also a good lesson in not always following the stereotype of a remix being a more banging version of the original track.

The post Organica Compila 3 – Remix Collection appeared first on chrishancock.network.

Titled Redfern Nights, the release is somewhat of an ode to my old Redfern neighbourhood. The record takes field recordings taking during the wet Redfern winter of 2018 and weaves them with more typical dub techno instrumentation such as dubbed chord stabs and 4×4 kick patterns.

The record is available on DJ friendly platforms such as Beatport and streaming services such as Spotify.

A film clip was also created which was mostly used for Instagram. I have recently posted a long play version on Youtube for those interested.

The rest of this post shall involve a reflection on the production: 

I used field recordings of rain to emulate the noise floor and textural sounds that I have always loved in seminal records from Basic Channel and other alumni such as Echospace Detroit. 

To achieve the maximal width, these stereo recordings have often been split into mono and placed out of sync to maximise left and right channel differences.

Embracing the Dub Techno emphasis on shifting tonality rather than chord structures, I have used a lot of the Max for Live LFO tool on this record. Specifically, each track has used multiple LFOs to slowly shift filter cut off frequencies and other variables. See my Youtube channel for tutorials relating to such techniques.

Tracks 4 & 5 are interesting to me and reflect my interest in the idea that a remix can be an opportunity to take a reductionist approach to the original sounds; stretching and turning them into their most basic tone or texture. These two reductions were heavily inspired by the works of Variant. 

In researching many of my favourite Dub Techno producers, it has been noted that many of them have used reel to reel tape machines in their production. To emulate this analogue tape warmth, I have recorded all the audio stems to cassette tape and then re-digitised before the final mix. From a production standpoint, it has been interesting to see the harmonic stimulation and the softening of transients that such a technique has resulted in.

That’s probably enough of a nerdy audio reflection on the minutiae. If you have made it this far, I hope some of the above-mentioned technique inspires your own production.

The post Dub Techno release on Organica Sounds appeared first on chrishancock.network.