DnB 1996 (LolaDaMusica) part2: Photek

Rare Drum & Bass 1996 documentary by Dutch TV program. There are a few Dutch passages, but the interviews are in English.

part1: SquarePusher
http://youtube.com/watch?v=96PfTcGHZ4Q

part2: Photek
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TyKuzY52hWU

part3: Source Direct
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tVnm5cdNcus

Rare footage here of Photek in the studio during Modus Operandi period.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Photek
• Modus
• Operandi
• interview
• documentary
• Squarepusher
• Source
• Direct
• dnb
• drumnbass
• Rupert
• Parkes
• kjz
• hidden
• camera

[PICLex]

So when he's cutting the breaks, has he got two loops, 1 full, and one cut to the first snare? Can someone explain what he's doing there? Cheers

[prestonloyola]

@PICLex First he would make a break manually (using up to 20 mixer channels). Then he would resample it (=print it to a single sample). Then he would chop the sample up starting at different starting points, for example every 16th note and spread them across the keyboard (=> 16 samples for a 1 bar break). Google "recycle" for a program that chops up breaks. You can also do this manually in a sampler. Photek's innovation at the time was that he made his own breaks instead of using existing ones.

[prestonloyola]

@PICLex Also, in an interview of the period, Photek mentions chopping breaks into "tri-sets". Not sure what this means exactly, but I'd guess something like, 1st chop on the kick (beat1), 2nd on the snare (beat2) - that's what we see in the video - 3rd on the "2and" (to catch the chikachika grace snare action). In any case, fewer chops than 16.

Then you play these chopped samples on the keyboard, it's a very musical way of coming up with interesting drum patterns.

[prestonloyola]

Also, check this video at 1:00 for another example _BkGhZLvDTE

[Deenis17]

Photek is without question one of the greatest electronic producers of all time

[DubBot]

The car didn't really match the house of Photek at this point in his life.

[Kostly]

Photek .... always been one of my favorite....OFFBEAT FTW!

[paradiddle16]

Rupert parks!!! motherfucker!

[Ainznando]

@prestonloyola Interesting documentary giving insight into these artists & their methods. I listened to all 3 of them at the time, and went to Metalheadz @ the Blue Note. Good upload, cheers!

[manitobaeivastaa]

@PICLex

I don't get it either.

[RobKramble]

I'd bet money he got that car as an homage to Miles Davis haha. Just watched the 60 Minutes interview with Miles and saw he had practically the same car back in '89 or so.

[AnthonyDavid94]

@chris1london @Oxix999 I used to think it was an Atari hehe... Nah it's definitely not an Atari but I am sure it's Cubase (I use it myself) :)

Cheers

[2ManyNoobs]

@prestonloyola in my opinion one of the reason why the music of that time had so much vibes is because of the old skool recording / production techniques: they were forced to learn to play keyboards or work with machines. Nowadays you download a samplepack, a simple DAW and a mouse and you can pretty much make "music". (not saying that music of today doesn't have vibes though!)

[DreamMuted]

Beast Dnb mate keep it up!

[chris1london]

@Oxix999 Pretty sure it's Logic on an old Mac. The Mac was popular because it had a built in MIDI interface! In those days it was essentially just a MIDI sequencer triggering the external synths/samplers. No software synths back then.

[bottle2lip]

beats!