DSF Q&A Sessions : The Widdler : Closed For Questions

[Basic A]

Welcome everyone, and thanks to the widdler for doing this!



Born in Tel Aviv and living in New Jersey, The Widdler has been playing and producing music since he was 10. Taking influence from various styles of music and lifestyle, his music comes in all shapes and colors. From the chilled reggae dubs and blue mood atmospheres to the mean menacing throbs of bass and percussion, anyone can find something they will enjoy in his arsenal.


For more information, please visit/contact the following:

http://www.myspace.com/widdlemethis
http://www.digital-tunes.net/artists/the_widdler





And once again, thanks to the man himself for doing this.




Commence, the questions stop when he says so.

[Basic A]

SInce Im the one who bugged you into doing this...

Whats your kit consist of hardware wise?


Any tips on making that signature froggy style bass sound?

[Depone]

I noticed you moved from a reason/record combo into re-wireing it into logic.

Do you think you will go all logic native now? or a pinch of all things needed like ableton, renoise etc...

[honey-d]

Big ups the Widdler, thanks for doing this Q&A! Your tunes are top of the game! I can't think of any questions right now though I'll be back!!

[DubSac]

where the hell did you get those froggy style samples? lol

if you recorded them yourself... i just got more respect for you

[sixth sense]

Just dropped in to say I love your super unique style oh and everything on the origin is bonkers

[xthewiddler]

Since Im the one who bugged you into doing this...

Whats your kit consist of hardware wise?


Any tips on making that signature froggy style bass sound?

thanks for bugging me into this, it should be fun

My set up (right now) constists of: Dual Quad core mac running snow leopard. Software: Reason/Record , logic. Hardware: Couple guitars, Roland xp-30, Korg wavedrum, Mini kp and mini kaossilator, ipad (which has tons of good audio apps on it), an old old mackie mixer that hisses and is overall shit (as my audio interface for analogue gear), a couple of bongos and various percussion toys, and a jews harp.

The froggy bass hehe. Super easy. I'm doing this from memory since I don't have the file with me now, but it is the basic idea of the sound. Load up a Maelstrom, bring up the "Elektronic" waveform, set motion to all the way down, scroll with the index until you reach the "k" sound in "elektronic" (the wavetable is a robot saying "elektronic") once you found the "k", scroll the index to just a hair before it. Put the maelstrom into a combinator, route LFO2 to the back of the combinator rotary 1, then open up the combinators prgrammer and set rotary one(lfo2) to affect the index (make the index wobble) you will need to fine adjust the parameters of how much it will "wobble" in the programmers right menu. This gives the back and forth "Crunching" effect, which is i=the index rapidly moving back and forth. To make the from go up and down I simply affected the "shift knob"

This is the basic idea of it from what I remember

[xthewiddler]

I noticed you moved from a reason/record combo into re-wireing it into logic.

Do you think you will go all logic native now? or a pinch of all things needed like ableton, renoise etc...

I actually made the move to get logic after hearing/seeing so many great things from you and others on the forum. So far I have messed around with it and like it alot but am not confortable enough to use it alone for production. I've used it to import stems to practice some REAL mixing heh. As for actually doing a rewired tune from scratch, i tried and felt it was slowing me down. Reason was not as responsive (due to my own audio card/interface) as I wanted when rewired. So I guess the short is, I am sticking to record for now, and utilizing logic for it's export and even for some fx processing. I also LOVE the stability and fast pace of record.

My face when logic crashes mid beat

[paravrais]

Firstly your a massive inspiration and one of my top top fave artists at the moment, not just limited to dubstep! Legend.

Onto my questions, do you have any musical training of any kind and if not have you ever considered getting some these days even though you are already so capable?

Are you successful enough to entirely live off your music or do you still have a second job too, if so is it also related to the world of music/audio? (sorry this one is quite prying)

lastly, as a reason user i'd like to know what 'types' of sounds you use the different reason synths for, like do you use mostly the malstrom for basses or mostly the subtractor for pads etc or do you mix it up between them depending on how you feel?

[xthewiddler]

where the hell did you get those froggy style samples? lol

if you recorded them yourself... i just got more respect for you

Heh which samples? If you mean the bass it is listed above, if you mean the intro talking sample it was an old old old electric company commercial I found on youtube, wish I knew where it was =/

If you mean something else please be more specific

[step correct]

Awsome tunes man! Big up!

How do you make the bass on Prehistoric World.. please tell me it's Reason

[xthewiddler]

Firstly your a massive inspiration and one of my top top fave artists at the moment, not just limited to dubstep! Legend.

Onto my questions, do you have any musical training of any kind and if not have you ever considered getting some these days even though you are already so capable?

Are you successful enough to entirely live off your music or do you still have a second job too, if so is it also related to the world of music/audio? (sorry this one is quite prying)

lastly, as a reason user i'd like to know what 'types' of sounds you use the different reason synths for, like do you use mostly the malstrom for basses or mostly the subtractor for pads etc or do you mix it up between them depending on how you feel?

thanks!

My musical background consists of hearing my cousin play guitar when I was 10, buying one when I was 12, and tinkering on it and recording little diddies for 10 years heh. Also my love for music as a whole would be a big part of musical background as I would be on my headphones for hours and days at a time. So i don't have any real musical training, just a huge passion.

I am still thinking of going to school for either audio engineering or mastering, but as for music theory itself I think it is beyond me lol.

To an extent I can live off of my music but not the music you know. I do freelance work for various things, anything from a webad or a loopsite , to even getting a huge break from sony and doing a tune for a commercial. Selling dubstep tunes gets you little to no money, it is gigs where the money is.

For synths, Maelstrom is always my subass. Thor is good for doing loads of funky stuff for pads and leads because of its semi built in combinator thingy at the bottom, I barely use subtractor, sometimes for fx or synth percussion. Redrum and Dr. rex are my good buddies. I could sit and build rythm parts all day. When using redrum make sure to always copy loop to track, i think it is better than the pattern sections because you can effect each note without having to make a new loop pattern. NNXT is also a big one I use since I like using samples a lot too

That being said I'll use any synth or sampler to do anything, nothing is set in stone, if i somehow manage a good bass in subtractor ill use it. Experimenting is key

[green plan]

Cheers for doing this! In terms of drum programming are you a one shot man lined up? Or midi played in? Or breaks? Drum samples or synthesized (or recorded)?

[xthewiddler]

How do you make the bass on Prehistoric World.. please tell me it's Reason

It's a donk! LOL I actually spent about a week and a half trying to learn to make a donk in reason and failed terribly =/ So I ended up asking a friend of mine to make me one in Logic (this was about 2 years ago) and send it over. Sometimes you need a helping hand

[xthewiddler]

Cheers for doing this! In terms of drum programming are you a one shot man lined up? Or midi played in? Or breaks? Drum samples or synthesized (or recorded)?

I'm not a huge fan of synthesized drums, but i like synth percussion. When I'm laying down a beat I'll usually start with kick and snare on 1&3, then grab 2 hats and start beating out a pattern. Once I have the pattern and feel of how I want the tune to flow I start building more on top. I like to use redrums programmer and copy to track a lot. I would say on most tunes 30 percent of the percussion is loops, 30 percent is programmed and the rest is tapped in by me (using too many loops causes clashes in rythm and flow) Once in a while if I am not feeling lazy I will actually record some percussion from the wavedrum or any other hardware/instrument I have around me.

[sixth sense]

Where is that vocal sample in lady dub from I've been dying to know!

[jsills]

Massive ups for the widdler.

when are you playing live in the NYC area? id like to come support your electric bill so you can keep making tunes!

if ur ever in Brooklyn holler.

[step correct]

Cool, any other tips you can give on Reason as far as how you set up your combinators, patching .. etc? Was Record worth the buy? What synth do you find yourself using the most on there?

[deadly_habit]

boxers or briefs?
big ups for popping in and taking the time to do this man

[xthewiddler]

Where is that vocal sample in lady dub from I've been dying to know!

check 1 minute into this video