DSF Q&A Sessions Vol. 13: Akira Kiteshi (closed)

[akira kiteshi]

Where do you see yourself heading in the next 5 years in music?

Also when you process material for basses, how do you work? By adding little fx at each step, or sticking a big bad evil distortion at it? How often do you resample a sound on average?

Do you always know where your track is going when you start making it or does it end up being completely different from what you imagined OR you never imagined it, it just came about?



Cheers!

PS Two days left guys, get your questions in before this one ends. Akira Kiteshi is one hell of a producer.

Who knows where I'll be in the next 5 years. I kinda just take each day as it comes, and make the most of it cause it can disappear in an instant! I'm hoping I'll have a couple of albums under my belt and I'll still be making music that people will enjoy!

With basses I have a few different ways of working. If I'm using outboard gear that I want to resample, I'll just record a C note and tweak the synth as I record, then I'll start adding effects to it in renoise. Once I have a bass I'm happy with I'll render it again and start adding more effects and modulation to it to see what else I come up with.
I don't really use full on distortion that much. Most of the time it's waveshaping, bit reduction, chorus or flanger, formant filter etc. If I want some grit, I have a E-MU ESI-32 sampler that I stick stuff through. It has amazing filters on it and gives samples a really nice sound.

I never know where my tunes are going. I never start out with a plan. I kind of write them 8 bars at a time, and try to add little changes and variation. I kind of find tunes that do the same thing for 5min without structure or a story to them quite boring and half-arsed. I think that music is supposed to be entertaining and keep the attention of the listener, which is why my tunes have quite a lot going on and a full sound..... Or I might just have A.D.H.D

[akira kiteshi]

Thanx for doing this Q&A Akira!

I just have two questions:

1. WHAT FAR FAR FAR GALAXY DO YOU COME FROM??
2. CAN I GO INTO YOUR SPACESHIP WITH YOU NEXT TIME YOU TAKE A FLIGHT TO THAT PLACE??

In my eyes your one of the most amazing and inovative producer outhere in music land. The sounds go to far bro..
I pondered and pondered.. and now i know: Your not human

lol

hahaha!

Thanks man. Glad you're liking my tunes.

[SunkLo]

Heyo
What monitors do you use? (don't think it's been asked)

What's your approach to processing bass? I know you've already sort of answered this but do you try to get something a bit dirty first then modulate it, or add the grit after? I'm curious as to what a usual effect chain would look like and how much processing you apply at each level.

Do you write the bassline first and then program the patch or make the patch first and program around it?

Where do you see Dubstep going in the next few years?

Mix as you go or leave it till the end?

If you could go back in time and teach yourself something about production what would it be?

Question pool is exhausted for now
Thanks for taking the time to do a QnA

[ianks]

do ou have a method for inducing randomness in your tunes?

do you work with audio mainly, or midi? why?

what are some of your favorite compositional tricks?

if you could have any superpower what would it be?

[deadly_habit]

full hardware kit list ;P

[sixth sense]

My question is pretty much the same as one of SunkLo's, if you could tell yourself one thing that you know now that you didn't when you first started what would it be? Would love to know the answer to this

[akira kiteshi]

Heyo
What monitors do you use? (don't think it's been asked)

What's your approach to processing bass? I know you've already sort of answered this but do you try to get something a bit dirty first then modulate it, or add the grit after? I'm curious as to what a usual effect chain would look like and how much processing you apply at each level.

Do you write the bassline first and then program the patch or make the patch first and program around it?

Where do you see Dubstep going in the next few years?

Mix as you go or leave it till the end?

If you could go back in time and teach yourself something about production what would it be?

Question pool is exhausted for now
Thanks for taking the time to do a QnA

I have a pair of NS10's and JBL SVA1500's and a 15" sub. I mainly use the Yamahas. The JBL's are more for movie stuff.

I work both ways with bass. I don't have a set way of starting to programme a bass sound. If I'm writing a more aggressive style track, I'll start recording in to the computer with hot levels so that the bass sound already has some grit to it. Other times I might just use a simple square wav and start processing that.
As I said before I don't have a set effects chain setup that I use, so each time I'll make a point of trying something different.

I always set up a bunch of bass sounds first and then I write the bassline and incorporate the various sounds.

I don't know where dubstep will be in 5 years. All music evolves and separates in to underground and more mainstream categories, and that's happening now with dubstep, and will probably still be happening in 5 years. I think that the boundaries of dubstep and other genres of music will blur even more and it will be incorporating sounds and styles from even more types of music....Just with shit loads of bass on top haha!

I always mix as I go. I find that the sound you give your mix as you are writing a track is as important to the song as the sounds you are using!

If I could go back and teach myself something about production, it would be to protect my ears and not buy an old reggae sound system with my first pay cheque for my bedroom! Then my mixes would be a lot better than they are now haha!

[akira kiteshi]

do ou have a method for inducing randomness in your tunes?

do you work with audio mainly, or midi? why?

what are some of your favorite compositional tricks?

if you could have any superpower what would it be?

Yeah all the kind of random elements are planned. I'll just reverse random bits of audio or add effects to single hits to add a kind of random element to them.

I mainly work i with audio. I find it quicker to manipulate audio rather that tweaking a synth for 30min trying to find a sound. I do use midi but it's about a 20/80 split in my projects due to the fact I like to run a lot of my sounds through outboard stuff as well.

My favourite compositional tricks are tempo changes and time signature changes. They add real variation to a track and keep it interesting.

If I could have a super power it would have to be that I could turn invisible. I would only use my power for good such as spying on women in the shower and stealing studio techniques (and equipment) from producers haha!

[akira kiteshi]

full hardware kit list ;P

haha! Not as much as I had a couple of years ago. I had to sell a lot of my expensive stuff to pay bills and my moog recently caught fire and had to be thrown out. Main stuff I use....

2x Korg MS10
1x Korg MS20
1x Yamaha durm kit
1x Bass Guitar with 3 strings
1x Akai 4000DS
1x Teac X3R
Stylophone & Sylophone Beat Box
Novation Bass Station
Alesis Quadraverb (amazing reverb unit)
E-Mu ESI-32
MPC 2000XL
2x Focusrite compressors
a bunch of circuit bent cheap synths from casio, yamaha etc....
Microkorg XL (ordering next week)
Roland MC202 (just sold)
Roland MC303 (ready for the bin)
some shitty Behringer compressors
AKG c3000 x2
SE electronics 2000

A bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.....

Computer hardware

Dell laptop
Focusrite Saffire soundcard
Alesis Q49
Akai LPD8
Behringer BCF2000
Behringer BCR2000

[akira kiteshi]

My question is pretty much the same as one of SunkLo's, if you could tell yourself one thing that you know now that you didn't when you first started what would it be? Would love to know the answer to this

I think it would be something boring like have confidence in your music and stop being so fucking self critical....wait that's still what I tell myself now haha!

[dav.id]

my question:

what is your average gain structure for writing your dubstep tunes?

and with this I mean your kicks/snares/bass/sub

I know it's not always the same, but I'm just curious:)

[Depone]

Whats the best bit of advice you have been given?

and whats the best advice you can give to new producers?

[wayoftheworld]

sorry if this has been asked already, but any chance for a pic of your studio/setup?

much respect man!

[HALP]

yes i vote for a pic as well

and give me that ms20 please and then i wont ask any questions

thanks

[crytek]

What's your favorite effect command to use in Renoise? Do you have one that you don't use a lot but would like to incorporate it more in your music?

Any tips you can spare with the Ring Mod device. Been trying to use that but can't seem to make use of it.

[nowaysj]

what's your opinion of side chaining?

[upstateface]

How big is your penis?

[akira kiteshi]

my question:

what is your average gain structure for writing your dubstep tunes?

and with this I mean your kicks/snares/bass/sub

I know it's not always the same, but I'm just curious:)

I'll keep all my gains quite low so that I have a lot of headroom to play about with. My kick is always the first thing I will bring up and I'll have that peaking at about -10. I'll then bring up everything else to sit with it.

[akira kiteshi]

Whats the best bit of advice you have been given?

and whats the best advice you can give to new producers?

The best bit of advice I have been given is treat everyone how you would want to be treated cause you'll meet the same people on the way up as you do on the way down! That's also the best bit of advice I could give to new producers.

[akira kiteshi]

sorry if this has been asked already, but any chance for a pic of your studio/setup?

much respect man!

I would if I had a camera, and the one on my phone is fucked. a film maker friend of mine is wanting to come round and film me making a tune for a project, so I'm sure it'll be on youtube soon.....