Computer Music

HATCHA & LOST

Watch as the down ’n’ dirty duo deconstruc­t a dubstep classic just for us in this in-studio video

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It’s hard to overstate the influence DJ Hatcha has had over the evolution of dubstep: from working in the seminal Big Apple Records serving customers such as Skream and Benga, to collaborat­ing with bass music artists as diverse as Funtcase and Kissy Sell Out, Hatcha has been there since the very beginning. One of his most frequent collaborat­ors is Hench Records signee Lost, whose Croydon studio we visited to find out how the pair made the 2010 classic Al Barsha. First, though, let’s find out a little more behind Hatcha’s seldom-discussed production career. Computer Music: What are your earliest memories of music software? Hatcha: “That has to be Music 2000 on the PlayStatio­n – I used to use it before I started DJing. But then Skream introduced me to Fruity Loops. He used to come into the record shop and buy music off us – he was buying garage music and stuff. I started showing him the darker sides of garage, and telling him that he should try and make some of that. He had Music 2000 too, which he was messing around on, and then a few months later he came in and said he’d found something even better: Fruity Loops. He started writing on that, and I started messing around with it in my bedroom on a PC.” : Was Fruity Loops challengin­g to use at first, coming at it from Music 2000? Hatcha: “It was quite straightfo­rward to be fair. It was literally just loops – dragging your kick, your snare, your hat, then your atmosphere­s and your basslines… putting them all into a loop patterns, and then going into each sound and tweaking it how you wanted it.”

: How did you improve your production skills? Hatcha: “It was just putting in the hours, literally, just practicing and practicing. Being a DJ helped massively with bars and stuff like that – you knew how long you wanted your intro, where the breakdown should be, where the next noise should kick in, so that did help massively.”

: Are there any plugins you’ve found particular­ly reliable over your career? Hatcha: “Absynth has done me really well, a few of the Rob Papen ones are really good, there’s another one I used a lot that’s good for bass... Massive! I use that one quite a lot as well.”

“Everyone that heard it loved it, and it still gets a wicked reaction!”

: The track you’re showing us is Al Barsha. Why this track in particular? Hatcha: “It was a special one because it hit the nail straight on the head at the time. It worked perfectly – everyone that heard it loved it, and even to this day, it still gets a wicked reaction! That’s got to be one of our favourite collabs, I think.”

: Music making is now much more accessible compared to when dubstep was emerging. Has this changed the sound of the genre? Hatcha: “It hasn’t really changed the sound of dubstep, but it has brought in quite a few subgenres. It’s just given dubstep more life, really, more options and more sounds to listen to – more different styles.”

: What advice do you have for aspiring producers?

Hatcha: “Find a sound that you like, or a producer you like, and try to build things that are similar to what they’re doing – until you find your own style!”

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