RUSS YALLOP
See how he puts together his brand of tech-house in this interview and in-studio video
The proud purveyor of underground tech and deep house grooves, Mr Yallop burst onto the scene in 2010 with a flurry of releases under various pseudonyms on labels such as Crosstown Rebels, Hot Creations, and Nervous Records spin-off Nurvous. He’s shown no signs of slowing down since, so we hit up Russ in his Shoreditch studio to learn about the production techniques he’s developed over the years, and to discuss the various DAWs he’s honed them in.
“I used to be into hip-hop before house – almost religiously into it for about six years,” Russ confesses. “It was that late 90s hip-hop era when everything was sick: Wu Tang, Nas, A Tribe Called Quest… I was into the lot. Then I went to Ibiza in 1999 and that really changed everything.”
As so often happens, Russ decided that merely DJing wasn’t enough – he wanted to make his own beats too…
“My first setup was Reason 2, and I’ve used pretty much every platform there is. I started making music in about 2002, so this was before YouTube, and even before everyone was just using software. Reason 2 was quite out-there in the fact that it was all software. People were still using hardware, and with good reason – the plugins didn’t sound nearly as good as they do now!
“There were no tutorial videos so I just had to teach myself. That’s something I would not advise, just because it takes so long! You’ll be repeatedly making the same mistake, and you’ll have no one to tell you that it’s not right. I’d just got out of uni, so the thought of going back to learn something else was just repellent. I would 100% advise anyone to take a course now though – it’s very easy when you’re making music to spend time going down the wrong path, and you really waste your time. I could have shaved a couple of years off the learning experience if I’d been taught by someone.”
Despite the lack of education resources, Russ did begin to build up his skills, trying out many of his options along the way.
“After Reason I moved to Cubase. I found Reason 2’s sequencer quite limited. Cubase was what everyone was using, and it was great. Then I moved to a Mac, and started using Ableton Live, and after that Logic, which I’ve used pretty much the whole of my career.
“I’ve been back on Ableton for about a year and a half now, though. Logic’s great, but it kind of pushes you into complexity, which is not necessarily a good thing. I just found my tracks were horribly complex, and took a lot longer than with Ableton. So I felt I
“It’s very easy when you’re making music to spend time going down the wrong path”
needed to change things up, and everyone seemed to be moving towards Ableton.
“A lot of the time you’d be doing collaborations with or remixes for people and they’ll have made the track in Live, and I like to have the actual project, so it made sense to move to Ableton. I don’t regret it for a minute; in fact I’d advise people to use Live as it’s very simple. Things are as complicated as they need to be, but no more. Plus, it’s geared towards the dance music producer, as opposed to Logic which is more geared towards a ‘music’ producer.
“Plus there’s Max For Live, with lots of people making cheeky little plugins, which is great. I’ve got a Maschine which I use sometimes. I don’t do any sequencing on it, I just feel you can do everything better in an actual sequencer – it feels like complicating something that was simple in the first place! It’s great for sounds, so I use it as more of an instrument.”