Talking Shop: Herve
The UK producer invites us into his studio
Between his 15 year solo career, his seminal work as one half of The Count & Sinden, and his staggering list of collaborations and remixes, Joshua Harvey’s CV is certainly impressive. With his latest release, Hallucinated Surf, out now on Skint Records, FM caught up with Harvey to find out more about how he works. FM: When did you start out? Herve: “One summer when I was 13 a friend came around with the keyboard player from his band. He noticed I had a small drum kit and an Atari ST in my room and told me if I was into making music I could sequence keyboards and drum machines on my Atari, I just needed Cubase. ‘What the hell is Cubase?’ I said. That’s when he handed me a knackered looking floppy disk with the word Cubase written on it in a luminous pen. Shortly after that I got my hands on a Roland D-10 (one of the worst synths I’ve ever encountered – but it was eight part multi-timbral! Wow!) and started making my first forays into electronic music and MIDI, and began my love affair with Cubase.” Tell us about your studio… “I rent a space in Seven Sisters, London. I’ve been there about a year and a half. It’s great but I don’t have a window, which I need to remedy. I use mainly plug-ins, occasionally run bits through an old cassette player for the effect, but mostly in the box. I have had a few people ask what outboard gear I use when they hear some songs of mine – testament to how good those plug-ins are. I love how accessible virtual instruments are, how fast I can work with them and translate my ideas super quick, which is really important for me.” Hervé’s essential production advice Learn some basics “If you can, learn some basic piano stuff. Getting some basic knowledge of chords, minor, major, fifths etc, can really help you realise what’s in your head, but it will also enable you to hear what other people are doing in their tracks. When you have a better knowledge of these things it helps unlock other people’s songs, which will hopefully help you learn even more. On the production side: YouTube! There’s so much great stuff on there, from basic compression tutorials to Pensado’s Place.”