Do you have a set methodology for remixing tracks?

Nik: “No and I haven’t done a remix for a while so I wonder what I’d do now. It generally starts with one focal point that’s the thing you get ideas from in the original. It can be a vocal or a chord progression. If it was a chord progression I’d probably take the chords and put them through all kinds synths or put effects on them and cut them up to see what happens. That’s what I did for the Skrillex remix that was used on the

Wreck-It Ralph soundtrack. Often it’s a vocal and you’re thinking, ‘okay, it could drop to something like this’. Sometimes you have something lying around you try in it. The one thing I’ll probably never do in a remix is use drums from somebody else’s track… maybe some bass but not drums.”

example, with Superior Drummer, if you install it with all the sounds and bleeds and everything else then one library is something like 25GB! If you have a song that’s just two audio tracks of drums then, sure, you can load a whole load of orchestra software but if you’re running all your drums live as well then it’s going to kill it.

“I do think limits are important for creative flow but I also wish I could just stack plug-in on plug-in! I always fight with the eight plug-ins thing with Cubase… If there’s an important sound in the song the chances are I’ll have to buss it to a group to be able to put more plug-ins on it!”

I mentioned to Martijn it must be nice not to be fighting over the one monitor anymore…

“The cool thing about working with a screen this big is that you can still see what’s going on from over here at the back of the room…[ laughs] or you can walk over to it like a weatherman. That is one thing about the rooms that the design is brilliant, but the light can be a little clinical so that’s why I have some funky lighting to be able to create a bit of a different atmosphere to stop it feeling like an office.”

Other than Cubase, what’s your go-to software?

“Most of it happens inside Cubase. Outside of that there isn’t that much other than Audacity to grab some stuff or PaulStretch (http://hypermammut. sourceforge.net/paulstretch) for time-stretching things. I use Guitar Rig a bit and I’ve used FM8 for ages and still do use it a lot as well as Kontakt. If I want to do a piano, unless I want to be able to edit the MIDI, most times I’ll just play it off the keyboards and record the audio. Your set of tools and the things you gravitate to always meander a bit – in a few months maybe I’ll be using Reaktor loads again.”

What is it about Superior Drummer that’s made you stick with it?

“Well, it’s really, if you’ve ever wanted to mic up a kit and really get into recording your own drums then it’s a great starting point if you’re coming from making music in the box and not being a recording engineer. The flexibility and the possibilities are just really cool. When we started out, Drum ’n’ Bass and Jungle was all sampled breaks. The ability to create your own breaks opens up huge possibilities.”

Do you program your beats via the keyboards?

“I’ll play a little bit sometimes just to get a feel for the kit but if it’s for Drum ’n’ Bass stuff I tend to program it in. Sometimes I’ll program it at a Funk tempo and make it sound really human-sounding then take it and pitch it up to whatever tempo.”

You don’t fancy following Thijs down the modular path?

“I think, to be honest, it’s not so much about making music it’s more about making sound and getting lost in the creation of it. It doesn’t really make songs. I do really like it and if I sit behind Thijs’s modular then I’ll find an hour has passed and I hadn’t even noticed. When I do sound design stuff I still feel I can get to points in the box with more possibilities than if I was on a modular. It’s cool though and I’m really happy that Thijs has got one.”

Is Noisia a democracy when you arrive at the mixing process?

“[ Laughs] Um… a little bit. I mean, we’ll all vote and all comment but I think I’m probably most precious about these things so I tend to end up being the last filter, so to speak. With our music, especially the overloud and angry tracks, to make sure those tracks don’t sound like some angry drunk guy shouting with no direction, that’s the real difficulty. I find myself wondering ‘am I just complicating things because I can?’. Using ten different drum breaks because I can but what is that actually doing or saying? There’s also the other side of that and being able to sometimes just let go and chase something in the music.”

How long from beginning to mixing has Outer Edges taken?

“The oldest song on there is from 2009 but we’ve been working on the album itself for about nine months, I think. That’s us getting focused on it, putting things together from older demos; tracing back the time is very difficult. Now, at the end of the process I don’t really know left from right anymore!”

Any gear out there you’d like to try?

“I would like to investigate outboard more but the key word there is ‘investigate’. There’s a lot of talk and a lot of bullshit but there’s also a lot of good things. To really find the gear that’s the best and worth all the money takes so much time. In here, I can just load another plug-in… for example, I have a bunch of tape plug-ins. I have u-he’s Satin and recently just got iZotope’s Ozone Vintage Tape. Just taking those two as the example, they’re very different. I use them for very different things… one for distortion, the other for smoothing things out. If I’d only seen Satin, which I had first, and Satin had been a £2,500 compressor then I would’ve probably bought it and put it in the rack. Then, when Ozone Tape turned up, I’d have said, ‘shit’!

“I used to have the Thermionic Culture Phoenix and the Fat Bustard in here at one point. The Phoenix sounded really nice on lots of things but it’s not fast enough for Drum ’n’ Bass or actual mastering. Everything sounded nice through it so I would like to have some nice outboard EQ, saturation and compression but it’s like a hole you dive into where there’s more and more nuance; whereas in the box you could load a stupid, buggy bitcrusher plug-in on something and it would change the sound infinitely more than the differences you achieve from some outboard that costs shit loads of money!”

When we started, Drum ’n’ Bass and Jungle was all sampled breaks. The ability to create your own breaks opens up huge possibilities