Among the corn fields in the heartland of Iowa, holed up in a small den in Iowa City, a creative force puts the finishing touches on yet another track. He counts over 200 pieces in his musical arsonal, which can only be described as: deliberate, sophisticated, & thematic beat-driven soundscapes. He pushes the envelope with many electronic based music genres. He is hard to label, hard to define...he is "drumk" one of the several beatmakers down with Tack-Fu Productions.
Please tell us the reason why you create under the
name "drumk"
I’ve always been fond of wordplay and nomenclature. "drumk" describes the feeling when you've been up all night making a beat, and you look bleary-eyed out the window at the sun rising, then listening to what you've done [that night]with satisfaction.
The tools you use are quite different from most
producers in the hip-hop game...care to explain why you use what you use...and the advantages behind those tools
Primarily, I use a program called Modplug Tracker (which you can download for free from www.modplug.com) because it's something I’m familiar with, and you can make big, expansive tracks with a not-so-powerful computer. Modplug is essentially a sampler/sequencer program, with a few (but not many) sample-editing features. Stuff like acid or fruity loops or cubase or whatever tends to use a lot of your processing overhead. Modplug is stripped down, efficient, and with practice, a powerful tool. I like the fact that I don't have to create a separate track for each individual sample in a track (like you do in acid) and it accepts VST effects, an industry standard for onboard effects on a computer. I use acid, but only for some mixing and laying vocals in, which modplug is bad at. I also use sound forge for any serious sample editing or pre-effecting.
It is well known, at least in the Iowa City production
circles, that your style is wide-open...house, techno, disco, breakbeat,
down-tempo...where did this influence come from
I’ve always had a real diverse ear. About the only music I don't listen to is metal and punk. When I was just starting to really get into making my own beats, I was listening to a wide variety of stuff, and that has showed up in my style. I’ve taken advice from The Chaircrusher and started to focus on my downtempo stuff, which seems to be the area I’m strongest in. Influences from other genres still creep into my work regularly. Lately, I’ve been trying to take classic "trance" sounding samples and work them into my stuff.
I get so tired of the cookie-cutter "unk-ts-unk-ts" beats-by-numbers most trance music has, but the synth lines and big sweeps are killer to chop up and lay over slower beats.
You have been outspoken in your opinions concerning
sampling. Not only the
sources, but how you use them and where they came
from...set the record
straight.
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This is one of those things that I can't even pin myself down on. Some days I listen to something I wrote, and think "man, you should chop that bassline, you lazy fucker." Then, I go and listen to deified and respected hip-hop producers bite whole songs, practically, and I realize I’m being too hard on myself. For an example: go listen to "the truth" on Prince Paul's "prince of thieves" record. Now go find a copy of the track he sampled/bit/jacked to make that beat, "coffee cold" by Galt McDermott. Now..."the truth" is a fantastic track, but when you listen to "coffee cold" you realize he basically just fattened up the beat and looped up a nice-sized chunk and there was his track. "here you go....rap over this."
Another point: sample checking & beat digging...Is the beat doper because you made a track using other tracks that nobody knows? Or is it doper to use recognizable bites in a new context, or to reshape them into something else?
I dunno. I do both, because in the end, I’m doing it for the sound, not how much street cred I lose when somebody realizes that fucking ill loop is lifted straight off a Natalie Merchant record. Do I care if somebody sampled something off a record vs. an mp3? No, for a few reasons.
- a bite is a bite is a bite.
the first time somebody, say the Bomb Squad, recorded the sound of a radio tuning and worked it into a song, the whole argument of the relevance of the source was pretty much trashed. You can talk all you want about tradition, but if tradition is holding you back from making an ill track, it's useless.
I’ll go even further: I have no desire to learn to scratch using a turntable. I can simulate a decently skilled DJ with a few minutes effort in fruity loops. With more time and effort, I can do ridiculous manipulations which take the scratching sounds to places that are simply out of reach with a turntable. Do I respect turntablists? Hell yeah! But, I can't do that shit. I’d have to practice for years to do that shit. But why? If I can re-create sounds that are identical to a turntablist, why spend the time learning that craft with a turntable?
I don't see the point in expanding beyond a platform whose capabilities I haven't outgrown, and probably never will. Hip-Hop has always taken technology and used it for its own purposes is. I see myself just carrying on the tradition.
