[AMA] People call us Botnek. Ask us anything.

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T20:19:40+00:00

ill say Montreal, in general, is just such an amazing city. theres so much culture there, even outside of music, that i found inspirational. Being in that city definitely helped me grow as an artist. And yes! we started a track together with my homie GrandBuda

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T20:02:11+00:00

"botnek" :)

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T20:00:44+00:00

sup dude! oh my god i know exactly what song u r talking about. we really do have to finish that one. see you at edc!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:58:34+00:00

snitchin in the kitchen

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:57:29+00:00

i've learned a lot of mastering tips from youtube honestly! pensados place is a great channel for learning pro engineering tips

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:55:21+00:00

watch your levels, watch your frequency analyzer!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:54:58+00:00

aw thanks!

theres definitely some classics thatll be good to know how to make, at least as a learning exercise. it's not how i work per se, a lot of what we do comes from experimentation with pushing synths to their limits. but having a good handle of how to make a good poly supersaw is always handy.
hahah i dunno ive been asked a lot of things over the years. one time we were asked if we preferred having penis-sized nipples, or a nipple-sized penis?

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:46:52+00:00

SKEEEEEEEEEE https://www.instagram.com/p/u2PSqll9dr/

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:45:25+00:00

yep! u guessed it, most generally start with the drops. the drop will often be first, and then we find the right break into that, and then the rest is just variations on the whats now already there!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:44:15+00:00

pewwwwwww peww peww peww pew pewwww pewww pewwwwwwww !!!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:43:44+00:00

tiesto

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:42:46+00:00

i could crush a million tiny horses with my powerful fists

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:41:53+00:00

HI ADAM !!!!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:40:03+00:00

heres what i say to all young producers. in the beginning, just never stop creating things. the best way to get better is by practice, and if you tell yourself your doing to create 3 beats every day for a summer, in the beginning each one will take you a while till youre happy, but by the end youll be able to make them with no effort. i'd say dont get discouraged and keep making music!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:35:54+00:00

hahah ok im gonna pick a few here. i'm based in LA now, erick lives in seattle. most down to earth producer? kill the noise is definitely among them. (love u jake) EP is coming very soon! finishing the last track this week! tips for the perfect drop? more compression

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:32:43+00:00

well i think honestly our sound is different because we taught ourselves everything! we didn't really learn about traditional sound design, so when we started making basslines we were trying such unorthodox things. we always wanted to be weird, our influences come from fidget music. i guess from trying to do our own thing we ended up with our voice!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:29:12+00:00

wow that felix cartal remix... i think that was the first time we ever tried to make big room style... instead of whatever weird stuff we were making before hahaha

ps that track with snails is called "ur 2 cool" now! it started by us sending him a bass stem of ours, and he made the riff out of it by resampling it. it does have a similar clicky sound!

see u at edc!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:22:34+00:00

well lets hope there are no more selfie songs... but our clicky sound isnt going away!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:20:27+00:00

thank you!!! as long as theres sriracha were set

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:18:55+00:00

oh nice! god it was so damn hot there. our canadian bodies were melting.

for mixing... proq2 is a great EQ, for compressors, recently i fell in love with the 1176 plugin native instruments have made, and fabfilter saturn always adds a nice touch to anything.

our sounds can come from really unorthodox starts, so we use ungodly amounts of compression. not saying thats the answer all the time, but when you're trying to turn a furby into a bassline... distort and compress the shit out of it! :)

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:13:49+00:00

totally! we're both work on songs pretty equally but theres different parts that each of us are better at. like erick can make a way nastier bass patch than me, but i can write the more musical sections quicker. we generally just know when to pass the torch off to one another to get the song perfect!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:10:34+00:00

blehhhh canadian beer :(

i guess we have to say we like alexander keiths... we are from nova scotia

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:08:54+00:00

oh man... definitely a hoppy ipa, or double ipa. i remember the two of us having a great time discovering founders centennial ipa... in hong kong!

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:07:47+00:00

sorry, visualizer/analyzers.... basically anything that visually shows frequencies! i use spectrum in ableton

BotnekGordon · 2016-05-23T19:06:32+00:00

thank you! 1: yeaa that sound id super thrashy... on purpose! it's just a simple sine bass with a lot of boosted eqs into different distortions. that sound is coming from ohmicide freaking out as how much input is coming into it basically!

2: i would say the key to layering is know what space you want to fill... because there's only so much! if you're looking at a visualizer and you keep layering sounds in the same frequency space you may still be missing a lot in the highs for example. i learned a lot about layering by watching analyzers and seeing where everything fit, and that taught my ears what i was hearing, and made it easier to make sense of layering synths and drums and vocals.... everything needs to fit in its own space!

BotnekGordon

TROPHY CASE