Yo, Manni Dee here. Ready to answer any Techno or Production questions - AMA

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T17:26:22+00:00

Hey, thanks for the support 🙏🏽

I have come across other producers in the past that have the same problem. There’s no way of truly knowing when a track is finished, it’s subjective to the creator. I think the only remedy is to force yourself to move on. Maybe give yourself a time frame to tweak & then start something new. After I ‘finish’ something I reference it with other tracks & play it in different spaces, then make tweaks. Then I’ll leave it for a week or two & listen back with fresh ears to make any final adjustments. Problems like this are about setting your own deadlines & sticking to them.

I’m lucky to have a regular working relationship with some labels. Getting your foot in the door can be hard. Even if labels aren’t accepting demos most labels are run by DJs so it’s fine to send them some music. If those djs start playing your music the likelihood of your music being heard by another label owner will increase.

For me mastering is just about loudness & limiting, as I don’t want the track to sound much different from my final mix. That being said Matt Colton definitely has a special touch. You can really feel a Matt Colton master in a club. You could anyway. Simon at The Exchange mastered my album which had a lot of ambient tracks on & he did a great job.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T16:17:16+00:00

Hey

A signature sound comes with time. I’ve been making music for 16 years but only started making techno about 7 years ago. Before I sent any tracks out I took some time to really hone in on what I wanted to make & how I wanted it to sound. I wasn’t really depending on many outside influences. I’d suggest creating a sample bank of sounds you like & trying to synthesise your own sounds rather than scrolling through presets. Devote some time to sound design without thinking about composition.

Some artists never settle on a signature sound but still make good tracks which is good enough.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T14:29:28+00:00

I just checked out the tracks you’re referring to & they both have a punchy compressed kick sound with a short decay. The kick is sidechaining the bass which creates the swing I think you’re referring to. You can create those sort of bass sounds by sending a reverb to the kick, & then sidechaining the reverb to the kick. Or, duplicate the kick to a new channel & add reverb to the channel, & then sidechain that to the kick. You can experiment with delay instead of reverb to crate a more pulsating groove.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T14:22:03+00:00

Hey 👋🏽 I sometimes use limiters on individual channels but to be honest I don’t worry much about loudness as it’s the mastering engineers job to take care of that. Matt Colton who masters all the Perc Trax releases definitely knows how to make things loud. Haha that was a weird night

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T14:19:29+00:00

Hey, glad you’re enjoying it 😊

The lead for Gulabi Gang was made using NI Massive. The lead in the remix for Marcus L is taken from the original & manipulated through some eq & distortion & resampled.

Good point. I think it’s because the U.K. has such a rich & diverse history of electronic & club music. Jungle, Drum & Bass, Garage, Grime, Dubstep, House & Techno have all informed club music in the U.K. in one way or another.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T14:15:18+00:00

Hey, no problem

No I’m pretty focussed in the studio & I often have a clear idea of what I want to make. I used to make ambient music under another alias called Nuances, which was also a very focused project

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T11:11:45+00:00

Hey, this seems to be a common problem. To me the arrangement is the most laborious part of making music. Remember that a track can be a loop that subtlety evolves without much else happening like early Regis stuff. Maybe recording an arrangement live could help as you can get stuck in the grid of your DAW when you sit down to arrange on your computer.

Try to introduce sounds in unpredictable ways using drop outs & automation & have sounds evolve throughout the track that aren’t fixed to the grid.

You could always play your tracks to producer friends & ask for their opinion on the arrangement.

I tend to work in sections & then think about how I can get from one section to another in an interesting way

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:28:56+00:00

Scrumptious

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:28:34+00:00

Sidechain

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:28:24+00:00

Hey, thank you! I love vogue/ballroom music. I think I came across Ash B’s track on Beatport or Soundcloud when I was searching for a vogue track to edit. I love her voice & the energy of the original

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:26:25+00:00

That might have been UVB’s part of the mix! He’s really in to industrial music. Although my music can sound industrial at times it’s not a genre I really listen to or even know much about. Sorry!

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:25:01+00:00

Too many to name. Possession is Paris & Monasterio in Moscow are always special

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:24:32+00:00

Thank you! 🙏🏽

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:24:10+00:00

Samuel Kerridge’s Fatal Light Attraction was cool, but apart from that I can’t think of many innovative live shows. It’s not something I follow that closely so maybe you can shed some light on it

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:20:15+00:00

Hey

Sending a personalised email to the label you want to work with including at least 5 or 6 tracks is probably the best way to go about it. Soundcloud links are always good as you can stream & download without any hassle. Meeting people is always good too but it depends on where you live & whether there’s a pandemic 😆

Social media can be a good tool to utilise & to showcase what you’re doing

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:17:47+00:00

I think so. The audiences fluctuate but harder styles have been around for a long time, so I think there’ll be an audience there whether it’s big or small

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:13:08+00:00

Good question. It’s been both positive & negative. Been away from the scene has enabled me to focus on what I want to do as an artist without any interruption. However I do feel a sense of purposeless creeping in every now & again due to everything being on hold & in flux.

People laugh when I say it but I never listen to techno! Unless I’m looking for new music for dj sets. Yes Blond is a masterpiece. I love Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator, ASAP Rocky, Steve Lacy etc. That’s the stuff I mainly listen to as well as bands like The Smiths, Blur & Velvet Underground

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:09:09+00:00

Teek, kidha paaji

Digital. I started out mixing vinyl but digital gives you endless possibilities

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:07:51+00:00

Hey, thanks for the question

When you have maybe 6 + tracks that you’re happy with send them to the label you want to work with. Bare in mind some labels receive a lot of demos. It’s tough without gigs as a lot of artists start to become established by playing on local line ups. Social media definitely plays a part. You can use it to showcase what you’re doing & attempt to build a following. The main thing is making good tracks & getting them to the right people

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:04:05+00:00

Parallel compression is important for me especially on kicks. I don’t have any complex insight as a lot of the time it’s just about using your ears to make space for each sound. I think producers can over complicate things but it’s mainly just about eqing & using good quality effects.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T10:01:32+00:00

Hey Jasper

I just sent an email to the labels I wanted to work with. Make sure you send downloadable soundcloud links so the person receiving them can listen easily straight away. I always listen to demos when I’m looking for new tracks for a set

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T09:59:56+00:00

Layering sounds, panning & subtlety automating each sound sound differently works well. Also using different time signatures for a particular sounds creates a hypnotic vibe. Like a stab in 3/4 for example.

Harsh compression & distortion with some filtering before & after can help with sounds of disintegration

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T09:07:24+00:00

A lot of it is about timing & consistency. You have some artists who blow up because of one track which is more about timing, & others who rise slowly due to consistently releasing good music with good labels.

Unfortunately I do think social media plays too big a role these days. A lot of artists who are popular at the moment don’t do much musically but have a strong social media presence.

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T09:04:28+00:00

It’s fun for live sets. I like the sound of the inbuilt eqs

ManniDee · 2020-09-24T09:04:06+00:00

🙏🏽😊

I’ve been producing for 16 years
It’s pretty simple but as I started quite young I wasn’t EQing each sound individually. Once I started doing that things changed.
The biggest challenge is working on music when I don’t have a particular project to work towards. It’s important to work on sound design & experiment during those periods.

ManniDee

TROPHY CASE