Questions supplied by Asusu.
OK, so. My name is Michael Wintle, Malwav is my main production alias, although I go by Malevolent Wavelength for any DnB that I do. I shortened Malevolent Wavelength to Malwav cuz I was just too lazy to keep writing it and it's a mouthful to say as well, which ain't good. Born Gloucester, spent my childhood in Berkeley, hung around Bristol constantly when I was a kid, a place that continues to inspire me, moved back to Gloucester and currently live in Cheltenham with Heather, my girlfriend. West Country through n through, innit!
When I’m not making music, I drink tea, sometimes even when I am making music.
I tend to be fairly selective these days in terms of going out, so in the past year or so I’ve checked Massive Attack, Horace Andy, Soulfy, Skindred and also the Ashton Court Festival in Bristol, which will be sadly missed. And of course, I’ll always try and make time to go to Subloaded and Teachings in Dub down in Bristol! Aba Shanti-I top ranking!
I also like watching Sci-fi, my favourites at the moment are the Ghost In The Shell SAC series and the “re-imaging” of Battlestar Galactica. I love hanging out with Heather and doing nothing or eating!
So, you're a founding member of the Subsine Collective - can you shed a little light on what motivated you personally to start this?
Well, it was more of a case of, why not! Having completed the Music Tech course at Gloscat with many of you, the coolest thing about it, I thought, was that although we all came from different musical scenes and perspectives, we were all very much open to each others sounds and in the end influenced each other a lot, as well as producing some interesting collaborations. So, coming to the end of that intense time of feeding off of each others creativity, it’s like, well, now what? I just felt that we still had somewhere to go with all of this. I approached you (Asusu) and Matt (Advocate) first, with a view that maybe we could release a one-off CD or something, featuring our Dubstep productions, and it’s just grown from there. Both you and I took influence from the way Exegene operated, so that was our original template. I always loved the way that Exegene was always an artists label, where everyone felt involved in some way. So it’s the idea of Subsine having an autonomous, democratic approach to running an independent label, where all decisions on the direction of the label are done by discussion and consensus, everyone’s as involved as they want to be, working on individual projects or collaborations while still having support as a collective.
The concept of having a “no boundaries” approach to genres and releases on Subsine, purely came from our group discussions, and is something I’m really excited about.
3. You've got two d'n'b releases under your belt on Exegene and Darkland - how did these come about? Any tips for those who want their stuff to be heard?
I was actually involved with Darkland for quite a long time before Exegene. When DJ Sinister started up the Darkland Drum n Bass forum, I was one of the first members. “Era of Despair” I wrote especially with Darkland in mind, while the b-side was a remix I did of “Conspiracy”, originally by US producer Deadly Habit. If I remember rightly, Deadly put up the samples of Conspiracy for a remix comp on the Darkland forum, and I was the only one who did something with them!
The Exegene release came about after I posted Latin Roulette on the Subvert Central forum. Cube from Exegene heard it and that’s it really!
As for tips, I guess just put yourself out there, but remember to be modest. The internet’s really opened things up, it’s presented so many opportunities but there’s just so much music out there, so really it’s still all about creating personal links with like-minded people. The way I see it is, I only make music for me. If someone else is feeling it, then cool! Hopefully the Subsine Collective will help with that, it’s hard to get noticed on your own, but collectively, you never know!
What are your plans for 2008, musically? Anything in the pipeline?
I’ve been working on a few tracks at the moment, mainly in conjunction with the music production course I’m doing, so that’s more of a case of stretching myself and trying out new techniques. Other than that, I’m really getting into versioning, and I‘ve been setting up my studio especially for that purpose, so expect some exclusive Malwav dubs from the Subsine heads! There will be some more of my own productions, but I’m fascinated with taking other peoples tracks into new directions. I’m working on some beats for rapper Jadee and a few other people, but really, I see this year as a chance to refine and consolidate my own sound as a producer and record other artists.
What is your musical background? You've been around longer than myself, and have had a lot more exposure to different types of music...
I guess when I was a kid my parents vinyl collection fascinated me, from The Beatles and Otis Reading, to Holst and Bach. I’ve always tried to listen with open ears. OK, put it this way, the first album I ever brought (on cassette!) was an album by George Harrison, closely followed by Public Enemy and then a 4 tape pack of Reggae greats. So I think it pretty much all stems from that combination. Sitars and other unusual sounding instruments, in your face drums, and bass! At school I had a friend who was really into electronica stuff like Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, so I liked that kinda stuff too, then when the rave scene came along, everything kinda fell into place. I really started feeling music around 1991, all early Reinforced Records, Shut Up And Dance, Suburban Base, Tribal Bass and Moving Shadow, as well as getting hold of tapes of Stone Love dances. The moment when I knew music really had me, was when I heard “Killa” by Smith & Mighty on a Bristol radio station. That track just blew me away! From there, I followed the emerging Drum’n’Bass scene, again based around Bristol, catching a lot of the Full Cycle parties. Going out at that time was based around Techno/Hard House/Acid Trance on Thursdays, Drum’n’Bass on Fridays, whatever looked cool on Saturdays and chill out mixes on Sunday! Along side that, I’ve always had a weakness for Metal such as Sepultura and Deftones, blunted Bristolian beats, Indian classical music, Blues, hell, I’ll listen to anything! Never really understood Opera or Wagner though...
Who (or what) inspires your style of production most?
That’s a good question what I don’t gotta clue how to answer. I think it’s drum patterns, most nearly all my tracks start with a particular beat. Whatever I’ve been listening to last. Like, I’ll listen to the Deftones and want to do a track using a similar drum pattern from a particular track, but sped up for DnB, or listening to and finding out about Indian classical talas and wanting to do something in a ⅞ time signature. Hearing Tears For Fears on the radio and wanting to do something with that break. Everything else just hangs off of that, and again, just usually whatever sounds I’ve been checking at the time. My drums tend to be quite up-front in the mix, I think that stems from Public Enemy, Gunshot and the like. I dunno, I try and listen to anything music wise, so I’m usually just inspired by whatever I just listened too!
I think we all find our own production style eventually, we all hear music differently I guess, so that must come out in the way we put sound together. In terms of producers I admire, I’d say Paradox, DJ Krush, Amon Tobin, King Tubby, Hank Shocklee, PJ and Smiley, Rob Smith, Nelee Hooper, Steve Albini, well, there’s a fair few!
I know that, like me, you're very fond of sampling rather than using synths. What sort of methods do you use to source them?
Vinyl. Next!
Hehe, nah, although sampling vinyl is definitely a fetish of mine, recently any thing’s fair game. I’m really not a fan of synths, sometimes they’re useful, but I’d never rely on them. Last year I made a decision to ditch pretty much all of the softsynths and samples that I had previously downloaded and start from scratch to create my own unique little collection of sounds and textures. I get a real buzz from recycling sounds, whether sourced from vinyl or self recorded foley. Recently I produced some amazing bass tones by recording the feedback produced by my reel-to-reel routed back through the desk. I guess being from a sampling culture, I’m more interested in sound and texture rather than notes and harmony when it comes to making music. Saying that though, I’m really into recording live instruments at the moment too. For instance, if I want the sound of a flute, I’ll find someone who can play one and make them play what I want! I brought this crappy plastic wind organ made in the 70’s, off of Ebay the other day, just because it sounds like a cow! I’d rather use and record something with a unique sound like that, than use a tweaked preset on a synth.
8. Recently you've added some vintage effects units to your studio setup. Isn't it a lot of hassle to have to send your tracks out to use them?
Not really, I’m reconfiguring my setup at the moment specifically to make use of outboard and on-the-fly mixing, dubwise stylee! I’ve got a 16 track mixer, so I can send 8 submixed tracks out of Logic using the MOTU Ultralite, perform a mixdown on the fly incorporating effects, and record either onto tape or back into Logic. I find automation very useful, but I just want to be more hands on and capture a nice ital vibe when mixing.
Without getting into the whole Analogue vs Digital debate, hopefully I can make good use of both worlds. Ultimately it’s just all about signal routing, the biggest hassle is that I need more cables, and now I’m tripping over them. Most DAWs such as Logic and Cubase support the use of external hardware anyway. If you’ve got multiple ins and outs on your audio interface, then it’s just a case of routing the sends and busses within Logic or whatever. It can be a headache initially trying to figure out the signal path and there has been some head-scratching moments when it looks right in theory, but you still can’t hear anything! It’s just an excuse to twiddle some knobs at the end of the day! Again, it’s the sound and vibe that I’m after, rather than it being technically nice.
My fascination with vintage equipment stems from one of the same reasons why I still love vinyl. it’s just the fact, that even with a record that’s over 50 years old, you can still play it. The same with hardware, if it’s been looked after. It’s like with Technics turntables. They’re basically the same design as they were in the 70s. You just can’t say the same with software, as it’s so dependent on a particular operating system. Again, I’m not saying analogue is “better” than digital, its all tools at the end of the day, to use how you see fit. Use whatever you can to achieve the sound you’re after.
The drums on 'Capture The Ideas of The Gods' sound great - really punchy. Give us a little insight into your method of drum programming and how you achieve that sound.
Thanks for saying so! That track came after my decision to get rid of all my downloaded samples. I wanted more control in how I obtained and sampled drum loops and samples and, yeh just make them bigger and punchier from source. That break came from the City Of God soundtrack, that I picked up on vinyl. So the chain was Technic SL1200 mk2 > Tascam XS-4 > Mackie 1604 VLZ > DBX 266XL Compressor > Atari GX4000D reel-to-reel (recorded well hot for tape saturation), then back through the DBX 266, I think, to be recorded into the computer. So, that was all about adding multiple small amounts of compression, being careful not to overly squash the sound. The sample would have been sliced up manually, separated into individual tracks (kick, snare, hat, etc…) to make EQing easier and sequenced within Cubase back then, I’m Logic now, tho it makes no odds really. The snare and kick I think were compressed again, as well as some light compression on the drum buss. Just a lot of compression really! I would never do that much compression on an overall mix, but it can be used creatively on individual elements of a track.
Recently, I’ve been sourcing my drum hits by recording a real kit, but that’s more a case of getting the sound right at source, through mic placement. Then I’d compress the hell out of it!
To round off, could you take us through the steps you take to create a finished track?
Haha, I hate finishing tracks! Damn you, you’ve found my weakness! Yeah, creatively sometimes I find it hard, but technically, I think I’ve made some progress. In the mixdown, it’s just about balance which I think is fairly instinctive, although I tend to mixdown really dark, as much sub as I can get away with, upfront drums and usually hardly any top. I have to make a real conscious effort to work on the hats and any other high frequency stuff. Just how my ears are I guess! I tend to adjust levels as I’m writing the track. I’m also experimenting with parallel compression at the moment, which is interesting after Chris’s comments about the amount of over-compression at the mastering stage that goes on. Parallel compression retains much of the dynamics in a track. Mastering is such a science in itself. The theory is one thing, but it takes years and years to be anywhere good at it.
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