Mike Rockmore
Ouwe rot
Samplen, het blijft altijd een omstreden iets, ik struinde wat rond op het wereld wijde web en kwam dit tegen. Misschien leuk om te lezen om een prof te horen en zijn passie voor het samplen (ja echt passiie)
> The Art of the Mix & ReMix
> THE UNSTOPPABLE ARMAND VAN HELDEN
THE UNSTOPPABLE ARMAND VAN HELDEN
By Greg Rule
"We have a 'no recall' policy, and this is a new thing in remixing. It's not to diss, but back in the day when Picasso was hired to do a painting, he painted it. You either liked it or you didn't, but you paid for it and took it. That's how it worked. Now that's how it works with me. 'Armand, what he does is art. Respect what he does. You want a mix from him, there's no recall.'"
While the American mainstream is learning who's who on the electronic dance front, Armand Van Helden is living large. Still in his 20s, he's become a bonafide superstar -- raking in bucks and fans all over the planet. His early dance singles "Witchdoktor" and "Funk Phenomenon" set the stage, but his monster remixes for the likes of Tori Amos and the Sneaker Pimps really catapulted Armand to the top of the heap.
Last year he remixed the cream of the crop: Janet Jackson's "Got 'Til It's Gone," the Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby," Sneaker Pimps' "Spin Spin Sugar," Daft Punk's "Around the World," and Puff Daddy's "It's All About the Benjamins." As a result, and rightly so, he was nominated for the first-ever "Remixer of the Year" Grammy award.
But Armand isn't just remixing, he's producing his own material as well. He hopes to grab a firm foothold on the charts this year as a solo artist with his full-length debut on RuffHouse/ Columbia, Enter the Meat Market, a collection of original old-school-style hip-hop tracks. A second solo album of house tracks is already in the works.
Keyboard met up with Armand at the recent Winter Music Conference in Florida, and got a no-holds-barred earful -- as you're about to read.
What inspired you to switch from spinning records to making your own music?
When I was around 15, I had two cassettes hooked up to each other; I didn't even have turntables yet. The pause buttons were real tight, and so I started trying to make my own tracks going back and forth between the two. I was looping beats before I even had a sampler. And then later on that year I got enough money for turntables and a mixer, and I started DJing right after that, doing high school dances in Holland at a military base. That's how my DJ career started.
From the DJ transition into the music . . . I went to Media Technology in Bunker Hill [Massachusetts], a two-year school for audio and TV production. I saved up enough money to buy a used Ensoniq Mirage, and that was my first keyboard. I started to make some beats on it, but I couldn't sequence on that thing. So I bought a [Roland] R-8, mainly to get the [TR-]808 card, and I MIDIed it to my Ensoniq. Those were my first tracks. After that, I got a [Roland] W-30, and that's honestly why I'm here today. Like, "Witchdoktor" was made on the W-30. That piece . . . I still have it.
What was your first big break?
I met up with Neil Petricone from X-Mix, the remix service. He goes, "We're looking for help, but we can't pay you." And I said, " Well, I'm down." So Neil had a studio, and I went over there, got in, and that was it. That's also where I started getting into the computer stuff. I can rip up [Digidesign] Sound Designer. I can do Sound Designer faster than anybody I've ever seen. But in terms of technical stuff with the keyboards, all my music is sample-based. That's how it's been from day one, really, and it's never changed.
When you sample, what's your primary source material? Vinyl?
Everything I get, all my source stuff, is from diggin' in my [record] crates. Every single track I do.
How much editing do you do to your samples?
It depends. Now, like in hip-hop, you can just loop Steely Dan and make the biggest record. That's happening right now. Hip-hop's easy. If you get the right loop, like all the Premieres and Puffys of the world, it's worth gold. But it's getting that right loop, and it's what you do to it. What I'm saying is in all the other stuff I do, like in the house stuff and these type of things, I don't loop hardly anything [opting to sequence note-for-note]. The only loops I have are at the end of a song to make an effect.
Tell us about your "Spin Spin Sugar" remix.
Well, it's funny about that one. When it came in, I didn't know who the Sneaker Pimps were. You know, this is the life I live in New York. I don't know much about alternative groups. I didn't know who Tori Amos was either. I didn't even know who the Spice Girls were until six months ago. So you understand, I live a very urban life. But my manager asked me about it, and I got a cassette. That's how it started.
And the Sneaker Pimps hadn't really broke through in the States at that point.
No, they hadn't hit anywhere, so it wasn't a priority at all. But I finally sat down with the cassette and peeped it out. And I said, "Ya know what, this could probably work. This is half speed of house. I could put a house beat right over this." Her vocal was 60, 62, or maybe 64 bpm. Real slow. But if you double it, it's 128.
So you didn't have to time-stretch?
I didn't have to do anything, which was good. So, as soon as I got the DAT from Virgin, I put the whole a cappella in [Opcode] Studio Vision, and when I put a beat over it I got chills. I'm like, "This is going to be nasty! This is going to be dope."
Describe how you built this remix.
The thing to remember, with me, everything you hear in that mix is a sample. I'm talking everything! There are no loops. Here's my process: When I do a mix, I'll put the a cappella in the computer, I'll set the bpm, and just put a simple beat in. I can take any kick and snare, lock it tight, and that's where I start. From there I go to my Roland [S-]760 and I literally fill that thing up with samples in a matter of an hour and a half. I've got about a 100 seconds stereo in it, and I just fill it up with mad beats, bass, notes, stabs, whatever quirky little sounds. Everything that's in my mixes comes from someplace else. I love the art of sampling. You can listen to "Spin Spin Sugar" and never know where I got anything from. That's the art of it. Drum 'n' bass is based on that. That's where that @#%$ comes from. All the stuff that Roni Size does, which is musically now so respected, is a sample.
So even that big bass line in your "Spin Spin Sugar" remix was a sample?
Yeah. But actually that bass came from their DAT. And that's another thing, see, like with the Tori Amos [remix] too, that bass was from her bassist or whoever was in her band. So it all depends on what I get on DAT. In the Sneaker Pimps case, I had a five-minute track of bass, and I just grabbed that one little thing off it.
Are you often asked to change things after you've submitted a mix?
The way me and my manager have it set up is, we have a "no recall" policy, and this is a new thing in remixing. It's not to diss. It's not to point anyone out. But back in the day when Picasso was hired to do a painting, he painted it. You either liked it or you didn't, but you paid for it and took it. That's how it worked. Now that's how it works with me. "Armand, what he does is art. Respect what he does. You want a mix from him, there's no recall. That's how it works." We're the only people doing that, though, because the label or the artist always wants to be a part of it. It's not to disrespect them, but we're trying to put remixing in a place where it needs to be.
Are you still getting flat fees, or are you getting into points now?
Flat fee. And it's because the amount of time and phone calls you have to put in to collect your points is a nightmare. Even for an artist signed to a label, it's a nightmare. They [the record labels] will hold out 'til the very last minute until you're about to sue them. And it's just a @#%$ game that all the labels play. It's a part of major label business. Their whole thing is, "Don't sweat nothing until the dire last minute -- until we're about to go to court." That's how they work. So me and my manager finally said, "@#%$ all this drama trying to get paid! Let's just set the rate high to compensate, and just get it flat."
Some people might argue that a flat fee could be a rip-off to an artist whose remix hits big.
My Tori Amos remix blew up, and you know what, I didn't see nothing from that. Zero. But at the same time I got about 40,000 other mixes because of it. You see what I'm saying? So, in a way I did get paid back from it. And probably easier and faster than trying to collect it from the label.
Word on the street is that you pull in anywhere from 25 to 50 grand per mix. Is that true?
Yeah, but again, a lot of it's my manager 'cause I really don't do any of the talking. The whole thing started out last year. I was doing mixes at that time for about $25,000. And that's high, but that's pretty much what the best people were getting. But what happened was, I wanted to do a hip-hop album, and I said, "I don't want to do any remixes. Set the price crazy high so nobody will bite." And people bit. So, we were like, "If they're going to bite at $30,000, lets go to 35. And then if they're gonna bite at 35, let's go to 40." And that's how it ended up. It's just business. You know? I mean, you create a demand, and if you're turning in quality stuff, you jack the price.
About Enter the Meat Market . . . I think a lot of people who are most familiar with your house stuff will be surprised by the old school hip-hop sound.
I'd done like a couple hip-hop track-type records for AV8 Records back around the same time "Witchdoktor" came out. I did them just to do them. See, originally AV8 started with me. AV8 is my name. People don't know that, but since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, I just went AV8. It used to be one of my DJ names too, but barely anybody knows that. So that's how it started. But before I went into the house thing, I was into hip-hop. I've always been into hip-hop. So I just decided to do some hip-hop tracks out of the blue. "What if I take a popular loop that's out there, kind of flip it around a little, add a vocal chant, and press it? People might play it." That was the whole idea.
kvon het wel leuk om te lezen iig
> The Art of the Mix & ReMix
> THE UNSTOPPABLE ARMAND VAN HELDEN
THE UNSTOPPABLE ARMAND VAN HELDEN
By Greg Rule
"We have a 'no recall' policy, and this is a new thing in remixing. It's not to diss, but back in the day when Picasso was hired to do a painting, he painted it. You either liked it or you didn't, but you paid for it and took it. That's how it worked. Now that's how it works with me. 'Armand, what he does is art. Respect what he does. You want a mix from him, there's no recall.'"
While the American mainstream is learning who's who on the electronic dance front, Armand Van Helden is living large. Still in his 20s, he's become a bonafide superstar -- raking in bucks and fans all over the planet. His early dance singles "Witchdoktor" and "Funk Phenomenon" set the stage, but his monster remixes for the likes of Tori Amos and the Sneaker Pimps really catapulted Armand to the top of the heap.
Last year he remixed the cream of the crop: Janet Jackson's "Got 'Til It's Gone," the Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby," Sneaker Pimps' "Spin Spin Sugar," Daft Punk's "Around the World," and Puff Daddy's "It's All About the Benjamins." As a result, and rightly so, he was nominated for the first-ever "Remixer of the Year" Grammy award.
But Armand isn't just remixing, he's producing his own material as well. He hopes to grab a firm foothold on the charts this year as a solo artist with his full-length debut on RuffHouse/ Columbia, Enter the Meat Market, a collection of original old-school-style hip-hop tracks. A second solo album of house tracks is already in the works.
Keyboard met up with Armand at the recent Winter Music Conference in Florida, and got a no-holds-barred earful -- as you're about to read.
What inspired you to switch from spinning records to making your own music?
When I was around 15, I had two cassettes hooked up to each other; I didn't even have turntables yet. The pause buttons were real tight, and so I started trying to make my own tracks going back and forth between the two. I was looping beats before I even had a sampler. And then later on that year I got enough money for turntables and a mixer, and I started DJing right after that, doing high school dances in Holland at a military base. That's how my DJ career started.
From the DJ transition into the music . . . I went to Media Technology in Bunker Hill [Massachusetts], a two-year school for audio and TV production. I saved up enough money to buy a used Ensoniq Mirage, and that was my first keyboard. I started to make some beats on it, but I couldn't sequence on that thing. So I bought a [Roland] R-8, mainly to get the [TR-]808 card, and I MIDIed it to my Ensoniq. Those were my first tracks. After that, I got a [Roland] W-30, and that's honestly why I'm here today. Like, "Witchdoktor" was made on the W-30. That piece . . . I still have it.
What was your first big break?
I met up with Neil Petricone from X-Mix, the remix service. He goes, "We're looking for help, but we can't pay you." And I said, " Well, I'm down." So Neil had a studio, and I went over there, got in, and that was it. That's also where I started getting into the computer stuff. I can rip up [Digidesign] Sound Designer. I can do Sound Designer faster than anybody I've ever seen. But in terms of technical stuff with the keyboards, all my music is sample-based. That's how it's been from day one, really, and it's never changed.
When you sample, what's your primary source material? Vinyl?
Everything I get, all my source stuff, is from diggin' in my [record] crates. Every single track I do.
How much editing do you do to your samples?
It depends. Now, like in hip-hop, you can just loop Steely Dan and make the biggest record. That's happening right now. Hip-hop's easy. If you get the right loop, like all the Premieres and Puffys of the world, it's worth gold. But it's getting that right loop, and it's what you do to it. What I'm saying is in all the other stuff I do, like in the house stuff and these type of things, I don't loop hardly anything [opting to sequence note-for-note]. The only loops I have are at the end of a song to make an effect.
Tell us about your "Spin Spin Sugar" remix.
Well, it's funny about that one. When it came in, I didn't know who the Sneaker Pimps were. You know, this is the life I live in New York. I don't know much about alternative groups. I didn't know who Tori Amos was either. I didn't even know who the Spice Girls were until six months ago. So you understand, I live a very urban life. But my manager asked me about it, and I got a cassette. That's how it started.
And the Sneaker Pimps hadn't really broke through in the States at that point.
No, they hadn't hit anywhere, so it wasn't a priority at all. But I finally sat down with the cassette and peeped it out. And I said, "Ya know what, this could probably work. This is half speed of house. I could put a house beat right over this." Her vocal was 60, 62, or maybe 64 bpm. Real slow. But if you double it, it's 128.
So you didn't have to time-stretch?
I didn't have to do anything, which was good. So, as soon as I got the DAT from Virgin, I put the whole a cappella in [Opcode] Studio Vision, and when I put a beat over it I got chills. I'm like, "This is going to be nasty! This is going to be dope."
Describe how you built this remix.
The thing to remember, with me, everything you hear in that mix is a sample. I'm talking everything! There are no loops. Here's my process: When I do a mix, I'll put the a cappella in the computer, I'll set the bpm, and just put a simple beat in. I can take any kick and snare, lock it tight, and that's where I start. From there I go to my Roland [S-]760 and I literally fill that thing up with samples in a matter of an hour and a half. I've got about a 100 seconds stereo in it, and I just fill it up with mad beats, bass, notes, stabs, whatever quirky little sounds. Everything that's in my mixes comes from someplace else. I love the art of sampling. You can listen to "Spin Spin Sugar" and never know where I got anything from. That's the art of it. Drum 'n' bass is based on that. That's where that @#%$ comes from. All the stuff that Roni Size does, which is musically now so respected, is a sample.
So even that big bass line in your "Spin Spin Sugar" remix was a sample?
Yeah. But actually that bass came from their DAT. And that's another thing, see, like with the Tori Amos [remix] too, that bass was from her bassist or whoever was in her band. So it all depends on what I get on DAT. In the Sneaker Pimps case, I had a five-minute track of bass, and I just grabbed that one little thing off it.
Are you often asked to change things after you've submitted a mix?
The way me and my manager have it set up is, we have a "no recall" policy, and this is a new thing in remixing. It's not to diss. It's not to point anyone out. But back in the day when Picasso was hired to do a painting, he painted it. You either liked it or you didn't, but you paid for it and took it. That's how it worked. Now that's how it works with me. "Armand, what he does is art. Respect what he does. You want a mix from him, there's no recall. That's how it works." We're the only people doing that, though, because the label or the artist always wants to be a part of it. It's not to disrespect them, but we're trying to put remixing in a place where it needs to be.
Are you still getting flat fees, or are you getting into points now?
Flat fee. And it's because the amount of time and phone calls you have to put in to collect your points is a nightmare. Even for an artist signed to a label, it's a nightmare. They [the record labels] will hold out 'til the very last minute until you're about to sue them. And it's just a @#%$ game that all the labels play. It's a part of major label business. Their whole thing is, "Don't sweat nothing until the dire last minute -- until we're about to go to court." That's how they work. So me and my manager finally said, "@#%$ all this drama trying to get paid! Let's just set the rate high to compensate, and just get it flat."
Some people might argue that a flat fee could be a rip-off to an artist whose remix hits big.
My Tori Amos remix blew up, and you know what, I didn't see nothing from that. Zero. But at the same time I got about 40,000 other mixes because of it. You see what I'm saying? So, in a way I did get paid back from it. And probably easier and faster than trying to collect it from the label.
Word on the street is that you pull in anywhere from 25 to 50 grand per mix. Is that true?
Yeah, but again, a lot of it's my manager 'cause I really don't do any of the talking. The whole thing started out last year. I was doing mixes at that time for about $25,000. And that's high, but that's pretty much what the best people were getting. But what happened was, I wanted to do a hip-hop album, and I said, "I don't want to do any remixes. Set the price crazy high so nobody will bite." And people bit. So, we were like, "If they're going to bite at $30,000, lets go to 35. And then if they're gonna bite at 35, let's go to 40." And that's how it ended up. It's just business. You know? I mean, you create a demand, and if you're turning in quality stuff, you jack the price.
About Enter the Meat Market . . . I think a lot of people who are most familiar with your house stuff will be surprised by the old school hip-hop sound.
I'd done like a couple hip-hop track-type records for AV8 Records back around the same time "Witchdoktor" came out. I did them just to do them. See, originally AV8 started with me. AV8 is my name. People don't know that, but since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, I just went AV8. It used to be one of my DJ names too, but barely anybody knows that. So that's how it started. But before I went into the house thing, I was into hip-hop. I've always been into hip-hop. So I just decided to do some hip-hop tracks out of the blue. "What if I take a popular loop that's out there, kind of flip it around a little, add a vocal chant, and press it? People might play it." That was the whole idea.
kvon het wel leuk om te lezen iig
ik vind het echter wel leuk hoe hij sommige dingen beargumenteerd en ja het is niet echt een leerzaam interview, kdacht dat het wel leuk te lezen was 
