Interview With Thirteen37

1. How would you describe your music? How would you descibe both your method and and attitude towards producing electronic music?

A: Our music is dependent on what our mood is. Recently we've become a lot more inclined to make heavy, punchy tracks though. Our method generally involves hearing a song, starting work on a project in that kind of mindset, and seeing what happens. We're very laid back about our production, we just get a solid framework down, then let the track evolve and grow.

2. What program(s) do you use for production?

A: We use Ableton Live for our production, combined with a KORG MS-20 Legacy Controller. We use around 8 or 9 different VSTi plugins, but the most used is Massive from Native Instruments.

3. How long have you been producing?

A: We've been into music and how it works for around 5 years, but we started producing in 2008.

4. What inspired you to make electronic music?

A: Josh found a copy of FL Studio, and had a stab at making some music. It turned out fairly decent. I got a copy too, decided to give it a shot, and we went from there.

5. How is the electronic music scene in England?

A: There's a lot of electronic music in England, especially in the charts. It's mainly European and the American electronic music that dominates the charts though. David Guetta, Afrojack, Diplo and the like are pretty big at the moment. A lot of artists are producing great music for other, bigger artists though, so some really good artists are going unrecognised.

6. What would you say is the most popular sub genre in the electronic music scene in England?

A: Dubstep and it's sub genres are very popular over here, but apart from that, it's mainly electro house and mainstream house.

7. Are you strongly connected within your local community of producers and djs? Nationally? Internationally?

A: No. The area that we live in is pretty much dry for this type of music . We do know quite a few local DJ's and producers, however they're more or less in the same boat as us.

8. Do you feel that the uprising of technology via the internet via sound cloud could spark a possible cultural revolution being sound cloud is a growing community of producers that produce their music out of shear ambition and not for the purpose of monetary gain?

A: Possibly, yes. SoundCloud is a driving force in getting producers and DJ's recognised. It's a great way to get your music to a lot of people, but as people get recognised, money becomes more important, and the music loses some of that ambition. It's still a diverse mix of people and their music though, and we can only see good things coming from it.

9. How many shows have you played? Any festivals?

A: None, really. We're looking into local shows, but this area is more focused on drum and bass.

10. What other producers do you admire in the current electronic music scene?

A: Feed Me, deadmau5, Skrillex, Gareth Emery, and countless others.

11. Do you agree with me that dubstep really is a special genre because it has become so versatile and is increasingly so?

A: Yeah. Dubstep is such a diverse genre. The spectrum of dubstep is so wide, and the amount of completely different sounding tracks that are labeled as 'dubstep' is phenomenal. It's a very distinctive genre, though,

12. What producers inspired you to producer the music you produce?

A: deadmau5, without a shadow of doubt. His tracks were some of the first electronic music we really listened to, and when we saw some of the remakes people had made, we knew we had to give production a go.

13. Would you say your strengths lie in mixing or producing?

A: Producing, definitely. We do some mixing, but it's a personal thing, really. We're starting to pay more attention to the mixing side of things now though, as it's a big help when you're looking for coverage.

14. Have you collaborated with any other producers? If not, do you plan to?

A: We have not collaborated in any serious way with other producers as of yet, mainly due to the difficulty of finding people with similar musical tastes who are close enough to meet up with.

15. What are you working on currently that is not released yet to sound cloud?

A: About 15 projects, all different genres. Quite often we flit around between projects as our moods change, and every now and again one project will show potential, and we'll stay up until 4 A.M working on it!

16. What are your thoughts on your preference program for producing music?

A: Ableton live is a fantastic and powerful program to use, but it takes a while to get used to it, even if you have experience with production on a different platform.

17. What equipment do you use to dj?

A: As of yet, we do not DJ in any serious sense.

18. How socially accepted/popular is electronic music in your area?

A: It is popular in this area but it's mostly mainstream 'pop' music. Generally though, if someone hears a good electronic track, they like it, but it's just that they don't hear it, they only hear what's on the radio. Recently though, a lot more music that would have been considered as underground is getting played on the radio, so maybe there's hope yet.

19. How do you feel about the status quo of planet earth?

A: Wait. What? You're asking the wrong people there. If we started a rant about the state of the world, the internet would break :)

Thanks for the interview, it was good to talk about some of the aspects of our production that people don't normally ask.

Thanks again;

Josh and George.