GHF Presents the Producer Q&A Series Part 1: Inside the mind of Bil Bless


Bil Bless, aka The Disciple Grin, or SOTEG. The genius from Austin Texas who created two of my favorite albums. Who is this man? There isn't much information about him on the internet. All i have been able to find is that he is allergic to shellfish. Now is your chance to get inside this genius' head and ask that question that you've been dying to know the answer to.

How did you learn you were allergic to shellfish? JK JK

Since this seems to have been a hot topic as of late on our forum, what is your workhorse synthesizer?

Cheers!

I would really like to know how you're designing your drums and what you're using.

Since you are widely regarded as one of the go too guys for mastering in glitch-hop circles, could you give us an overview of your mastering process & technique? Also any tips on how to achieve good results w home mixdowns and mastering attempts would be appreciated.

also... i can't stop listening to your 2 latest ep's.... so good.

1. now that you've left 'bassdrop' texas, where do i mail my brazier n panties?

2. i LOVE the way you make your synths sound like childrens toys with dying batteries... can you please elaborate on this process?

If you could tell yourself one thing you know about production now that you wish you knew when you first started what would that be? oh and what hardware are you rocking maybe a full kit list if possible?

cheers!

1. I love how your tracks contain really complex counterpoint, just wondering where your background comes from compositionally speaking.

2. I love the way all of your sounds have a nice clean space in the mix, Could you explain your approach to reverb (ie do you set up a few busses or give different sounds their own individual reverb?)

3. I'm also really curious about the dieing battery distortion sounds you get

Thanks for your time!

1. Has the Spaghettios recall affected your creative process?

2. What are your three favorite fx techniques/plugins?

shrimp:

my face blew up after a dinner at my sisters. it was shrimp.
i think this is just old information though. after about ten or more years of accumulating
food allergies, turns out i just had a panic disorder brought on by years of poor living...no
food allergies at all. ( though i still wont eat shrimp, JIC ).

workhorse synth:

i'd be crazy sad if i was stuck using one. i'll promote waldorf at the moment, because they seem to have the most longevity in my stuff. largo is great, a much more convenient way to get the sounds of their other stuff without having to deal with the external hardware...although, and i'm not sure why, i get the heaviest bottom end stuff from using the external waldorf pieces i have q/pulse

i dont think its a case of design really. that would infer some sort of intelligence on my part. i just use the same time honored techniques as every other producer. i think what may or may not make my drums sound the way they do is the programming. coming from step sequencer midi land, i never really got into audio loops or previously owned programming...so all the drums i do are sequenced by me. this isn't something to brag on obviously, anybody that does this will end up with 'their' sound by virtue of them just being them.

as far as what i use.

whatever i can afford. i load lots of one hits and layers into battery or drum rack or some other sample triggering device ( old akai samplers, whatever!) and sometimes i try and get all tecnical with the velocity layering, and sometimes i just try to rock it like someone who is limited to 6 samples with no layers. sometimes i try to play the drums like a real drummer (4 limbs = 4 sounds at a time max, except in the case of def lepoard (leapord? lepperd?)) and sometimes i dont care about those rules at all and layer 3 hats and a cymbal.

whatever i can record. the world is full of awesome sounds. many percussive. with no copyright.

drums like all of music should be experimented with. dont limit yourself to some preconceived rule, although keep them in mind.

and just as an after thought. layering is good...you know like when you have a layer of icecream then a layer of whipcream then a layer of strawberries then a layer of chocolate. all awesome.

but if you have a layer of ass cow pie. dont try and layer some turd over the top that and then layer some heavy breathing over the top of that. all the layers suck, as does the final product. anyway, thats a rule of thumb, because the final product could actualy be awesome. which is also a rule of thumb.

well first thing i do is watch the track on an analyzer, while i'm listening to it. i do this because i think my hearing perception changes from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. are my sinuses snotty? am i sitting in the same position as always? does the analyzer confirm that yes they've turned the bass up to 11 and left everything else at 1. yes it confirms it.

generally speaking most of the stuff that comes in is way too bass heavy. we all love bass, but lets be honest, without the mids and tops music would just sound like muffled gas. this really is a tough topic though...because like writing music, there are a ton of rules you can depend on, but they are all interchangeable and none of them work right for all situations.

typically speaking for glitchhop anyway...as i said alot of stuff comes in bass heavy already. often too much so. so i'll look at the analyzer, start rolling off the unlistenables ( less than 30hz-ish, greater than 18.5ish ) just to reclaim some space. then i'll start working the multiband compression...probably squeezing down the sub 250hz range...sometimes with a bit more roll on the sub 60hz range. if i've got stems, i'll make sure the kick/subs are working together nice. that might require some form of ducking (reversephasegate, compressduck, eq notch, cut n paste, a million other ways). alot of times people send in material which is heavy sub @ 60hz and heavy kick sub @ 60hz. so they eat up loads of headroom right there..

anyway after get those subs and bass to play together, i usually have to bump up the mids, because folks are afraid of the 250-500hz range. and they should be, it can muddy up your crap real quick...but there's alot of warm in there to be had. this could be done with eq roll (later in the chain) or by expanding a bit with the multiband compressor. after compression and expansion i may or may not put a bit of limiting on that ( to accomodate the expanded highs...which i didnt address. in a multiband compressor dont be afraid to use expansion. everybody compression. expand some of that crap man. expand those hats or the body of that snare or the clap. make em clap. read bob katz's book on mastering. he'll tell you like a pro.

anyway after all this i'll do some equalization that i consider detailing. bringing up the say the hat range 10khz with a parametric eq...or bringing out the snap on the snare 5khz,7khz. maybe the top of the kick@ 150hz. compressing the lot (or not, if they want it more dynamic...not typically the case in glitch) and then limiting/maximizing whatever is there.

i'm sure all of that was random and scattered. its not terribly hard to get a decent enough mix on a home system. mine isn't that great. i have some low end genelec. but knowing how your system translates is pretty important. having a sub is important.

a good cheap way to balance it all is to snag an spl meter from radio shack. run some pink noise through each monitor...get your leveling between at least the tops and the sub correct. if you want to get slightly fancier with it, run a pink noise sweep and see where the holes in your range are.

but most of all, experience and ears are what you need.

1. keep those stained things. i told you to stop sending me that crap already.
2. i use children's toys with dying batteries. i'll give you no advice dylan.

i couldn't say i have a compositional background.

like many folks, my parents set me up with piano lessons when i was little. piano, violin... i'm sure that had something to do with it.

i had an older sister who got into all the new wave bands when i was an impressionable lad. they tended to use riffs and hooks and layers that came and went and resolved eachother at the end. im sure that had something to do with it.

periods in life ( well for the last 19 years or so ) when i started playing with synths...i just didn't have synth. wether we moved, or i was on borrowed gear..or whatever. so writing music on an old piano or whatever was all i had to do. so i'd try it.

im sure all this and more has something to do with it. or maybe none of it.


reverrrrb. if i want more than one instrument to share a space...drums, strings, whatever... i'll setup a bus and route a group of instruments to that bus. but if i want an individual synth to be affected, i'll obviously stick it on the same bus as that synth. i think the key is to know why you are using the reverb. not just using it because you think its proper. so i guess the answer is both. sometimes i'll want to do some rad 80s gating on the snare, or some kinda duck gate...so i'll give the verb its own bus and do some sidechaining to it. again, just have a reason.

for a better answer on giving instruments there own space see -> dave tipper.


the dying stuff. dylan no. you yes. this is just a preference thing. i love the detuned harmonic natural chorusy spray that old instruments give. i have an upright piano that does this and sustaining notes on it forever just sound awesomely something i cannot really say. just sad and pretty. or sad and exciting i.e. celtic music, or old fiddle music out of the carolina hills. pure tones just seem unnatural to me. so giving my oscillators space to drift just makes me happy. technically speaking its just assigning a bit of bend via lfo or envelope or whatever gate control breathalyzing xy pad type situation you want to assign... an instrument should express something and be able to move dang it. you can listen to an electronic album ( like mine ) and be bored to tears with the 5 billion synths playing. but a guy with his one dulcimer and four strings ( two of which potentially are tuned the same ) and he can keep you entertained for hours. this is a great lesson to learn.

1. the "meat" in the spaghettio meatball has either

a) become dog
b) always been dog, but i didnt care as a youngster
c) should have been recalled in 1975 when it was first scientifically formulated

none of which answers your question. so i'd say it has both helped and potentially hurt my process.


2. i'm going to bore the crap out of you with this, but without

a) reverb ( spring, plate, natural -> by whoever. free or otherwise. mechanical, digital, or otherwise)
b) (tube) compression ( i'd elaborate, but in case my neighbor rob reads this with his mad knowledge of tubes, i'd rather not embarass myself).
c) eq ( sonalksis, waves, any of the classic channel strips: api etc..)

i think the majority of recordings would be boring as sin. oddly enough, as staple as these effects are, the majority of producers young and old don't take the time they should to try and understand what these things do. as seen in my b) caveat.

i wish i'd known how easily you can allow that creative spark, that initial desire for putting together a piece of music or a sound or a noise for no other reason than the desire to do it, to hear the end product, how easily you can allow that to be smothered by other desires (does the crowd love me enough??! will i get booked anymore?!?!), complacency with a habit ( but i always do it this way! but you just can't use a kick drum as a piano sound!! can you?), or lazyness. i'd have been alot more alert for these outside influences, or less than pure inside desires, trying to take over what makes this whole process so lovely.

Wether or not I get booked with a font bigger than all the other bands, isnt the point. Wether or not I even get booked or anyone bothers to download anything I do, isn't the point.

the point for me is that I absolutely enjoy the opportunity, the ability, and really the honor, given to me to create something I love to hear... and use it wisely, and probably most importantly (though this is a new challenge for me), find some way to benefit others with its use.

i wish i'd known all this.

kit list (i'm not in austin right now, so this is somewhat via my horribly weak memory):

racked up pc
racked up external pci box (cant remember what type..not magma, but maybe...for powercore)
cubase
live
pulse
q
akai samplers
most NI products
ace
synplant
largo
waves (gold, wish i could afford the upgrade to platinum or beyond...)
sonalksis
z3ta
rob papen stuff
the antress freeware stuff is great
the otium stuff is great
genelec on the monitors
RME hammerfall, i think the multiface and a 9652

there's a ton of stuff i use. that must be some of the most common since i can remember those.

Thanks for doing this! What do you use for your live sets, software and controller/hardware wise, and what is your setup like in terms of what you do live? And what was live about reject me on life mechanism 2?

Also, how long does it usually take you to write a tune, and what makes you decide a track is finished?

Who are some non-glitch-hop (and maybe some non-electronic) artists who really float your boat?

What techniques do you use to achieve texture in your tracks?
Also, what are the bad habits you had as a young producer keeping you from reaching your current level of production? and what good habits have you adopted since?
Oh, and how do you approach your instrument placement in the stereo field? Do you have any widening techniques that you could share?
(sorry if I got carried away with the questions)

BTW It is very admirable for you to be taking time to answer these questions. Thanks!

Would you care to give us some of the goods on your production process? Do you separate sound design, production, arrangement, mixdown into separate steps? Do you have a system or steps in your workflow, or do you find that inhibits your creative energy?

Since you release your music on your own label, I assume the deadlines are a little less rigorous.. Are there any tips or pointers you have that help you finish your songs and completing the process?

How many tracks that you start ever see completion?

Thanks Sir.. I have always enjoyed your work.

lol..this thread might go on forever....thanks for taking time to do this tho, and for sharing your music with us!

Wow. That's a lot of information to take in all at once. I'll have to break it into smaller pieces.

Also a huge thanks for you coming into our world and letting us know all of this. It's really an honor to have someone with music of your calibre to help us out.

Thanks for answering my question really appreciate it!

I just laughed so loud my roommate ran upstairs wondering what the fuck was going on...

solid stuff here!

1. Do you have another job? Or are you doing this full time and making enough money to live off?

2. How did you get to this position in your life with your music career? Can you please explain the journey.

re: drums...

they sound good. super tight, playful, some attitude and funk in them...do you just write them in the midi roll and move them around? do you use swing parameters in any way?