GHF Presents the Producer Q&A Series Part 7: heRobust


Hailing from Atlanta Georgia, heRobust (Hayden Kramer) has burst onto the electronic scene with thoughtful, hip-hop inspired beat music. Hayden's debut EP, Albumin, was released on Saturate Records in February of 2011 and was quickly recognized by industry leaders such as XLR8R, Vice, and Jay Scarlet of Beat Dimensions. Soon after, heRobust had already shared the stage with the likes of Flying Lotus, Daddy Kev, Gaslamp Killer, Salva, NiTGrit, Shlohmo, Shigeto and many more. February of 2012 marked Hayden's second release, the Late Night / Morning After double album.

Download Late Night and Morning After on Bandcamp.

Would love to know a bit about how you build those multi layer synth patches. I hear alot of rich textures and harmonics in the instruments that you use. Some of them sound like multiple instruments working toghether.

HollyCow! What a Beat.... O_O Shut Up And Take My Money! ;D
Like Napsty Said: How do you make those RICH full automation [alive] sounds?

OK so I use propellerhead Reason to make all my synths. like 100% of them. Just wanted to get that out of the way before I started getting questions about vst's...



thanks man. Your right. Some of these sounds are multiple instruments. Reason has a device called the "combinator". The basic idea is that you can create a combinator - put a mixer inside it - then populate the mixer with any number of synths. Then when you apply midi data to the combinator, you are playing all of the synths within it, at the same time. The combinator is a powerful tool, but be mindful of how you are mixing each of the synths within. Things can get very muddy very quickly.

Are you sequencing in Reason?

first off, big ups for doing this Q&A, you're the man

that first patch is really cool, could you go into how you made the layers for it?

what sort of workflow do you have for integrating sound design? do you create a bunch of potential sounds for a track immediately beforehand? or do you make sounds as you're sequencing? or do you make a big sample library of your own patches for use in multiple future tracks?

Thanks for doing this, it's these sorts of Q&A's that REALLY help all of us aspiring producers.

I have a few questions:
How does music fit into your daily life? Are you a full-time producer or do you have to have a side job to pay the bills?


How long have you been playing piano? Any good books on music theory/piano you can recommend?

Love your music, big up for doing this!

I've heard you master your own music, would you be kind enough to walk us through your process?

Can you explain how you process your basses (specifically that filtered-sounding low bass tone that comes in at the end of each bar) in Reason? It sounds like you're using the Elektrik wavetable in Maelstrom right? But I'm interested in what you do after that.

Thanks Chris, "alive" is a great word for it... and its all about automation like you said. Im gonna try to start at the VERY beginning here...

Automation has two ends - the source and the destination. Sources (like lfo's and envelopes) are controlling parameters that change the sound. Destinations (like filter frequency, or osc pitch) are the paramaters that are being affected. All this is obvious so far... The reason some of my patches sound "alive" is because they are executing WAY more automations then most.

Here's why - How many sources do you typically get in an average synth??? two lfo's... an amp envelope... maybe a mod envelope that can be looped if your lucky. So you are limited to having about 4 interactions within your patch. The way I use Reason, I have no limit.

Here's how - Group a ton of synths in a combinator and unplug all of them except one. The one that is plugged in is the one that produces sound. We'l call that the primary synth. Take all the others and use their cv as sources. If you need more automation, just create more instruments - unplug them - and route the cv of their lfo's/envlopes/etc to the primary synth.

(thats the fundamental idea. here's a more detailed description for reason users...)

Suppose you have a thor inside of a combinator. Off the bat, you have 2 lfo's and a mod envelope that can be routed for automations. After you have used those up, create another thor AND UNPLUG ITS OUTPUT. Now the thor is making no sound at all. Open the programmer of the thor and route its sources to different CV outputs (lfo1 to CV1, lfo2 CV 2, however you want...) Now you can plug these CV into the original thor cv inputs. Go to that thors programmer and set CVinputs as sources and choose whatever destinations you want. If you run out of cv inputs on the primary synth, yous CV mergers to consolidate.


So when you hear a sound evolving, growing, breathing its tons of lfos and envelopes acting at the same time. Some are very fast. Some are 4 bars long.

My personal favorite destinations: (things to affect)
- filter frequency
- delay time
- delay feedback
- panning
- gain
- osc pitch
- wave position

I hope this helps. might be too specific, but you get the idea.

smh... yes. Its a headache. If you record automations to mute/solo channels, its a bit better but that's definitely not Reasons strong suit...

thanks.

So that first sound is actually only one synth, but here's what your hearing... The amp envelope has no attack, and a short decay. Thats what makes the initial sound brief (like a mallet or something). I have a very slow lfo on a high-pass filter, but theres a delay on the lfo. this means that the lfo kicks in a while after i play a note. So when i push down, it makes the initial mallet sound - then if i hold it for a while, the lfo starts opening the filter and you hear it swell slowly.

here's another automation thats going on. There is an unsynced delay on the whole patch. This means the time interval is not quantized. I have another very slow lfo on the delay time of the delay. This means that delay interval is constantly getting larger and smaller. THIS IS REALLY COOL. As the interval is getting smaller, the delays become faster and are slightly detuned upwards. As the interval is getting larger, the delays become slower and are slightly detuned downwards. These wierd delays have a nice way of surrounding the main sound with a cloudy/spacey vibe thats audibly derived from the original. pretty cool.

on workflow:
If everything goes well, I make a tune from start to finish. When i need a sound I just make a blank combinator and start building the patch from the inside. Things dont always go well though. When im having writers block, I spend the whole day making patches to be used later. Its my way of staying productive when songwriting isnt coming naturally.

so yes, I do have a library of patches for future/past songs. wouldnt have much without it!

For now, I pay the bills as an iphone app developer. We make apps for audio production and vocal recording. Its a company i started with a good friend while we were in undergrad. Once the apps are out, we dont really have much else to do. So i have a ton of free time. haha music IS my daily life man! its seriously unhealthy how much time i spend in front of a laptop! but i love it...

i had typical piano lessons when i was really young. maybe 10. I lost interest after a while and switched to guitar. Played in the school jazz band for a minute, then switched back to piano when i started producing a lot.

I cant recommend any books. I never actually bought any, but here's what i did do! Go to the bookstore. Find a good book with chords, scales, whatever you want. Take your phone out and take pictures of the pages you want. smh, but it works... Really though, just turn on the radio and play to everything. A book will show you all the different scales and chords, but you dont always get the big picture. For example. the whole suspense/resolve thing is hard to convey in a book. You'l start to form your own understanding of the scales and thats more important then knowing the names imo.

lol thats true, but how did you hear that?

im gonna preface this by saying that i never went to school or anything for this. all learned through trial and error, and its not how most people do it. I dont use any spectral analysis tools (even though theyre awesome) Iv just been doing it for a long time, so my ear is trained for it. most of my friends dont understand how my mixing/mastering sounds the way it does...

In my opinion, mastering is not as important as mixing. The goal of mixing for me is to make it so i have to alter the song as little as possible when I master it. Each patch is made with from top to bottom. Meaning i start with the high registers and work my way down with each layer. Additionally, EVERYTHING is processed in parallel. This means I split the sound as many ways as i want and affect them all slightly differently. (yknow how when lyricists "stack" it sounds beefier cuz the two recordings are slightly different?? well parallel processing is a way to get that effect using identical signals)

so that's mixing. here's how I master.

Most mastering plugins are multiband compressers. This means you can adjust the compression on different registers however you want. this is cool and i used these for a while. Right now, Im rewiring reason into ableton and creating an effect rack on the master. This effect rack basically works like the plugins i mentioned, except its working in parallel. There's one dry channel which is the loudest, and the rest are isolating different frequency ranges (via eq) and compressing them differently. So im actually using the stock ableton stuff for everything.

The reason i prefer this, is because it gives me more flexibility. If i wanted to divide the spectrum into 10000 different ranges and compress them all differently, i could. For each channel, you can adjust the eq range, all the compression parameters, and the volume of the channel. Its highly customizable for every song. Its not something you can just throw onto every tune you make. (lol i know so many people are looking for those kinda answers, but there not out there)

I also think the slight overlap of all the channels gives the master a great thickness.

sorry man. can you be a bit more specific? Im not sure which patch your talking about.

Hey man! Big ups, lovin your vibrations dude. I have a question about your approach to live performance. How do you approach transitioning your productions from studio to live? And what is your goal for your live performances? Also can you shed any light on selfpromotion and booking? Many thanks my friend! Peace

The lp-filter(?) cutoff automated thing at 4:09 and again at 4:12, for example. Wondering what your processing is in Reason on it. Besides the filter.

Also props for doing this.

I love your music a lot, man — since the first time I heard it. So, big, tough question here.

How did you come up with your sound? You ceirtainly do have your own distinct sound, I've always been able to tell if it's your tracks with eyes closed. Did you one day just sit down to a laptop and decide it — or it was more like a long-long-long eveolution of trial and error? What do you do when you find yourself with track that you like, but which doesn't sound like you — or it just never happens? Do you deliberately reuse presets and create new in the same style? And what would you do if you'd just find yourself tired of it?

Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like LFO's - So I Put Some LFO's InTo your LFO's - LFOception.
Thanks For Explaining The Live Sounds ;] - Now I'll Have to FIgure it Out How To Do This in Ableton - not Much of a Reason User. I Quess I Should Make 3 different Audio Effect Racks with Crazy Audio Effects - Mapped Macros - and Then Automate Them In Arrangement.

OMG! Just HAd Idea To Make 5 Dummy Clip Racks With A lot Of Effects On It And Each Clip Has a Different Automation!

Hmm... But it Will Sure Take A lot of CPU ;/ Anyway...

Parallel Mastering??? You Mister are Taking It To The Next Level ;D
Love The "Fuck It I'll Do It My Own Way" Idea. Your So Open Minded! - I Smell Some Inspiration!

So Piano - Guitar - Piano / Self Tough Theory. Took Some Years of Errors I Quess - But We Hear the Results - Awesome Independent Music. I Actually FInished Music School Then Music Conservatoire - Played Clarinet For 10 Years. Really new To Electronic Music - I Don't Have That Open Minded Mindset - Mainly Because i Came From The Classical Background - Which has A lot of Rules.

Lil bit more about WorkFlow - How would you describe your perfect production day? - I want some details Like:
"I get up - won't even put pants on - get a cup of coffee and sandwich or smth - turn of mobile/modem - and mess around reason for 10 hours non stop with my libraries of samples then i take some recorded live material... blablabla"
Just want to get an image of how people make tunes and what kind of ENERGY they are having that day.

Thank you for your time Dude. Cheers.

Afternoon, loving your music dude - it's pretty god damn sick to be honest. A few questions for you...

What would your top tips be around arrangement and creative tools/techniques you use for composition?
Which artists do you use to reference your tracks and who do you really rate right now?
Raspberry ice cream or peanut butter on crusty toast?

Cheers bro

Your tracks all have such amazing stereo width. I mean, they're just HUGE. What techniques are you using to achieve that? I keep having the problem of my sounds just seeming kind of squished. And what is your live setup like? Are you just mixing tracks or playing live?

Hey thank you so much for doing this, i like how open you are and very descriptive of the tech side of things.

How old are you, and how long did it take you to feel like your music flowed enough to play live for people? How long have you been producing?

What are some of your thoughts on making music that flows so well and what scales do you find yourself most attracted to?

so here's an example of me performing a downtempo track.



A lot of people take the approach of bouncing everything out individually and dropping clips. like re-sequencing the song live. This is cool, but under-appreciated by most viewers in my opinion. So I dont do this.

I preform using Reason rewired into ableton. All of my clips/fx are in ableton, and all the keyboard patches are in Reason. I bounce the entire song with various elements muted. Then i can arrange the different bounces so that different elements are missing at different times. For example - no drums for the first 8 bars, no bass for the next 16 bars, no lead for the last 16 bars. Then I load up the different patches that i have removed so i can play them on the keyboard (or a midi guitar sometimes) . So im basically removing recorded elements of the song and playing them live one at a time. I use the pads for drums sometimes. also for sound fx like airhorns, beat repeats, dummy clips for fx etc...

I have two goals when I play. The first is to make people move. Dance, head nodd, whatever. just move. The other is to have people consider the show to be a performance, as opposed to a DJ set. DJ SETS ARE GREAT! Im not one of those producers who is all caught up on the whole "im not a dj!" thing. Thats just how I want it to be seen.

A thing you should know about performing. Crowds are different. Some crowds want to get up close and watch everything. They want to know what your doing, and they are appreciative of how you are executing your set and how challenging it is. Some crowds just want to dance. They may never even look at you. Both crowds are great, and can be very fun to play for. So when you are planning your set, keep in mind that you will have to play for both of these crowds.

You asked about self promotion. SELF PROMOTION IS A MYTH in my opinion. Learn to rely on other people to spread your message for you. Connect with everyone you can. Sometimes the best way to do that is to help them spread their message. Before you know it, you'l know everyone personally and they'l legitimately want to support you.

booking is the same way. Go to shows. Ask who owns the venue. Try to meet the promoters. Every promoter needs an opener some time. And thats where everybody starts.

Alright. Those are two different patches actually. Everything is identical except for the shape of the lfo. The 4:09 lfo is a sine wave and the 4:12 lfo is a reverse saw. Thats why they sound different.

These ones are actually pretty straight forward. Three oscilators are being used. One is a sine wave and the other two are wavetable. Theres only one LFO working. Its affecting filter, waveshaper drive, and osc position of 2 of the oscilators.

POST FILTER - I split the signal 4 ways (parallel processing). One is dry, one is compressed and totally squashed, one has distortion, and the last one has a high pass on it. I think the "bite" of the patch is due to the processing post filter. A lot of people do their effects first and then apply the filter. Try it before AND after. Just try it everywhere really. There are always little sweet spots you can discover that way, especially with hi resonance.

Thanks man! Yeah, i think my sound is pretty distinct. I think all artists kind of take the shape of everything they listen to and enjoy. So my sound formed around hip hop, funk, soul, beat music, and glitch hop. But beyond this, I think its the sound design that really makes it obvious when you hear a hR track.

I make all the synthesized sound you hear in my tracks. Im not saying my sounds are better then anyone elses. Im just saying that every producer has a specific audio palette or something. Kinds of audio qualities that they like. So when I make everything from scratch, my preferences are very apparent.

I feel like there are two main ways to evaluate musicians. First is their perspective. Like their vision, and want what they want to create. The second is their execution. How well did they pull it off. So I wouldnt say there was much trial and error. Iv always had this style, but I have gotten better at executing it over the years.

About making music that doesnt sound like me, I cant do it. Recently iv been exploring other genres like juke and dubstep. Even though the music is way different, it still sounds like me. I guess cuz all the sound design has the same flavor. And I cant seem to shake the whole soulful vibe thing, even when making dubstep. wierd...