@@Barney-ii1no 100% there’s no money in it now. However I think goldie had the right idea with metalheadz I bet he still does really well. I think that’s probably more the tours and merchandise though.
I love all those 90s setups. If you listen to Modus Operandi or other mid-late 90s electronic albums you can't help but feel impressed of how they pushed those primitive computers and synths to the limit. Those guys worked hard to produce quality music, because the software/hardware back then seemed like a pain in the ass to work with. Makes you realize that all you need is creativity, no matter how primitive your equipment is.
This man will always be a king of this style. He inspired so many producers including Amon Tobin. His style is original and he treats drums and harmonies with the love they deserve. Thanks for all the inspiration Photek.
Ni Ten Ichi Ryu. To this day, an absolute masterpiece. Used on the end credits of the Blade movie and probably the reason he could afford that motor haha.
'96 was a good year for like every genre of music, well at least electronic, rock/metal and hip hop...the IMO alot of good music came from the 80's and 90's...
@@lee_drifting true, houston def had a run after 96, but the game overall just went full pop, most of the late 90s 'hip hop' hip hop went into mainly the same golden era style that i love, just became to cliche imo
Lol you are deffo over estimating, the comp only has midi notes recorded, the midi then signals the sampler/keyboard notes. I used one of the first versions of cubase, i had an akai 1000 sampler, that could record 60 seconds of audio before it was full, you could split audio but there was no visual representation of what you were doing (except for numbers) so it was all by ear. So you would often lay down one track at a time on to tape, then layer the next track. Something younger people probably don’t realise is presets would often have to be saved to removable disks, if you turned your equipment off, they would disappear and the desk faders would have to be manually changed each time, flying faders were only on desks costing 100k+ old money. When daws started accepting audio, earlier versions of cubase, sonar, protools or fruityloops etc it was massive, although my first pc had 8megs of ram, now i wouldn’t dare go below 16gig. The pcs that were powerful enough to handle basic audio and not get laggy/choppy were really expensive (like a car). Cubase allowed you to “freeze” channels so it would render down that channel (with fxs etc) so it would allow you to play just the layered audio as a single plugins could use maybe 50-70% of cpu and nearly all your ram just being loaded to a channel let alone trying to play.
It brings me back to the school days in the 90’s, x-files old 90’s b-movies/sci fi and other media from the day.... i would give anything to re-live that era....
@PICLex First he would make a break manually (using up to 20 mixer channels). Then he would resample it (=print it to a single sample). Then he would chop the sample up starting at different starting points, for example every 16th note and spread them across the keyboard (=> 16 samples for a 1 bar break). Google "recycle" for a program that chops up breaks. You can also do this manually in a sampler. Photek's innovation at the time was that he made his own breaks instead of using existing ones.
...I am still learning. I think a more efficient way might be to not destructively chop wavs (which I've always done with Awave, a program like Recycle), but to do some maths and use sample offset to set the start points with a tiny release period. Looking at the video, I think this is what Photek (might have) done as most of the notes he draws are longer than 16ths. I am writing a rough little project in Excel to semi-automatically batch create 'virtually' chopped regions within an sfz file for a folder of wavs (with known bpms). Might actually get to write some tunes one day lol
All he did was chop a break into 3 sections ...One starting on the kick,one one the snare and one on the high hat ...That's why the break plays out while he draws it in.That's how I do it in the Emu,Simple process.
Rupert just comes across as an immensely likeable guy, never mind the music, it brought so much to the table when he started putting out his tunes, never mind the scope of the albums
This took me all the way back to my first exposure to Drum n Bass playing Forsaken on the N64 as a kid... god that games soundtrack was and still is phenomenal.
I'd bet money he got that car as an homage to Miles Davis haha. Just watched the 60 Minutes interview with Miles and saw he had practically the same car back in '89 or so.
It was very original back then-something new. He was just being himself. It really shows that it doesn't matter what you use. Yes, you have tighter MIDI with those older computers-something Ableton could never do. Many folks are returning to older gear for that grime and hardware timing; I'm not surprised. The first time I heard of Photek was on the Astralwerks website back in the late '90s. I listened to a sample and then ordered the CD-back when you had to wait for music in the mail. His tracks were totally original. At the time, I didn't know how much he capitalized on it or how much he earned by doing it. When I first heard DnB, I thought it was a bit silly speeding up drum rhythms over ambient atmospheres, but somehow it just stuck.
@PICLex Also, in an interview of the period, Photek mentions chopping breaks into "tri-sets". Not sure what this means exactly, but I'd guess something like, 1st chop on the kick (beat1), 2nd on the snare (beat2) - that's what we see in the video - 3rd on the "2and" (to catch the chikachika grace snare action). In any case, fewer chops than 16. Then you play these chopped samples on the keyboard, it's a very musical way of coming up with interesting drum patterns.
His lifestyle these days seems to have superseeded that car though :) However, I'd rather he still be making dark gritty D&B in that house than shitty dubstep in Los Angeles
Thank you very much for posting this one man! I'm a big photek fan, and I missed this interview back then, I only saw source direct. Very nice to see, thans a lot! Cheers, Tyn
That bit late in the interview is the most important, I think: "I could just sample it, but I'd far rather make it myself." Mr. Photek just scored big points. Awesome vid.
that time producing was for producing, not for becoming rich. Complete difference to now. The result - millions of pseudo producers dreaming to become rich
The equipment was whatever was available at the time, it required a higher level of talent compared to today, also who goes crate digging these days (and who can?) Big up all Junglists. Amen
@prestonloyola in my opinion one of the reason why the music of that time had so much vibes is because of the old skool recording / production techniques: they were forced to learn to play keyboards or work with machines. Nowadays you download a samplepack, a simple DAW and a mouse and you can pretty much make "music". (not saying that music of today doesn't have vibes though!)
my man, look up JMJ, man who does not get old and a musician for his whole life Recent studies are telling us that our genes can be upregulated, and there is whole new discoveries on genetics and heart, look up Bruce Lipton or Joe Dispenza...in short, yeah, kinda incedible change
@Oxix999 Pretty sure it's Logic on an old Mac. The Mac was popular because it had a built in MIDI interface! In those days it was essentially just a MIDI sequencer triggering the external synths/samplers. No software synths back then.
I wonder what producers from yesteryear would think if you could show them today's DAWs back then. I've literally got everything he has in that room in my laptop and more.
The difference is in the sounds though. That hardware sounds completely different to todays DAWs, the two aren’t comparable. DAWs sound ‘plastic’ and flat compared to the hardware equipment. It’s all a matter of taste at the end of the day and how you use a workflow to get what you want. Also a lot of the editing was done through a tiny two inch screen back then. It forces you to learn the process doing stuff by hand that you can do with the click of a mouse these days. It’s a much more ‘fun’ creative process than just sitting in front of a computer screen.
Daws are the same audio quality, its the VSTs that you use with them I think you mostly mean. I do have to agree with you though. Some VST's are very very similar (rompers) but you'll never get that authentic sound that you'd have gotten from hardware.@@youcantno3963
The absolute peak of DnB is Photek driving around in a black Ferrari.
Lucky to get enough money to buy a multipack of crisps with the money you get from a dnb release now
@@Barney-ii1no 100% there’s no money in it now. However I think goldie had the right idea with metalheadz I bet he still does really well. I think that’s probably more the tours and merchandise though.
silly
He's not defined by his car......
Hardest interview opening of all time XD
Now this dude right here is the reason why I got into DnB.
oh yes. and 20 years later theres still hardly any track, not to speak of any dnb artist, around better than photeks stuff from that era
Same here he was on a Metalheadz compilation
@@atomaalatonal so right, drum and bass we all grew up with doenst really exist anymore. Now its all dubstep like crap.
@@atomaalatonal Lemon d man
I wish we could just freeze that era and loop it. That's when the best shit was made.
I love all those 90s setups. If you listen to Modus Operandi or other mid-late 90s electronic albums you can't help but feel impressed of how they pushed those primitive computers and synths to the limit. Those guys worked hard to produce quality music, because the software/hardware back then seemed like a pain in the ass to work with. Makes you realize that all you need is creativity, no matter how primitive your equipment is.
"Here you can see I'm a keen gardener as well" cracked me up, what a joker.
This man will always be a king of this style. He inspired so many producers including Amon Tobin. His style is original and he treats drums and harmonies with the love they deserve. Thanks for all the inspiration Photek.
"and then I usually put some sounds over the drums. "
And just like that you can make beats like Photek
And I’m over here making shit choons on the newest gear...
Limitations force new ways
RhythmDroid agreed haha
SyntheticLTD saaaaaame 😂
Sigh. Those were the days.
sommersound yes the days when an underground artist could sign for a Virgin sub label and could the afford a Ferrari
It's mad how much his accent/voice has changed in more recent interviews post-LA!
Ni Ten Ichi Ryu.
To this day, an absolute masterpiece. Used on the end credits of the Blade movie and probably the reason he could afford that motor haha.
That's why I love that Blade movie also Source Direct sounds too
KLAbe Wow! That song is priceless
for anyone wondering, the song at 4:30 is Lonely fire from miles davis' album Big fun
Thanks!
this loop has also been taken by finsta bundy - feel the high (hip HOP)
Dnb today sounds like trance emo from Ibiza
all i have to say is photek is an absolute genius.
'96 was a good year for like every genre of music, well at least electronic, rock/metal and hip hop...the IMO alot of good music came from the 80's and 90's...
+iLL OgicK yeah yeah 96 to 98 was the shit. DJ Spooky Riddim Warfare is still on loop in my house
96 was the last good year in hip hop
@@MrSTAYUP33 new york fell off in 96, hip hop in other areas was still dope after that
@@MrSTAYUP33 agreed!!
@@lee_drifting true, houston def had a run after 96, but the game overall just went full pop, most of the late 90s 'hip hop' hip hop went into mainly the same golden era style that i love, just became to cliche imo
That DAW looks pretty practical. I underestimated DAWs from that time.
Atari ST running Cubase.
@@blacklamps nope. Look at the Keyboard. It's not an atari but a pc with a very old version of cubase.
@@blacklamps it's crazy how the sequencer still pretty much looks the same in Cubase.
Lol you are deffo over estimating, the comp only has midi notes recorded, the midi then signals the sampler/keyboard notes. I used one of the first versions of cubase, i had an akai 1000 sampler, that could record 60 seconds of audio before it was full, you could split audio but there was no visual representation of what you were doing (except for numbers) so it was all by ear. So you would often lay down one track at a time on to tape, then layer the next track. Something younger people probably don’t realise is presets would often have to be saved to removable disks, if you turned your equipment off, they would disappear and the desk faders would have to be manually changed each time, flying faders were only on desks costing 100k+ old money. When daws started accepting audio, earlier versions of cubase, sonar, protools or fruityloops etc it was massive, although my first pc had 8megs of ram, now i wouldn’t dare go below 16gig. The pcs that were powerful enough to handle basic audio and not get laggy/choppy were really expensive (like a car). Cubase allowed you to “freeze” channels so it would render down that channel (with fxs etc) so it would allow you to play just the layered audio as a single plugins could use maybe 50-70% of cpu and nearly all your ram just being loaded to a channel let alone trying to play.
All MIDI.
Photek made some great tracks. He was so ahead of it all.
Boys a legend.
Put so many brilliant tunes out.
This 3 part interview about drum n bass producers change my life.
What a great moment in music 96 was.
It brings me back to the school days in the 90’s, x-files old 90’s b-movies/sci fi and other media from the day.... i would give anything to re-live that era....
@PICLex First he would make a break manually (using up to 20 mixer channels). Then he would resample it (=print it to a single sample). Then he would chop the sample up starting at different starting points, for example every 16th note and spread them across the keyboard (=> 16 samples for a 1 bar break). Google "recycle" for a program that chops up breaks. You can also do this manually in a sampler. Photek's innovation at the time was that he made his own breaks instead of using existing ones.
...I am still learning. I think a more efficient way might be to not destructively chop wavs (which I've always done with Awave, a program like Recycle), but to do some maths and use sample offset to set the start points with a tiny release period. Looking at the video, I think this is what Photek (might have) done as most of the notes he draws are longer than 16ths. I am writing a rough little project in Excel to semi-automatically batch create 'virtually' chopped regions within an sfz file for a folder of wavs (with known bpms). Might actually get to write some tunes one day lol
@@brightonbackgammon7802 Sounds proper interesting that. Love to see/hear your results.
deathtrips yup yup shouts out to TECHNOLOGY!
All he did was chop a break into 3 sections ...One starting on the kick,one one the snare and one on the high hat ...That's why the break plays out while he draws it in.That's how I do it in the Emu,Simple process.
love that first tune. Still such a rare sound.
Staalstraal KJZ, big tune, i always loved the breakdown at 2.02 of the track
jea, truky great shit! whats the name of the tune?
Photek - K.J.Z.
Killer track! Check out the hidden camera static mix too
In order to be a producer, you had to devote your entire life to it. man.
You still do, at least in third world countries with little to no scene... Like México
Rupert just comes across as an immensely likeable guy, never mind the music, it brought so much to the table when he started putting out his tunes, never mind the scope of the albums
This took me all the way back to my first exposure to Drum n Bass playing Forsaken on the N64 as a kid... god that games soundtrack was and still is phenomenal.
I'd bet money he got that car as an homage to Miles Davis haha. Just watched the 60 Minutes interview with Miles and saw he had practically the same car back in '89 or so.
I wish this was longer 🤝🙌🏻 Legend
I love Photek. He’s a genius! Always loved his obscure sound. Great clip!
He was at the top, totally on his own. But still in the pocket
Photek's music stands up all these years later because the guy knew what he was doing and his points of reference a lot like Bukem
I still have Form and Function on CD. Classic.
It was very original back then-something new. He was just being himself. It really shows that it doesn't matter what you use. Yes, you have tighter MIDI with those older computers-something Ableton could never do. Many folks are returning to older gear for that grime and hardware timing; I'm not surprised. The first time I heard of Photek was on the Astralwerks website back in the late '90s. I listened to a sample and then ordered the CD-back when you had to wait for music in the mail. His tracks were totally original. At the time, I didn't know how much he capitalized on it or how much he earned by doing it. When I first heard DnB, I thought it was a bit silly speeding up drum rhythms over ambient atmospheres, but somehow it just stuck.
Love that he's the composer for How to Get Away With Murder :)
Cool to see his equipment
This is brilliant.
Photek is a legend.
My favorite is the late nineties techstep period
A beautiful black 348, very underrated.
@PICLex Also, in an interview of the period, Photek mentions chopping breaks into "tri-sets". Not sure what this means exactly, but I'd guess something like, 1st chop on the kick (beat1), 2nd on the snare (beat2) - that's what we see in the video - 3rd on the "2and" (to catch the chikachika grace snare action). In any case, fewer chops than 16.
Then you play these chopped samples on the keyboard, it's a very musical way of coming up with interesting drum patterns.
His lifestyle these days seems to have superseeded that car though :)
However, I'd rather he still be making dark gritty D&B in that house than shitty dubstep in Los Angeles
Cars worth more than the house
I always liked his breaks, he pretty much changed the style of breaks used in jungle, besides AT, and SP, obviously
Thank you very much for posting this one man!
I'm a big photek fan, and I missed this interview back then, I only saw source direct.
Very nice to see, thans a lot!
Cheers,
Tyn
That bit late in the interview is the most important, I think: "I could just sample it, but I'd far rather make it myself."
Mr. Photek just scored big points.
Awesome vid.
The lost art of crate digging.
HisXLNC ... yyyyyep
Anthony White as a 16 yo “little shit” I’m well aware what crate digging is
Photek had the knack of sampling the best musicians in the world.
Photo, Rupert Parkes is a king in his own right. Drum n bass. I had the fortune of meeting him once in bar rumba.
The break he cuts at 2:24 is dope
This video is gold
photek is my spirit animal
great video. thanks for posting this. photek is a legend in this scene.
1:46 - "I'll just do a stupid pattern here"
Only Photek could say that and have me brockin out 2 seconds later
If you're asking, the music at 1:30 is "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu"
Master guide od the master ,love photek trax ❤
Photek .... always been one of my favorite....OFFBEAT FTW!
KJZ which is one of the greatest tracks in dnb history.
Amazing doc, thanks for the upload
great musician, seems incredible to me how the amen could assume infinite forms
crazy car, crazy music
Legend. Made some brilliant dnb.
Always thought Photek's music was like some sort of post-jazz and now I can really see why
Advance from Virgin for making Modus Operandi, every major signed a d'n'b act in the mid nineties.
Ladies and Gentlemen....... The Don!
Genius
Great throwback 👌
Min. 4:30 "Lonely Fire" By Miles Davis, "Big Fun" Album !!!! Masterpiece !!!!
th-cam.com/video/YhCNg5o7uQQ/w-d-xo.html sample used in here
just living the dnb dream...
The best drum and bass producer.
thanks so much for uploading this. One of the all time greats of EDM.
1:35 Single - Everything but the Girl (Photek Remix)
legend
crazy how these dnb dudes had nice rides but lived in such shit apartments. The source direct guys had BMWs but lived with their parents!
Pizzajitsu Major labels gave them deals and advances and then that was it
that time producing was for producing, not for becoming rich. Complete difference to now. The result - millions of pseudo producers dreaming to become rich
@@dmytroromaniv7917 No one gets rich in dnb. You don't make or play dnb to get famous.
Beers And Beats PDX ever heard of Andy c mate?..
@@BeersAndBeatsPDX andy c blatently is rich or very very well off from drums also dave og
Incase you're still wondering;
Photek - KJZ
from the Modus Operandi album.
So when he's cutting the breaks, has he got two loops, 1 full, and one cut to the first snare? Can someone explain what he's doing there? Cheers
Thanks.Always wonder how they make the music I grew up with.
Forever young
Big.
crazy when you hear the beats and then realize they were made on like a commodore 64
this guy drove a Ferrari, you can bet this was an upper class PC running that DAW.
The equipment was whatever was available at the time, it required a higher level of talent compared to today, also who goes crate digging these days (and who can?)
Big up all Junglists. Amen
Dick Johnson Amen break
@Hugh Jones In them days a 12mb RAM extension would have been about a grand.
Legend
I'm sorry. I know this is three years old, but it really cracked me up. I was thinking the same thing.
a true genious
Gold!
Fricking sick
@prestonloyola in my opinion one of the reason why the music of that time had so much vibes is because of the old skool recording / production techniques: they were forced to learn to play keyboards or work with machines. Nowadays you download a samplepack, a simple DAW and a mouse and you can pretty much make "music". (not saying that music of today doesn't have vibes though!)
Now that is the coolest ginger in the world.
Very inspiring... 😁👍
This is probably from the time he remixed EBTG "Single", it's the same break.
Correct ,Amazing remix
came for photek stayed for miles davis
i dont know much about this period of the genre but the fella looks like he has the whole portfolio of income streams..))
i love it!!
You you know? Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis chant NamMyohoRengeKyo in the SGI ☺️🙏☀️🍀
2020 .. Photek & Source Direct at the start. Hardware 1995 & Dispatch 2020
he looked so different back then like a completely different person. he seems much happier and more cheerful now
my man, look up JMJ, man who does not get old and a musician for his whole life
Recent studies are telling us that our genes can be upregulated, and there is whole new discoveries on genetics and heart, look up Bruce Lipton or Joe Dispenza...in short, yeah, kinda incedible change
GOAT
I'm guessing he was a fairly rich kid from the beginning. Nice contrast to Squarepusher squeezed in a tiny room with "junk" from the 70s and 80s.
@prestonloyola
Thankyou ! Very generous of you, that really helps me man.
Roots right here 💯
That that OG Reason right there.
Cubase
@Oxix999 Pretty sure it's Logic on an old Mac. The Mac was popular because it had a built in MIDI interface! In those days it was essentially just a MIDI sequencer triggering the external synths/samplers. No software synths back then.
Nah man, that is an amiga running notator. Could also run on Atari ST. Loads of people were also on Cubase as well.
It's not a Mac or an Amiga! It's a PC running Windows 3.1 and Cubase 1 :)
I wonder what producers from yesteryear would think if you could show them today's DAWs back then. I've literally got everything he has in that room in my laptop and more.
The difference is in the sounds though. That hardware sounds completely different to todays DAWs, the two aren’t comparable.
DAWs sound ‘plastic’ and flat compared to the hardware equipment.
It’s all a matter of taste at the end of the day and how you use a workflow to get what you want.
Also a lot of the editing was done through a tiny two inch screen back then.
It forces you to learn the process doing stuff by hand that you can do with the click of a mouse these days. It’s a much more ‘fun’ creative process than just sitting in front of a computer screen.
Daws are the same audio quality, its the VSTs that you use with them I think you mostly mean. I do have to agree with you though. Some VST's are very very similar (rompers) but you'll never get that authentic sound that you'd have gotten from hardware.@@youcantno3963
Hell yes
Thanks, loved the hip hop track! and ofcourse the original gunna buy it on vinyl soon!