Viewing Posts Tagged ‘Protools’

How I produced “Pro Nails”

April 25th, 2011

Being on tour with Kid Sister has got me reminiscing on the songs we made together in the early days of Fool’s Gold, “Pro Nails” being the most known. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to 2006 when that song was first crafted and examine the DAW set-up that I was using.

I met Kid Sis in the summer of ’06 and pretty quickly we decided to work on some music together. I was itching to try some new sounds with my production. Up until then, every track I made was sample-based. I used to play samples (and often scratch them) straight from my DJ mixer into Protools, and then edit them into beats. If you listen to “Step Off” which was done just a few months prior, not only was the sample triggered off vinyl but even the drums were scratched — you can hear the different tones on consecutive kick drums, coming from the stab scratches on the record. I loved doing that type of beat but I could hardly play these songs in my sets. I wanted my tracks to reflect my DJ sets more, so I started experimenting with uptempo beats. This type of production would rely less on samples and edited audio, there would be more synths and programmed drums, and I didn’t like the way Protools handled MIDI at the time (I think this was on Protools 6 or 7). So I started looking for other DAW’s. After years of being bound to my record collection at home, I was also transitioning to a mobile set-up.

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Posted in Anecdotes, Gizmos | 12 Comments