Halogenix Joins The Team!

 

:: Our first announcement of the new season…. Halogenix!

We’re so excited to welcome Laurence to the project along with 5 other as yet unnamed artists!

Boundless talent and creativity to his work, working as a solo artist and also as one of the three minds in the inimitable Ivy Lab.His music is currently at home on: Critical, Metalheadz, Dispatch, Ingredients, Invisible + several others – writing some absolute beauties along the way. He’s musically trained as well as a producer – so it’s this more classical understanding of music mixed with the illness which he’ll be bringing to the Sample Genie project! With such a varied array of sounds and styles he plays and makes, there is a lot that Halogenix can bring to the fold, we can’t wait!

We asked him a few questions ahead of next season…

How long have you been involved with D&B?

Depends what you classify as being involved really… I first heard DnB when i was around 10 years old. My brother had a mix CD from Fabio which I used to love listening to. I started trying to make DnB about 12 years ago now when i was around 15 years old with a good buddy of mine. I’d say it’s been the last 5/6 years that have really been of note though.

How did you move into production, were friends around you learning or was it something you did by yourself?

I come from a very musical family so being involved in music somehow was inevitable. When i was 15 I got my first laptop which had garage band pre-installed and me and a good friend of mine tried it out. We had no idea what we were doing but it definitely sparked my interest in production.

What was your first production set up and how is it different from what you have now?

I had a really old mac laptop and a hi-fi system, fast forward to now i’m running an Apple iMac with Ableton + Push/Logic Pro, a UAD set-up and a pair of Mackie HR824s

How much time do you spend each day / week on making music?

There’s no set amount really, i try and mess around with ideas as and when i’m inspired and if i’m in the mood I might just trawl the web digging samples or making sounds with Serum or Reaktor.

Can you give a rough outline of your creative process?

Depends what style I’m going for at the time. With the Ivy Lab beats stuff it’ll usually involve opening up Ableton and going through drum samples making a drum kit in Drum Rack, from there I’ll mess around with bass or musical elements until I’ve got a good vibe going. With DnB i’ll most usually start with a sample of some sort in Logic. Either a whole sample I can chop and arrange to form some kind of progression or something I can load into a sampler and play in my own melodies. Drums will come after that although I find myself more these days just having drum loops I’ve made to hand so I can get a vibe on the music first, I’ll then delete the drum loop and start the drums from scratch to make something more original or fitting to the music that’s been laid down.

What’s three of your favourite older dnb tracks?

Dillinja – Acid Track
Kemal & Rob Data – Startrails
Sabre – Velvet Lawn

Have you learned much from online tutorials? Or have other people helped you too?

Yeah man, online tutorials are great – when I first started to mess with Ableton which was about a year ago now I relied heavily on online tutorials to teach me the basics. I also work with a lot of people that use it so have picked up tricks along the way. Not just for music either. I dabble with graphics stuff and online tutorials have been crucial in developing my skills in that area.

Do you use Sample Packs, do you think they are helpful if so?

Yeah sample packs are an essential tool for most producers. Wether it’s sample packs made from other people or samples you’ve made yourself. Having an extensive and organised sound library is key to creating an efficient workflow which helps massively when making music.

What area of expertise do you think you can bring to sample genie and to help its members with samples and tutorials?

I like to keep things really simple when I work, I see a lot people these days really over complicating their music. Wether that’s from a sound creation perspective or from an engineering one. I think I’ll hopefully be able to impart some wisdom onto the whole ‘less is more’ approach.

SO YOU HEARD IT FIRST! SAMPLE GENIE SEASON #5 KICKS OF FROM 2 -7-17

More BIG announcements for the new team coming in the next few weeks…

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