Indie Blog Archive 001: Mike Huckaby
Published on my Independent blog in December 2011
So Mike Huckaby left us on 24th April this year. His legacy is rooted in mentoring and teaching, his connection to technology, a marvellous back catalogue covering different styles all with that rich musicality he was renowned for and, of course, his allegiance to ‘The D’, Detroit, his birthplace and home.
This interview was conducted in late 2011 when I was still pretty new to music journalism. It was arranged by PR Adam Carter (Exclusive Promo) to promote the release of SubBerlin: The Story of Tresor, which you can watch here, who celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2011. At the time I didn’t know very much about music technology beyond the 808 and other famous synths, so some of the things he was talking about went slightly over my head. In retrospect, it was one of the more difficult interviews I did back then. These are the ones we learn most from though, so I’m grateful for the experience.
I’ve left the copy intact, no edits, as I want it to stay true to what I wrote at the time, good or bad. This will be the case with all of the old writing I repost.
Feel free to share this interview…
‘Electronic music f***s you up’: Mike Huckaby on technology and production
In the year that has just passed many of dance music’s most important record labels, DJs and clubs celebrated milestone anniversaries – as much of the electronic music we enjoy today really came to fruition in the late eighties and early nineties, this is hardly a surprise. Among the many anniversaries celebrated was Berlin nightclub, and musical outlet, Tresor’s 20th. The word seminal is often misused these days, but for Tresor it’s a particularly fitting title for a highly influential and long-standing name within techno. I spoke to Mike Huckaby, a Detroit legend who put together a special anniversary mix for Tresor and has also played at the club many times over the years, about the impact advances in technology have had on electronic music…
So Mike, to tie in with Tresor’s 20th anniversary I wanted to explore your relationship with technology over the last couple of decades and your opinion on the effect technology has had on music… To start off with, what kind of stuff were you using in 1991?
Roland, mostly Roland gear – 808s, 909s, Juno 106s, Roland samplers… I mean, a lot of the equipment has changed but the sound kinda remains the same, no matter how much it changes.
What kind of stuff do you use now?
Still use my Roland S77O, use a lot of software, Ableton, Reaktor, Maschine- kinda using that quite heavily these days..
…and has that equipment made your job easier as such?
Not really, actually it’s kinda made it a lot harder. When you’re recording with analogue you’re worrying about the strength and clarity of the signal whereas software introduces problems with workflow. In a lot of respects, it’s complicated things but the end result remains far more advantageous to hardware – the different sounds you can create, the portability of taking it anywhere, things like that.
In general, have advances in technology had a positive effect on your career?
Yeah, for what it’s worth, there have been a lot of things to capitalise on in terms of digital recordings. The ability to retrieve a file instantaneously, to be able to finish a remix in less, or more, time – these things can all work in your advantage.
And what would you say has been the negative side to technology moving on as it has?
Just having to understand how it works, all the software. The learning curves, different pieces of gear, just trying to achieve the same result as hardware through a particular workflow that is the provision of the basic software in front of you. Learning curves can be very high, but rewarding if you can conquer it.
For sure, and do you find yourself picking up new bits of software/equipment often or do you stick with what you like?
It’s just a trial and error process the whole time and sometimes you don’t get the same sound you would like to out of software recordings as you would hardware and you have to find ways around that.
Have you ever considered moving back to analogue and dumping digital?
At this point, that wouldn’t be entirely feasible to me due to a lot of considerations in terms of space, budget, the amount of different pieces of hardware I would use or need to use to facilitate some of the things that I wanna do. But the best situation is always a combination of analogue and digital recording anyway. Using digital recording equipment was never meant to eliminate analogue, the best type of result is always a combination of both.
Some people have the opinion that the accessibility to production afforded by technology has ‘cheapened’ music to a degree, what would you say to that?
It all depends what you’re bringing to the table in terms of your own level of skill and musicianship. I’ve said it before: Ableton doesn’t sound like Ableton, Ableton sounds like the person using Ableton. This is true for any piece of software, it doesn’t sound like anything – it doesn’t sound nerdy or geeky – it sounds like the person using it. For some people who’ve never sought out musicianship, you can hear this, you can hear this in the music that people are creating. Yes, it has diminished the integrity or quality of the output of music but on the other hand people who want to create a fine balance between that and the life and world of producing music with hardware will want to maintain that standard.
I guess it’s an elitist train of thought in a way…
I’ll put it to you like this – when I was taking piano lessons, my instructor told me ‘Man if I was to ever record into a computer I would never quantise anything, I would never stop playing – I would play this part for five minutes if that was what was needed.’ I’m like ‘Man you don’t have to do that!’. It just didn’t make sense to him.
It would be interesting to hear someone do that.
It was a simple bassline, he said ‘I wouldn’t do it that way’.
How long ago was this?
That was a couple of years ago, but that was his response. People have to be careful because using a computer will diminish your connection to becoming a real musician or person that can play an instrument, it can actually steal that away from you.
Yeah, it kind of dehumanises it to a degree doesn’t it?
I always make the statement that ‘electronic music fucks you up’ – people are like ‘Whoa, what do you mean by that? You’re an electronic artist!’. What I mean is, it kills the possibility of you becoming a musician that plays an actual instrument. Most electronic music producers only want to get a groove down, just wanna capture their ideas and loop it and have it play over and over and then a variation of that to do the same thing. And that’s why you don’t have many virtuosos anymore, coming out of the States – because the popularity of electronic music is diminishing the desire to even want to become a musician that actually plays an instrument.
If you had the time and space, would you consider performing a track from beginning to end without looping certain parts?
Well, you’d need a band to do that. One person couldn’t do that, unless you were multi-tracking – because you can only play one instrument at a time.
Well how about recording the different elements in that way?
At this moment in time that wouldn’t work for me. But you can hear a feeling in a track where, if you just played it live and you just recorded the audio of that part there’s actually an organic feel you can hear in your tracks if you do that.
How would you advise others to bring about this organic element to their tracks?
Just actually playing the line that you’re about to record on the fly and recording the audio without capturing it as a midi sequence that gets turned into audio. You can hear a difference, it’s a different feel – right now, I’m studying a lot of software programs heavily. I’m doing that so I can free up a lot of time so I can go back to playing more.
What’s your plan in terms of getting more hands-on with your production?
Honestly, I just want to be the Reaktor king. That’s what I want to do – get really proficient with Reaktor and then go back and learn how to play… I’d like to really increase my playing.
Cool, and how far along are you with your piano stuff?
I studied for ten years – I studied music theory, but my actual piano playing isn’t that great. I can pick out a melody out of a recording and be able to transcribe that, play that back but I made a big mistake in my piano lessons by instructing my piano teacher to give me what I want. I made the mistake of wanting what I wanted and what I wanted was good, but it wasn’t the best thing for me. Sometimes when you aren’t led by instruction and you’re getting your own way, it can hurt you in your own career when you get what you want.
What you want isn’t always the best thing for you, for sure.
Right, and if somebody gives way to that, well you’ll get that but it won’t necessarily be what you need.
What other instruments do you play?
I studied jazz chords – I just studied theory. I can identify chord progressions, because deep house relies on so many jazz chords I thought that would be beneficial to me.
Do you think it’s really helped with your productions?
Definitely, because in the early nineties the whole sample thing was running out and I knew I had hit a brick wall with that and I knew I would have to play something at some point. So, that’s what I migrated towards – actually learning how to play something or the theory behind it.
And do you think that’s something that’s lacking across the electronic music scene?
Absolutely, you need to interact within the music making process with the ability to play an instrument or understand an instrument or to even understand how a scale works – you need that orientation or you’ll spend a lot of days trying to create things where nothing is coming out or you’re not sparked by anything you’re doing for quite some time. You can always keep your creative output going if you understand a bit of music theory, so it’s really important. But, again, you’re taught through electronic music production that that’s not important and the only important thing is to get a groove down. And that’s how electronic music can fuck you up actually.
So what do you think needs to change?
Not buying into the complete hype that everything is capable with ‘the box’ – it’s also everything outside the box that you need to incorporate with the box. But it’s hard to sell somebody something that they’re not missing.
Yeah, you can’t physically see that element you’re describing.
Because, if you’re trying to produce music like Deadmau5, what I just said is irrelevant to you. You don’t need a sense of music theory – it all depends on what kind of music you’re interested in producing. If you’re doing glitch, or experimental techno, or big room productions you don’t need any of that. But if you’re gonna make deep house, even to some aspect techno, because the chords or the stabs that are being used are processed through delay you will stand a great chance of producing to your liking because a lot of people are producing music that they don’t like. This is the phenomenon that exists today, that people are making music but the music they’re making they don’t like. People have no idea why they don’t like their own music – well, it’s based on an understanding of how you create music that’s missing.
Well, I spoke to Tiga a while ago and he was saying that he and Zombie Nation reverted back to analogue for their ZZT project and they had so much fun producing it because it was so hands-on and you can sense that in the music…
Yeah, but how do you know you’re even missing that, you know? You can only be as great as your influences.
Do you think it would help if there was some kind of mentoring scheme…?
I don’t honestly know. It all depends on what kind of music people are trying to make – if you’re trying to make techno, then all you need to know is how to compress your tracks, that’s all you need to do. But for those people that are interested in making house and having piano lines in their tracks and chords, and strings and pads and melodies from other instruments then that’s absolutely important.
So what are you enjoying most about DJ/producing at the moment?
[laughs]….whoa! I mean, like whoa. Honestly, I’m not enjoying much about DJing because I can’t really find records that I actually like right now. You can hear a lack of experience in a lot of these recordings – nice ideas for two minutes that evolve into something that is just incompatible with what came before or just uncreative melodies and basslines… very uninteresting approaches to synthesis – which is kind of a good and a bad thing. You study approaches to synthesis and all of a sudden a lot of things don’t sound right to you anymore. It’s just gets more and more critical. Right now what I guess I’m enjoying is being on tour a lot, playing music in different countries – I’m enjoying to be able to take advantage of what’s available through technology, that I can say. I’ve built up some skills where I can listen to almost any track in a record store and identify what wave forms these productions are coming from or what patches or software.
What does the future hold for your personal development?
Improve my skills to a level of mastery I guess, actual playing – production skills.
This interview featured some of Mike’s tunes, which you can listen to below…