What is your onstage setup for the Deltron 3030 tour?
I’m using a [Native Instruments] Maschine+ through a REmindEЯ delay by Enjoy Electronics. I haven’t used that delay in the studio, but it’s good for live performance. I also have an ARP 2600, a Persephone ribbon controller, a Korg KM-2 mixer with a built-in Kaoss pad, and a Bullfrog from Erica Synths.
You bring the ARP 2600 on the road?
Oh, yeah. It’s more for bleepy, washy, up and down things. It’s a good unit to put an accent on the one, to fade things out, or provide movement. I use the Persephone for melodic counter melodies. Since it’s a slide controller with no keys, I’m able to bend into notes. The REmindEЯ has built-in filters, multi-tap delay, reverb, and lots of options to manipulate the sound. None of these synths were on the original Deltron 3030 album, but the newer synths offer more flexibility and freedom. That album was made with a lot of samples and synths that aren’t quite as versatile live.
What influenced you early on to take this path in life as a producer?
I grew up playing violin, so I know a bit about playing instruments, classical music, and how things sound. Of course, that had an effect on my music, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I’m an Asian kid, so my parents made me play violin or piano. [laughs] It wasn’t like the kid who gets a guitar and forms a band; it was just part of growing up Asian. I would spend all of my allowance on records, and by high school I started to get obsessed with hip-hop. Seeing DJs playing high school parties and getting exposed to mixers and Technics [SL-]1200 turntables was fascinating to me. I started DJ'ing in high school. There is a lot of DJ culture in the Bay Area, so I was hanging out with DJ crews and I linked to it through a love of music. A lot of these guys [DJ Qbert, Mix Master Mike] were better DJs than me, but I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I focused on DJ-ing with drum machines, and my first was a Sequential TOM. My friend Rod [Sepand, "King Tech"] was using one when he and Sway [Calloway] were starting the Flynamic Force crew and had a [Roland TR-]808 cartridge for it. My beat-making began more in an electro vein, as that upbeat NY freestyle sound was big in the Bay Area at the time. From there, I moved towards making songs and records. It sounds like a natural arc, but it really wasn’t.
Did you have a tape machine to record mixes onto?
Yes, my first machine was a TEAC 3340, and I was obsessed with tape cutting. Mantronix was doing super high-end drum programming and sampling in the early to mid ‘80s. “Mega-Mix” on their debut, The Album, was remixed by the Diamond Two and had chopped-up, triplet repeats that I really liked. I moved to an 8-track TASCAM tape machine as I started to make music, but the reel-to-reel was how I learned to edit and chop tape. Everything I learned was trial and error, or from Keyboard and Mix magazines. It was similar to being on the West Coast and learning about hip-hop from watching New York movies like Beat Street. We were studying and learning a bit through osmosis.
Did you have any keyboards in those early days?
Honestly, the first things I had were drum machines and delays. I had a [DeltaLab] Effectron [ADM]1024 delay, a BOSS sample and hold unit [RSD-10] to trigger with the TOM, and that was about it. My first sampler was the Ensoniq Mirage, which had 2.2 seconds at full sample rate, but you could speed up or slow down recording into it to get more time. I would use these with turntables to make mixes at home and really learned how to sample. From there, I got the E-mu SP 1200 [sampling drum machine].
What was the story of mixing your first EP, Music to be Murdered By, and how did that inspire you to have your own studio for future projects?
There was a studio in Sebastopol, [California], that offered weekend hours at a cheaper rate. By this time, I had started making demos at home on my 8-track, so I went to a proper studio to recreate it. The swing just wasn’t there, and it didn’t even sound that much better. I went back to listen to my demos and thought, "Maybe it’s not as crystalline on the high end, but it sounds really close to what we recorded at the 2-inch tape studio." That’s when I decided to do it all at home and started to buy gear. Bear in mind, I had no money, but I knew I didn’t want to go to a studio anymore. If you’re paying $1000 a day, you’re watching the clock. Whereas at home you can take as much time as you want. It’s not wasting time, it’s getting into the right state of mind. That’s important to the creative process and to recording.
What were the pieces of gear that enabled you to get the Glue Factory up and running?
