Podcast #96 - She!k [UK] (Live)

Virtual Underground

Virtual Underground : How has this She!k story started ? She!k : I used to play techno and acid through the nineties on vinyl whilst studying Architecture at University. I gave it up after work and family took over, but eventually I got some cheap controllers to mess around with Traktor. I enjoyed layering loops and adding different kicks etc. with Ableton. After a while I was more into creating the textures and percussion to play over the top of tracks. I started to get modular gear after watching a live set by Surgeon. She!k grew out of that really. Virtual Underground : Where do you draw your inspiration from? Recently, I have been really intrigued by artists recording very organic sounds, like trickling water and converting the sample into midi notes for drums or other notes. It could also be some new gear, or hearing an interesting track which might trigger some curiosity... Sometimes watching a film makes me want to emulate the same atmosphere. Virtual Underground : Could you describe your sound selection and mixing process ? She!k : A lot of it is intuitive. Whilst I'm getting better at pre-planning drum patterns and which sounds or voices I want to blend together, I always forget, particularly with drum patterns... I'm also really prone to adding too much, so I have to keep reminding myself to keep it simple. I enjoy blending contrasting textures so one bass line might carry some filthy distortion with a really clean glassy bleep cutting through, or vice versa. I suppose I always start from somewhere small. I used a clouds module at the beginning of this recording. It's a granular sampler / synth module and is brilliant for creating atmosphere. Then the mix can emerge from there. I am also into quite raspy synths at the moment, so I've been letting them loose recently. I really love the long atmospheric mixes from Rrose and Lucy so a lot of my recent recordings follow that hypnotic, textural path. I really love the hard, industrial and aggressive stuff too, but it's not easy to move between these styles... Virtual Underground : Which software/hardware did you use for this set ? She!k : No software, although I sometimes sample reaktor if I've managed to find an interesting ensemble... I use a Pioneer Toraiz SP16 for the main percussion patterns as well as a few other sampled klangs etc. I really like the playability of this sampler despite its limitations. A lot of the sound I have in my library is field recorded from building sites. I always take my zoom recorder when I'm visiting projects in case someone is angle grinding or shot firing something. All the synth voices are from my modular. I have 4 main synth voices as well 2 percussion modules; a basimilus and a clever cv controlled sampler called Transients which I use for background layers. I also have a 303 module, but I'm not so into the acid sound at the moment. These are all controlled by a nerdeq sequencer, which is a fantastic stacker sequencer. I have several modulation modules which I use to model different aspects of the voices. All the voices are mixed on a mackie 1642 vlz desk. I have a geiger counter distortion module, trshmstr filter, a 2hp reverb and a erica synths dsp delay. Virtual Underground : What are your next plans ? She!k : Get more live exposure... I'm starting to make better contacts for that, but it's taken ages. I want to add more variety in the drum patterns when I play a set. I always seem to stick with one... I also really need to finish at least one of the tracks I've started... Follow and support @sheik_live