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Interview: Naden on Workflow, Influence,

and Creating Atmosphere
Sam Matla / September 13, 2013 /
Interviews (http://edmprod.com/category/interviews/) /
1 Comment (http://edmprod.com/interview-naden/#disqus_thread)

Today we welcome Naden for an interview. Naden has been one of my favorite
producers for a long time due to his uncomparable style and intricate atmosphere.
Hes recently released a two track EP on Enhanced Music (http://www.beatport.com
/release/kelevra-sentience/1147488).In this interview we discuss workow,
templates, musical background, and more.

Like Naden on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/nadenocial)

Follow Naden on Twitter (https://twitter.com/NadenOcial)

Follow Naden on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/naden)

Subscribe to Naden on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com

/user/DanielTaranger)

Hi Naden! Thanks for doing an interview with us. Its great to have you.

No, thank you for this interview, its always fun with interviews!

First of all, youve clearly got your own unique sound tell us a little bit
about your musical background, inuences, inspiration.

If we go way back I started out playing drums in a band with some friends. I
wouldnt say this had a lot to do with what I do right now but it may have
sparked it. I have done creative work all my life since I was in in kindergarten.
Always been perfecting and having a go at everything I could get my hands on
that was creative: Play-doh, drawing, animation, movie making, photoshop,
and now music, in that order.

The reason why I have been doing electronic dance music the last 6 years is
just the immense learning curve it takes you really never feel like you have
reached that one point where you are content. There are always things to
improve, thats what I like.

Another thing to mention is that I dont have any classical musical training and
I dont think I ever will. I believe that not really knowing the theory behind the
stu you make and breaking the rules makes you more free and able to make
some interesting things. I might be wrong about that one though.

My biggest inspiration would have to be Marcus Schossow

(https://www.facebook.com/marcusschossow) and Breakfast. Especially the
dark and deep sound Marcus had back in 2008. Its a sound that I would love
to have and develop, theres so much more to be discovered! Another recent
inuence is Rex Mundi. His sound is very much the sound I would like more
people to produce, especially his darkest tracks for example Sandstone

A while back you posted a few Studio Session videos

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hahu5GLy0z0&list=TLmFpL_oFg2hw)
showing your workow and track creation process. Your workow is
incredibly fast and Im sure a lot of people would agree. What tips do you
have in terms of speeding up production while keeping quality?

A rule of thumb is that if you dont like your track by the

first studio session, you really cant expect to improve on it
the following sessions.

Im going to have to say the rst and most important thing is actually keeping
your setup simple, powerful, and accessible. You want to be able to do things
exactly the way you think it out to be in your head.

When you then have your work owing nicely, youll be able to get down ideas
WHILE you are writing the track. Another thing that helps is having a good
mouse and a good control over your mouse. Being an avid fps gamer I am
used to having to move quickly with my mouse. This helps when you need to
turn tiny knobs in the DAWs you use.

In terms of keeping up the quality, its a bit more of a long term thing. Being
able to hear or see what you are doing and improve on it takes a while. The
way that works best, and if you want to start getting better fast, is to complete
a lot of projects. Just play around with tonnes of sounds and builds and never
get stuck on a project because the chances are youre going to be constructing
a mix that is 10 times more complex in about 3 more projects!

I have to add that my workow is pretty fast in the rst hours into my projects.
That is because I have an idea I want to write down. So usually in the rst hour
or two the whole skeleton of the track is down. A rule of thumb is that if you
dont like your track by the rst studio session, you really cant expect to
improve on it the following sessions. Unless you have some sort of skill that
enables you to pick up projects and completely morph them to your liking.

We get quite a few people talking about templates. Yours seems rather
unique, is a starting template something youd recommend to new
producers?

I would denitely NOT recommend templates to new producers. This is related

to what I wrote above that you should have a lot of experience with dierent
builds while nding your way.

When you have found your way and style of working that you like after a few
years you can start by maybe having your sidechain channels set up
beforehand. That is the only thing I have in my preset template, 10 channels of
custom made sidechain which I otherwise always have to set up.

I recommend not using presets also with your synths. Writing synths from
scratch really will help you in the long run because youll eventually be able to
just make that one sound in your mind in seconds instead of scrolling through
thousands of presets and not even nding the sound you set out to nd.
Your atmosphere and eects usage is almost unparalleled. Without giving
away too many secrets, what makes good atmosphere?

First of all you need to EQ your reverbs. Never put a reverb directly on top of
your synth and leave it. They are built so that they sometimes can add low end
junk into your mix. If you cut your reverb and even add lters, delays and
eects on your reverb you are going to get a lot more interesting
atmospheres.

Also If you want a nice and open mix for example I cannot stress enough the
importance of subtractive EQing, cutting away frequencies is 95% more
important than boosting them. I almost never boost my frequencies. Instead I
cut away the junk in my sounds and then I am able to have a lot more
content and room for eects that makes the mix sound more massive.

How the sounds sound themselves raw is also important to how massive the
mix sounds than how you EQ and what eects you put on them. Another thing
is stereoizing or panning your instruments to the sides and adjusting the
volumes dierently. A sound can sound 50% more powerful if you stereo it. Its
a nice eect.

We get quite a few beginner producers reading this blog. Whats one thing
you wish youd learnt earlier, or one thing you wish someone had told you
at the start?
The happiness doesnt come from getting your music signed, it comes from
making good music and having fun. Its important you gure out what you
want with your music and strive to do that. Setting goals is important.

If you had to use two plugins for the rest of your life, what would they be,
and why?

Sylenth1 and Valhallaroom as those are the only ones Im using now. With
them I feel I potentially could make anything my mind could come up with if I
ddle with them enough inside my domain of style and sound.

Finally, if you had to listen to one artist on repeat for 24 hours, who would
it be?

Id have to say Marcus Schossows alias Oliver Englafjord because of the nice
experimental sounds he use and the inspiration drawn from him. It would be
like a musical fasting, cleaning my mind and ears. Yep.

Thanks Naden! Whereabouts can we nd you online?

http://www.facebook.com/nadenocial (http://www.facebook.com
/nadenocial)

https://soundcloud.com/naden (https://soundcloud.com/naden)

https://twitter.com/NadenOcial (https://twitter.com/NadenOcial)
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Tags: inspiration (http://edmprod.com/tag/inspiration/), interview

(http://edmprod.com/tag/interview/), naden (http://edmprod.com
/tag/naden/), workow (http://edmprod.com/tag/workow/)
1 Comment
1

Benjamin

Haven't heard of you before, but I really enjoyed the interview and I like the music. Sounds
like you've got a good thing going! I really love the space you give for all your elements, I'll
have to check out that Valhallaroom ... sounds like you can do some pretty wonderful things
with it.

However, I want to disagree with you on the harmonic theory stuff. Up until 6 or so month
ago I knew very little about theory (aside from producing music for over a decade), I feared
that theory would limit me creatively and it would cause an overall drop in my production and
variety of music. And for a short while it did; there are a lot of guidelines to learn, but once
you realize they are simply guidelines and not rules, they are incredibly liberating.

Especially as someone who touts having a fast and efficient workflow, not having
rudimentary harmonic theory as a guide really doesn't make sense to me. It's one of the
best resources I have when I get stuck now. If I need to resolve a chord progression or you
want the melody to move in a unique way, I can look at where the song is at and usually
have at least two avenues available to me to move on from there. That doesn't stop me
from going back and making something more unique later on, but it does get me through
that roadblock and back to making music. And if you love a learning curve, harmonic theory
has curves for days. :)

Sorry for the diatribe, your choice to not pursue theory is your own, but I hear a lot of
professionals disregard it as a set of rules that would stymie their creativity when it really
does the opposite.

EDMPROD

5 Trance Maestros Share Their The Ultimate Guide to Remixing

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Thank you very much,
Great tip! great contrubution.

Shanahan on Simplifying Layering and Froogle on Finding Vocalists and Mixing

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cool for send me all time email Only an acapella? Seems like
an odd definition of a "remix".
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