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“I had to trim things down,” Raddon admits. “In my ideal world, I would have all the machines to be able to touch and tweak and really get in there. It affects your sound because you can manipulate more. But the virtual world is working really well for me. Sound-wise, you can come pretty stinking close.” On both his current album, In The Moment (Om Records), and his 2003 release, It’s Me, It’s You, the centerpiece for Raddon’s set-up has been Digi-design’s Pro Tools Mix Plus running on a Power Mac G4. Raddon has worked with Pro Tools for the last eight years, although there were brief flirtations with Cubase and Logic. “Pro Tools is my medium,” Raddon states. “It’s important for aspiring producers to find their medium, and really learn the ins and outs of it. I think creatively through Pro Tools. The interface is smooth and clean. I’m much more of an idea person and less of a MIDI person—I need to be working with audio.” Everything starts and ends in Pro Tools for Raddon. Even if Raddon might formulate some rhythm tracks in Reason, they still get bounced into Pro Tools for finalization. But the recording of In The Moment presented unique issues for Raddon. The material is half live, half programmed, so Raddon had to perform a balancing act of sorts. Using a number of musicians (including nine vocalists), Raddon’s process generally saw him conceiving a musical idea, and then bringing in a player to realize it organically. Sometimes they’d improvise. After tracking the musicians through the song twice, Raddon would weed through the result and keep the parts he liked best. “It’s definitely an open-ended project,” says Raddon of the album. “It’s not one guy sitting in front of the computer cutting and tweaking. The production style is the same and it’s coming from one source, but there’s a lot of different styles. When people criticize me, they [say] it’s too all over the place, it listens more like a compilation.”  The
diverse singers on In The Moment may have something to do with the
varied nature of the album. Still, from the chimes of Becky Williams,
to the trills of Colette, the soulful Amy Michelle, clear tones of
Brett, and the Prince-like stylings of Rob Wannamaker, all the vocals—recorded
with a Blue Dragon Fly microphone and a Manley Vox Box—revolve
snugly around Kaskade’s strong house sensibilities. Gorgeous
first single “Steppin’ Out” even incorporates strummed
acoustic guitar (a la Basement Jaxx).When he’s not locked down in his studio, Raddon still DJs most weekends. Bowing to convenience and technology, he’s currently digitizing 20 years of house music on vinyl. (At presstime, he was only half-finished.) For DJ gear, he prefers a Rane MP 2016 rotary mixer with the separate EQ box, two Technics 1200 turntables, and two Pioneer CDJ-1000s. Raddon considers himself an analog advocate, but, he admits, the new digital technology has altered how he plays music and, to a degree, what music he plays. “Six months ago my rider was one CDJ,” he says, “in the last four months, it’s two. In the next six months, instead of having turntables next to the mixer, I’ll probably have the CDJs next to the mixer. I’m really excited to see these new Technics CD mixers, too. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘It bums me out when I see you’re playing so many CDs.’ And I’m like, ‘Do you want to hear what I’m working on and what’s coming out in a year? Or do you want to hear what I put out last month—[tracks] that you’re playing in your bedroom, too?’ Our whole world is being turned on its ear.” |
