Burial Production Techniques?

[syzygywell]

Funny finding this thread.. I was just listening to Burial on the way to work and was wondering if it was all done ITB for the most part. It sounded very sample based very much like it its growing on me by the minute.

I was curious if he used any hardware at all. I know Wisp doesn't and he gets some great rubbery sounds out of renoise.

[Goa-Dubs]

Any more inf0 on what he uses besides sf and samples?I love soundforge but cant imagine mixing like this.

[Goa-Dubs]

So all we know about burial is he uses an old version or sf.Maybe.This guy has really flown under the radar.

[mschreiber]

found this really nice interview with burial... don't think it was posted already.
but not much about techniques and stuff.

The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music: Article

[dankelly]

After reading the recently started thread on Burial I decided to search for others and this one popped up. I was wondering what peoples thoughts were on the interview posted in the last thread.

I read it, and genuinely didn't make any sense of half of it. I love the basic approach that he takes to making music, and it really goes to show that even the simplest of set ups can yield amazing results if you have the talent to back it up. But I feel a bit puzzled after reading the interview. It seems extremely deep, and Im interested to know if others have this kind of thought process when piecing a track together? I barely even have an idea before I start other than 'I'm gonna try and make a deep house track with groovy drums'!

[Homunculus]

i love his tracks, i love the atmosphere, i like the sound of his wet drums, im pretty sure he uses melodyne or autotune for the vocals, i like how even though the song was done inside a computer it feels like the music is coming from an outside place

[7 Hz]

Burial in 2006 : That’s why I like dubstep now because that’s when you know the music is in good shape because everyone’s in splinter cells. They’re in the ditch – there’s no highway to attract the rubbish producers. The lights of the highway – that’s when it goes shit. But right now it’s all ditch, just darkness, everyone’s just off, off wandering. That’s what I love and original jungle was like that, before it went shit. I mean I like a dark bassline like the next man, but you can’t have ‘male rage’ music. It’s good to have girls liking it.

It's a shame the same term has been used for the US stuff as well, Skrillix and Burial are poles apart.

Another producer I knew, Aaron-Carl, did his stuff only on Soundforge.

[Dogboy73]

Burial's Untrue album is one of the best things I've heard in recent years. I absolutely love that album. Not a fan of the Dubstep/Grime (or whatever they call it these days!) stuff at all. But Burial is on a different level. Amazing stuff.

Interesting to read about how he works in Sound Forge. I'm a long time SF user (since long before Sony took it over from Sonic Foundry). But I can't imagine how this is done because you can't have seperate tracks.

Reminds me of a guy I was talking to some years ago. Can't remember his name now (Richard someone I think) but he released stuff as Verbose on the Neo Ouija record label. I remember him telling me that all his stuff was put together using Cool Edit. He didn't use a sequencer. He recorded audio from his synths & other sound sources & then just tracked everything in Cool Edit. I remember him saying it gave him a lot more freedom to just slide stuff around to where it sounded good. As opposed to precisley editing & positioning it using a conventional sequencers grid.

Very interesting way of working. It's kind of like with the old samplers. You couldn't see a waveform in order to precisley slice a sample. You had to use your ear to adjust the start position & get it right simply by listening. I suppose we've been spoilt with what we have now. We're working backwards trying to undo the precission in order to give our music a more human, less rigid quality!

As for quantizing MIDI ...... It's the Devil function for music production!!

[dankelly]

Yeah it's good to turn the snap setting to 'sample' in Logic, and turn off the grid markings. You still have the bars and beats markers across the timeline, but it you put a kick rigid on each beat, then turn quantise off and snap set to sample, you can freely move all the beats around in between to create your own personal groove. Some would manually place the kicks as well, but if you aim to create tracks for the dancefloor, not many dj's will b keen to play your music if the kicks are swinging wildly all over the shop.

[loscolorados]

Wire: What did you think when people were saying that you hadn’t produced it all in Sound Forge, it’s a scam.

Burial: Who?

Wire: People on the internet, saying he can’t possibly have done that whole album in Sound Forge.

Burial: Really? Yeah well I did. I'll leave those people to their internet or whatever. Yeah I wish sometimes that I’d gone to college to learn music production, but other times I’m like ‘no, ****, I’m happy I didn’t’.

I don’t really go on the internet, it’s like a ouija board, it’s like letting someone into your head, behind your eyes. It lets randoms in.

[offki]

Originally Posted by loscolorados

Wire: What did you think when people were saying that you hadn’t produced it all in Sound Forge, it’s a scam.

Burial: Who?

Wire: People on the internet, saying he can’t possibly have done that whole album in Sound Forge.

Burial: Really? Yeah well I did. I'll leave those people to their internet or whatever. Yeah I wish sometimes that I’d gone to college to learn music production, but other times I’m like ‘no, ****, I’m happy I didn’t’.

I don’t really go on the internet, it’s like a ouija board, it’s like letting someone into your head, behind your eyes. It lets randoms in.

And here we have the true relevance of all these analog vs digital vs vst vs krk vs logic vs genelec vs modular vs mothra vs godzilla debates.

[homenick93]

I believe in simplicity, knowing your tools, blah blah blah. But!!! to answer a simple question like "do you use a sequencer?" and reply "no" is just clearly a response from a person who doesn't want to answer any questions about the more technical aspects of his/her craft.

I don't find it hard to believe he uses soundforge, I do however find it hard to believe he doesn't use a sequencer. He either doesn't know what he's talking about (which is fine, you could not know your tools and still make a great thing) or he is indeed answering the question using the Aphex Twin method of avoid questions by answering them with bullshit.

and before you jump down my throat ... ask yourself

"Dose he really not loop anything?"

looping by very definition is a sequencer. Granted he doesn't have to use a grid to make beats but he still needs to loop.

It's like if someone asked jimi hendrix if he "uses a guitar" and his response was "no"

Also correct me if i'm wrong doesn't Soundforge offer VST support? like you can use massive, native instruments, etc, etc

[bluegreengold]

Originally Posted by homenick93

looping by very definition is a sequencer. Granted he doesn't have to use a grid to make beats but he still needs to loop.

Only in a broad sense. Sequencer used in the context of electronic music has a meaning which is more in line with the placement of control elements over time, not the actual sound itself. This has maybe been blurred with things like ACID and ableton, stretchy audio etc, but certainly one wouldn't consider a tape loop or a sampler to be a 'sequencer' by definition.

[Jpchartrand]

Burial is probably the only artist who can re pitch vocals and it sounds creative and soulful.

Propa to him just for that

Im surprised not to see more people here on GS talk about Aphex Twin. Is it me or is this guy a time traveler? Seems like he was WAY WAY ahead of his time...

[dlmorley]

I love early Aphex Twin. We were on the same label for a while.
He got signed after he sent a Cassette to the label. I was there when it arrived and still remeber feeling astounded.. Incredibly original and musical IMHO.
Drukqs is a superb album too and his "hits" like "windowlicker" and "come to daddy" were impressive to say the least.
Not for everyone, but clearly an exceptionally talented guy.

[Jpchartrand]

Originally Posted by dlmorley

I love early Aphex Twin. We were on the same label for a while.
He got signed after he sent a Cassette to the label. I was there when it arrived and still remeber feeling astounded.. Incredibly original and musical IMHO.
Drukqs is a superb album too and his "hits" like "windowlicker" and "come to daddy" were impressive to say the least.
Not for everyone, but clearly an exceptionally talented guy.

Holy crap that's crazy to think you were there when the first cassette from him came in!

I still remember the first time I heard the Richard D James album...It completely changed my view of what music was and what it could be. For some strange reason, his song Fingerbib has always struck an emotional cord in me.

Did you ever meet the guy?

[dlmorley]

It was a big moment for me too, hearing his tape.
Yes, I met him a couple of times. We e-mailed too for a while about gear..he wanted a mixer and asked me about it and of course, he is into synths like me! Of course, he also has a lot more than me !!!
He seems very nice actually.

[FullCount]

Originally Posted by homenick93

I believe in simplicity, knowing your tools, blah blah blah. But!!! to answer a simple question like "do you use a sequencer?" and reply "no" is just clearly a response from a person who doesn't want to answer any questions about the more technical aspects of his/her craft.

I don't find it hard to believe he uses soundforge, I do however find it hard to believe he doesn't use a sequencer. He either doesn't know what he's talking about (which is fine, you could not know your tools and still make a great thing) or he is indeed answering the question using the Aphex Twin method of avoid questions by answering them with bullshit.

and before you jump down my throat ... ask yourself

"Dose he really not loop anything?"

looping by very definition is a sequencer. Granted he doesn't have to use a grid to make beats but he still needs to loop.

It's like if someone asked jimi hendrix if he "uses a guitar" and his response was "no"

Also correct me if i'm wrong doesn't Soundforge offer VST support? like you can use massive, native instruments, etc, etc

I don't even know where to start. Let's start at the baseless accusations that Burial is a liar. Do you have any proof of this? No? So why would you even go down this route?

looping by very definition is a sequencer.

Not really. Loops are not a sequencer.

He either doesn't know what he's talking about

You don't know who you're talking about.

What Burial probably means by doesn't use a sequencer is that he isn't shifting notes(MIDI information) around in a grid. He's recording his sources, or samples, and then taking the resulting audio and placing it in soundforge tracks where he sees fit. Not hard to believe. He's using a "sequencer" but he isn't sequencing anything.

[blizt]

One day I was checking the tempos from burial untre and untiled, and guess what... Some tracks where going to a steady tempo while others where really going free. Really hard to mix in. So it's up to you. I dont think he's telling lies but I do think he's not telling all the truth behind his method. I mean doing all his stuff on crappy headphones... Maybe someone is doing the mixdowns?

New album please!

[flsh333]

I'm still baffled about how Burial goes about getting his chords and sounds just from Sound Forge?

I take it he must sample from everywhere to get chords and sounds (maybe major and minor key samples) and then pitch them up and down in SF and overlap and mix them all to a 2-track master?

I get the impression he is using an older version of SF that he's used to - so no multichannel mixing..(which i think is clunky at the best of times in a multi-track) - also i think some of his albums were done before SF went multichannel.

So I think it must be a long winded process of pitching and trying out by pasting over the same file?

[slick easy]

Damn fish why don't you resurrect all the burial threads