More spotlight action, this time from Shears who'll be representing Louis Den tonight (of course we'd hope after tonight all producers are affiliated!! but for those who dont know Shears has been contributing to the movement from day one!)
Hey!!, please introduce yourself to everybody; let us know who you are what you do and how long you've been doing it!.I'm Shears, the only beatmaker in Bristol who isn't making dubstep and i've been doing it for about 5 years. I make a bunch of styles because I get bored of doing the same thing and have an OCD need to learn everything, and have worked with Kyza, Stig of the Dump, Dubbledge, Grimlok and a bunch of others.
Was there a defining moment (event / hearing a record etc) that led you into making beats / becoming a producer?.It started from DJing, I learnt at school then got given record collections from family and friends and realised how often I found stuff that had been used to make hip hop, that moved onto finding stuff that sounds it like it should have been used until I thought i'd have a go myself.
What was your first piece of equipment and what were those beats like?, any interesting stories about things were doing to begin with / finding your feet?Firstly I had Music on the playstation where I churned out trance bangers on the daily and then moved into the big leagues and got Hip Hop Ejay on the PC where not only could I make stuff that sounds like the Seinfeld theme tune but I could do fake Premo scratches on top with the authentic looking turntable that came with it. The Korg Electribe ES-1 was the first proper beatmaking thing I had, and the beats I made sounded so amateur and cheap, you can only use 9 pads/sounds per beat and so none of them had proper basslines and the drums were rigid, or boombap as it's better known (just kidding).
Whats the one bit of advice you'd give to anyone starting out today?Put some thought into your beats and aim really high...famous producers aren't on a pedestal, anyone can make something as good as them if they put some effort in. That's not supposed to sound super aspirational, it just means don't make quick stuff just so you can say 'yeah, that's alright' and move onto the next one since it's a bit of a production line ethic and often leads to average stuff. That's just me though, do whatever you enjoy I guess.
What can heads expect from you at LOUIS DEN BEAT CYPHER?A mixture of things, i've been messing around with some synth beats lately so I might try some of those out to see what people think but will also have sampled stuff to fall back on, aiming for bangers but we'll see what people think on the 13th...
1) Hey!!, please introduce yourself to everybody; let us know who you are what you do and how long you've been doing it!.
