DMX Krew is the best know moniker of Ed Upton, a British producer that has been releasing music under a variety of aliases since the mid-90s, including a slew of records on the infamous Rephlex. Now thirty years into his career, Ed is still working on his unique blend of electro, house and techno with releases like his new Bass in Your Face EP and is still as passionate about making music as ever. 

Inspired by Ed's passion and approach to making music, we reached out to him for an exclusive interview about his studio process, his creative philosophy, handy live performance tricks, and the importance of enjoying what you're doing.

Stromkult: What are you currently working on in the studio?

DMX Krew (Edward Upton): A couple years ago I bought an Elektor Formant, it was really cheap, however I never quite got mine working right. But recently, I put some effort into fixing it and it’s working a lot better now, so I’ve been playing with it quite a bit.

But I think generally, I'm really just always making music. I’m not someone that goes into the studio to “work” towards specific projects. Every once in a while, I’ll look through what I’ve got and think of releasing something, but I’m never like “I’m working on my album now”. I’m just in the studio whenever I can, making music, because it’s an activity that I enjoy.

So it’s more about just spending time in the studio – and then maybe something comes out of it, and maybe not?

I usually make at least one track when I’m in the studio, maybe even a few. They might not be any good (laughs), but I do tend to just make tons and tons of tracks without really thinking about it.

So you always finish tracks within a single session?

I try to do it that way. You know, before computers, that was the only way! I still try to do it like people used to do in the tape days. So I don't really multi-track my synths, I just do a mix on the desk and then record the stereo 2-track. Sometimes, when I have to leave the studio, I’ll come back later and will overdub something the next day. I often think of Motown — they would send out a track to master and if there was a problem, the mastering engineer would be like “this needs a tambourine” (laughs), they didn’t try to fix it with EQ. 

So I generally just try to finish them quickly. I prefer doing something quickly with mistakes, rather than going slow and getting bored. Being “perfect” is no good anyways, it’s music, not maths (laughs). If I listen to a track the next day and the bass drum is way too loud, I sometimes will try a compressor on the mix or something, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll just scrap it and make a new one. 

Have you found that your music sounds more interesting when working that way?

I think it’s just that if I get bored making a song myself, then I don’t see how it will sound interesting to anyone else. I will put in the time to get a cool sound when needed, but I try to not obsess over anything, really.

Does that come easy to you? I think for a lot of younger people that started out on DAWs, it’s very hard for them to turn off that part of their brain that says “add 0.5db at 50hz on the bass drum” — and then they will spend the next ten hours just adding and taking away half a db at 50hz (laughs).

(Laughs) I think that temptation is there because it’s all in the computer, right. For me, I don’t really worry about “fixing it in the mix”, because I accept that sometimes, a track just doesn’t work. I don’t want to work so hard on something that I’m not having a good time anymore, because then there’s no vibe. You know, maybe two thirds of the tracks — some might say more (laughs) — I do aren’t that good, but they don't all have to come out. It’s okay, I still had a good time making them.

So you sit on tracks before you decide which ones to release?

Yeah, I just let them sit. And then, when someone approaches me to do a record, I’ll just send them a pack of twenty or something. I mean, I’ve got probably well over a thousand tracks in my archives.

Wow.

Hundreds and hundreds of unreleased tracks, probably like fifteen hundred in total. So I just send the ones I’m feeling at the moment, or tracks that I think might fit well with the label. Of course, some inevitably get forgotten along the way, but that’s okay.

Do you enjoy listening to your own tracks once they’re done?

I listen to them loads, however only the new stuff, I don’t like to listen to my old tracks. But whatever I’ve just made, I’ll burn a CD and I’ll listen to them in the car, and then the next week, there’ll be a new CD with new tracks. 

I get the impression that it’s really split – some people love listening to their own tunes and others just never want to hear them again after they’re done.

Maybe they spend too long working on them, or they’re just not very good at it (laughs). But the music I make, I am very happy with it, and I like listening to it. That’s why I'm glad I’m able to do this.

I feel like that’s a good mindset to have, because so many people are on this endless treadmill where they’re never happy with anything they make.

If I felt like that I would probably stop! Maybe I’m just too easily pleased with myself (laughs).

Going back in time a bit – what first got you interested in electronic music when you were young?

I didn’t really realize it at the time, but I’ve always liked electronic sounds. All of the records I bought as a kid had synthesizers, I was never very into guitars. You know, I’m really old, and it was basically pop music back then. I remember Kraftwerk were on the Top Of The Pops with “Tour de France”, I must have been nine or ten. I was also listening to hip-hop quite early, around ‘85 or ‘86. 

And then of course, house and techno once they arrived in the UK. I was too young to have gone to acid house parties, but it was also quite mainstream. I remember “Jack Your Body” by Steve Hurley (1986/1987) was a big record for me, and that was a number one in the UK single charts – the pop charts, not the dance charts. My first clubbing experiences were around ‘91 in London. There was breakbeat hardcore, lots of R&S stuff. I think people today often forget how fast things changed back then, nobody would ever play a twelve months old record.

My entry into making music were these little Casio home keyboards. I remember being told that you could make “any sound on a synthesizer” (laughs), so I just couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t make those acid noises I heard on my records with my keyboards. And then one day, somewhere around 1990, I randomly walked into a music shop and I heard a guy playing with an SH-101, and I immediately was like “oh shit, that’s what it is” (laughs). You just didn’t have the information as a school boy back then, there were no books, there was no internet, there wasn’t even a shop in my town that sold keyboards. 

I find it really fascinating how quickly a lot of production information travelled among producers before the internet though. Whenever there was a new sound, everyone else was doing it within six months, and they would have all these new techniques down that many people today are still struggling with, even with a million YouTube tutorials. I don’t know how they did it (laughs).

I think it’s that there were less people making electronic music, but the ones who were doing it were really serious. You know, when I wanted to build my first studio, I needed to get together ten thousand pounds for that – which in today’s money is like twenty-five thousand pounds. I had to work shit jobs and eat canned baked beans and never go out to be able to afford that. You had to really, really want to do it. 

Today, I often see people on the internet asking how to learn production related things “quickly”, and I feel like if you need to know how to do something super quickly, if you need all these shortcuts … it’s probably not worth doing, no? Because at least to me, when it comes to making art and music, I think the healthy thing is to want to do something because you like doing it. I like learning new techniques and finding out how to make new sounds and making tracks. I don’t want an AI to make tracks for me, because I enjoy making tracks, that’s the whole point! The point isn’t to have a track at the end so you can say “look, I’m a producah” (laughs), the point is the process, having spent the time making things while having a good time.

Did you figure things out purely on your own, or were you also talking to other people and sharing information?

Just on my own with the manuals, really. You know, that’s why a lot of stuff took me a really long time to figure out! When my first album came out, I didn’t even think about sound design, I was just thinking about the notes and chords and rhythms, more like a traditional musician. It took me quite a bit of time before I started to think about the sounds in my tracks in any detail. I mean, I knew that I liked the SH-101 for squelchy sounds for example, but I didn’t have any EQs, I didn’t have a compressor, I just made tracks with a couple keyboards and a drum machine. I was just figuring it out bit by bit – still figuring it out, really (laughs). Some things like FM synthesis I am just now getting the hang of on a deeper level. 

But that’s also the great thing about it isn’t it – that you never really run out of things to try and learn, it's endless.

It really is endless. With something like a modular system or very deep digital synths you can just discover new stuff forever. I found some new sounds on my modular earlier today!

Do you usually go into the studio with an idea already formed in your head?

It depends. Sometimes I'll have a song in my head already and I just have to go and record it. At that point it's more like craft to me, I just have to execute it to make the recording exist. But I'll also go into the studio with just an idea for a sound or a technique I want to try – like, "let's try putting this thing through a ring modulator" – and then you go in and play around with it. And then, usually, as soon as I get a nice sound, I'll get tons of ideas from that. I'm not someone that’s ever struggled with writer's block, really. If I've got a song in my head, I'll just make the song, and otherwise, I'll play around with something until an idea for a song comes. 

Actually, I've got this new theory about gear related to this that I’ve been meaning to tell someone about. It’s basically about how there are certain synths that are “track starters” and others that are “track finishers”. So when I’m in the middle of a song, I'm going to go to a Juno or JX3P or something like that to get it done. But those synths then also aren't that great at starting ideas; they're just great track finishers, because they're not that interesting in themselves. And then more complicated things like modular systems and Kurzweils are really good at starting tracks because they’re great at generating ideas, but they’re no good at finishing tracks because it takes too long to get a sound going.

Do you ever just make sounds or patches for later use?

No, not really. I generally only ever save sounds if I'm interrupted and have to leave the studio and come back later. The only real exception is my Kurzweil K2000, because it's so deep and menu dive-y. Sometimes I'll just make sounds on that. But yeah, I don't really like to go back and use older sounds, I like to make new sounds for every new track.

Is there still gear you are chasing or are you in a state of “zen” with your studio now?

I think my problem is really that I’ve already got too much! I think what happened for me is that with my kids, there's a lot of time where I need to be in the room with them to make sure they're safe, but I also don't really have to do anything, so I'll just be at the computer buying shit, you know. I've tried selling some things but it's definitely a buyer's market right now, it's hard to sell – if you want to buy any synths, reach out (laughs). So recently, I've been putting some things away just to have more space. And it already feels much better to me, just having more space in the room.

I think in general, I'm somewhat ambivalent about gear – it's great to have these toys and be like “today I'll use this and tomorrow I'll use that”, but I also know that I can make a track with basically anything, my sound isn't dependent on any particular piece of gear. So sometimes I'm very inspired by a particular piece of gear, but I also often feel like I should just get rid of all this junk (laughs).

Do you generally aim to get your sounds right from the source, without too much processing?

Yes. I feel like if I try to set up a compressor and things like that, I just lose the flow and it becomes boring to me. So everything is pretty rough. I mean, I do like effects, but I don't agonize over them, I just find a nice reverb and pull it up. Like with synths, there are certain FX units that are good at certain things — like with an Alesis Quadraverb, you leave that on “King’s Chamber” and never change it (laughs), or with my Lexicon PCM70 I like the “Inverse 2” program, and it just stays on that. 

With my Eventide DSP4000, I will sometimes sit there and just make patches on my laptop. If you program it, it does some mad shit you can’t really do with anything else. That's one of those occasions where I’ll spend the time just making weird sounds. So sometimes, I do use effects in a more complex manner, but usually, once I get a song going I’m like “there’s no time to fiddle around, I need a bassline and get to finishing this thing” (laughs).

Do you usually have a good intuition for when a track is finished?

If it sounds good and I’m not bored by the end, it’s finished to me! You know, I’m not not a good enough producer to be a minimalist. I don’t sit there tuning the bass drum just right to make it work – if a song’s not there, I usually just add more handclaps (laughs), that’s usually my solution to a problem with a song. 

I do like minimalism in other people’s music, but then you have to be a real sound design guy to make it work, and my nature leans more towards harmony and rhythm than pure sound design. Although I do have noticed that the best parts when I’m playing live are often those parts where almost everything is muted and there’s just a bass drum and a dog barking or something – that’s when everyone will be going crazy (laughs).

What’s your current setup for playing live — I’ve seen you use an MPC and maybe a synth or a drum machine in your recent live sets?

Yes, I use an MPC1000. Basically what I do is I sample the individual parts of a track into the MPC in the studio, and then “re-make” the track in the MPC while playing live. So it’s more like live mixing in a sense, I trigger and mute the individual parts and change the patterns. Sometimes, I’ll bring a keyboard to play but I haven’t been doing that much lately, but I do take a 303 with me quite often.

Many people start out with a very big setup when they start playing live and then eventually pare it down to a much smaller setup. Was that also the case for you?

I remember my first ever DMX live gig was in London with loads of gear, and it was amazing. But then the second one was in Munich and I had to travel with all this stuff, these 19-inch rack cases full samplers. It was around Christmas time, and after the show I was just walking around in the snow with my friends, carrying all this gear, desperately trying to find a taxi that would take us on Christmas, just thinking “we’re going to die of cold here” (laughs). So that was a real lesson. 

And apart from that, your stuff just gets smashed around on planes when you check it in, so I very quickly figured out that you need to find a way to carry your gear as hand luggage when you’re going to be flying a lot. I remember when the MPC1000 came out, that was a really big deal for me because it’s so small and easy to carry. Before that I had the MPC2000, and I’d have to basically buy a new one every six months because it would just get smashed after a while.

How do you approach playing live in a club context?

It's always very dance-y. I don’t play ambient or anything like that, it’s very much club music, I really don’t approach it like a concert. It’s an hour or two of music without gaps, with a building of energy over time. It's supposed to be a party, for sure.

Do you adjust your set depending on what the DJ before you is playing?

No way (laughs). You know, sometimes the DJ before will ask me something like “what BPM will you play at?", and I’m always just like “don’t worry, just do your set”. If it’s going to be a really jarring change in terms of BPM, then I will just pretend that something’s not working for a few minutes (laughs) and just have silence. That’s always a really good way to reset things, to just have a bit of silence, because people always go crazy when the music resumes — as soon as you play a bit of music everyone is just like “whooo!”. So that’s my trick, and now everyone knows (laughs). Just have a gap.

That’s amazing (laughs). Do you keep up with current dancefloor trends at all or do you just do your thing?

I have no idea. I just do my thing, yeah. 

But you do feel like you are getting good crowd reactions – perhaps because it is something different to what your average DJ set is playing today?

Maybe that is why! I definitely get good crowd reactions. You know, the best thing that ever happened to me when it comes to my live acts is that about six or seven years ago, I went from playing to people my age to playing to people in their 20s. And it’s just so much better (laughs). Old people just want nostalgia for the things they’ve already heard, whereas younger people have way more energy and are much more open-minded. And that really suits me, because I’m always changing things up and playing new stuff. I don’t play my old tracks ever.

Do you feel like you are approaching playing live differently now compared to when you were starting out?

I think it’s mostly that when I started out, I just wasn’t thinking very deeply about it. I would just go and play some stuff that I’ve made. I think now maybe I’m more conscious of my philosophy, being confident in the things I’m doing. You know, I used to be a DJ as well, so I’ve always approached the live act as being more about making people dance, it’s not about making you listen to my amazing guitar solo or whatever (laughs).

How much do you care about the improvisational aspect of it?

Not that much, really. I mean, I do change up the order and patterns of things. I’ll go on stage with maybe 60 tracks loaded up on my MPC and then I’ll play thirty of them. I can do a breakdown when I need to, I can react to the crowd. So in that sense it’s improvising, but it’s not improvising in the sense that jazz is improvisatory.

That’s interesting to me, because I think a lot of younger live acts want to improvise everything and really show off their skills. Whereas you have more of an oldschool DJ mindset where the party comes first.

I’ve done full improvisational gigs before, and they were great fun. But I can’t travel with all my gear, and I also think my MPC thing works and people like it, so there’s no need to change it, really.

I do think that’s a good mindset to have; not making it too much about your own artistic ego, like “everyone needs to be listening to my amazing improvised synth noodling” (laughs).

That whole celebrity DJ thing is just so weird to me. When I started going to parties you couldn’t even see the DJ! I’ll go to a club and the light guy will be like “what lights do you want”, and I’m just like “I don’t know, a strobe, a smoke machine?”. That’s all you need really, it’s techno, it’s not rock n’ roll (laughs).

What was it that made you stop DJing?

It’s mostly just that once I had kids, my available free time shrank drastically. So I was like “okay, I have this much time now, do I want to use that time to make music or dig for new records”. And it was just obvious that I wanted to spend that time in the studio, that’s always been my main priority. I’ve also always been a vinyl DJ and never really learned how to DJ digitally, and a lot of clubs just stopped taking care of their turntables at some point so it was getting very difficult to play vinyl. I was also finding myself playing mostly old records, so I just decided to stop because I really didn’t want to become “that oldies DJ with skipping records” (laughs).

So I only play live now, and promoters actually seem to value that more highly than DJing, the fees are higher. And for me, I think it would actually be more effort to DJ on vinyl again. There is a lot of preparation in playing live, but at this point I find the actual performance part quite easy. So at this point I only DJ at the local pub every now and then and that’s it (laughs).

Do you ever feel the need to change up your setup and workflow, or are you happy to just keep things the way they are?

I really don’t understand this urge that some people have. I mean, I do use different synths and stuff, but I never find myself wanting to change up my studio because I’m bored or out of ideas or something. Gear is just gear – the ideas come from me ultimately. Whatever gear I use, I’ll make the kind of sounds that I like on it.

There’s an older interview where you say something about not feeling the need to reinvent the wheel and just being happy pursuing your own sound.

I really do admire people that create something very new at a young age, people like Aphex Twin or Drexciya. I can’t claim to have done that – I started out copying old-school electro basically. But then slowly, over the last thirty years, I do think I have arrived at my own sound that is a bit distinct from what everyone else is doing.

I’ve always found it curious that in electronic music, people often have these very high standards for how much artists need to reinvent themselves. Whereas in the visual arts, no one really bats an eye if a painter paints the same motif 300 times with slight variations and then slowly develops their visual language over time that way.

Yes, for sure! I actually often think of my tracks in terms of “oil paintings” and “pencil sketches”. Sometimes, I’ll make a more involved “painting” of a track that takes a couple of days with a lot of different sounds. But then at other times, I’ll just make a little “pencil sketch” with a single synth and a drum machine. It’s not all I would want to do, but sometimes I do just make a simple acid track because that’s a fun thing to do. Enjoy yourself! 

You can find out more about Ed's music and his upcoming dates over at his website.