The Freemasons – studio update
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in Feature
Concluding with the second part of this week’s DV247 Freemasons interview, we check out current activity at the Brighton based duo’s production powerhouse.
DV247: Hi again James, firstly what’s on the Freemasons mixing desk as we speak today?
At the moment, we’re working on the next Shakira single. It’s actually the radio version. We got asked to do it by a friend of ours named Amanda Ghost, who wrote the Beyonce/Shakira record Beautiful Liar that we remixed a few years ago. The track’s called ‘Gypsy’, and it’s quite acoustic in it’s original form, so we’re just trying to do a version that will be better for radio.
After the success of your collaboration with Sophie Ellis Bexter, how is the Freemasons second artist album progressing?
It is progressing slowly at the moment mainly because we’ve been asked to write for some American artists recently. We’ve picked up quite a bit of work over there so we’re crackin’ on with that. Some of the names bandied about were quite large so we thought we’d better do it. But the great thing about having such an extended period of writing is that we know a lot of our own material will come out of it as well. That’s especially true as all of this new technology has suddenly come out – Logic’s been updated, Record is out and everything’s starting to get really exciting again.
It’s great to have a period of creativity and actual writing because sometimes we’ve spent months and months doing a lot of remixing, bits and pieces here and there. Now we can have a big spurt and get a load of new compositions out. The great thing about just writing stuff is that if none of the American stuff sees the light of day, we know we’ve got good enough songs and great outlets available to use the songs ourselves. So it’s a kind of win-win.
We believe you’ve recently upgraded your computer to a Mac Pro and installed Snow Leopard. How has the transition been with regards to stability and plug-in migration?
Yeah, new Mac Pro, blank installation of Snow Leopard… Everything works, absolutely everything. The only things that don’t are the small esoteric plug-ins from smaller manufacturers, but everything else went in beautifully smoothly. And it’s chalk and cheese compared to the old computer – even some of the old installers going back years, like some of the Arturia stuff.
Apple has really done well to hone everyone down on this audio unit protocol because everything that seems to have gone in is now working. With the new version of Logic 9 – especially with the Bounce in Place function – we’re finding our workflow has gone through the roof. Logic’s certainly not behaving like a cantankerous old aunt these days…
Just to revisit your Whitney remix for the last question, the ‘How Will I Know’ flavour is a stroke of genius: Did that appear during programming or was it preconceived?
We did want to make a point of referencing what was great about Whitney as she was coming through and this record was a big comeback for her. So we felt we wanted to have sections there that would nod to her best work from back in the day. For us, it’s the first note – once the build up on the club mix is done and you hear this first big note, we wanted it to instantly stand out as ‘Whitney.’
So, a big thank you to James for taking the time out to chat with us, and you can see the full Freemasons/Whitney sherbang on this Sunday evening’s X-Factor results show – Right, as these talented Brighton boys would say.. “Does anyone fancy a pint..?”
Tags: Apple, Beyonce, Mac Pro, Shakira, the Freemasons, whitney houston