Ask a house-oriented DJ to name some remixers whose beats consistently rock the floor and you’ll get a wide variety of responses. But more often than not, Robbie Rivera is always somewhere on those lists. On one hand, the variety and scope of Robbie’s style gives his discography — which includes household names like Madonna, Santana, and Ricky Martin, for starters — a breadth that few producers can hope to match. On the other hand, the sheer number of his releases secures his position as one of the most prolific artist-remixers on the scene. Add to that the fact that Robbie oversees not one but three boutique labels and you have the makings of a true superstar in the dance world. Why should you care? Because Robbie agreed to divulge a few of his floor-filling secrets to Keyboard.
“Feel This” is a legendary track of yours that’s still played to this day. Was that your first big break as a remixer/artist?
Hmmm. . . . I still play this track too. “Feel This” got me a lot of remix work as it went No. 1 on the Billboard dance charts in October 2001. It’s an instrumental track all done with the Kurzweil — no computer. At the time, I was too lazy to learn a [computer-based] sequencer primarily because I was scared of MIDI and was using a PC, which would always mess up.
So from the Kurzweil, how did you expand your studio?
I bought Logic for PC, installed it, and hated it. A couple of more years passed, during which time I did Madonna, Ricky Martin, and Santana all on my next Kurzweil, the 2600.
And nothing else?!
Well, around that time I started using Logic on a friend’s Mac, and he would add the vocals on top of my track. My gear was that Kurzweil and a 16-channel Mackie mixer. I would send two tracks to the board to add bottom and highs until it sounded good to me.
You seemed to use heavy compression on those mixes too.
Yep. The one that the Kurzweil had was great. I used the same compressor and setting for each track, believe it or not.
That seems to be one of the real signatures to your sound — a compression “bounce” that gives your mixes the “Robbie” vibe.
Well, one thing that I do that I believe I popularized in clubland is the use of “over” limiting at the master output — affecting the whole mix with emphasized pumping and breathing. I call it the “funkatron effect” — that bouncing and phasing between the kick and the bass and drums. I’d do this with all my tracks. Of course, after I did it other remixers copied, like Benny Benassi and a few others. Benny is a great friend of mine so I am definitely not dissing him. For dance, you sometimes have to forget about traditional mixing and engineering and ignore recording levels and “rules.” Well, at least, I’ve always mixed my tracks this way. If the levels are all red, then it sounds good to me!
Care to share the specifics of your secret?
Sure! First, get the kick from a 909 drum kit (I use the Jam Pack 2 version these days), then add the compression from Logic to any setting you prefer. On another few tracks lay down your hi-hat and snare parts. After that, I add a thick synth bassline from Arturia’s Minimoog V software. You can use anything similar — as long as it’s big. Now, add a compressor on all of the tracks. I always do this. Then, on the bass track, add even more bottom and mids using an EQ. You can also add a sub-bass if you like. This way the bass is nice and thick and will sound very heavy in a big room. At this point it’s time to go to the master output and insert a Limiter. If you’re in Logic, make the setting “hard limiter.” If you’ve done everything correctly, you should immediately hear the bouncing. Now, you need to go back and adjust the mix of the entire track to make it sound good. Try going to the compressor of the kick and bring the gain up if you want to intensify the bouncing effect. For me, it’s a lot of fun. I do this to all my tracks, but you need to constantly work on the mix, or it sometimes gets annoying. After I have the whole track done, I add Logic’s Adaptive Limiter effect to get all the levels at the same range and as loud as possible with a lot of density.
Any other signature tricks you want to share?
Well, another crazy thing I do is that I do everything with Sennheiser headphones, including sequencing and mixdown. I mix the tracks at fairly loud volume, because I need to feel that I’m in a club.
There’s more to this interview on the Web! Go to www.keyboardmag.com.
