By Stephen Fortner
Like many of you, this writer is an electronic dance music immigrant, not a native. If your definition of “electronic music” begins with Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and Jean Michel Jarre, it’s easy to hear the four-on-the-floor beats and see the DJ-centric stages of EDM and wonder what all the fuss is about. Then, you discover an artist whose sense of melody, arrangement, and counterpoint is exceptional. Just beneath the rhythmic uniformity that keeps club-goers dancing spans a landscape of ever-evolving musical motifs and synth sounds, and you find yourself listening for every change. Such an artist is Sander van Doorn, and such an album is Eleve11. To the EDM faithful, van Doorn has become a demigod on par with the likes of Carl Cox and Tiesto, and what do you know—electronic music means the same thing to him as it does to us.
I’ve heard that what gives one credibility on the DJ circuit seems to have flipped on its head from ten or 15 years ago. What does that mean?
Ten or so years ago, if you wanted to be taken seriously as an electronic music producer, you had to spin—you had to show up at the clubs and play other people’s music. Now, it seems that if you want to be taken seriously as a DJ, you have to produce your own tracks, know your way around a DAW, and know your way around some analog synths. These days it’s hard to be a big-name DJ just being a DJ. Obviously there are examples of that with DJs who are phenomenal with their technique and their showmanship. But these days, you have to produce at least some of your own music. It’s your business card and your promotional tool. For me, it works out really well because I started out as a producer, and being a DJ now works in my favor. But, yes, there definitely has been a shift.
Can you tell us about the production behind a couple of your favorite tracks on Dusk Till Doorn—any sounds you think people might be surprised to know how you created.
Dusk Till Doorn was a compilation album, so it was all based on short-listing the 80 tracks I’d collected to around 32 tracks on two CDs. I did use a few of my own tracks, one from Purple Haze. [This refers to an alternate stage name under which Sander has spun and done remixes, not to the Jimi Hendrix song. –Ed.] I used an odd sample of a choir and actually cut a small piece out of that, loaded it, opened Logic, accessed the EXS24 sampler, and made an arcing rhythm under that. “Daddyrock” is on that compilation as well. That was a really cool track. I used the Access Virus TI layered with the Dave Smith Poly Evolver for the lead sound. I like to layer synths, so I’ll use one patch from the Virus TI, and on top of that I’ve got a more atmospheric synth—more warmth and complexity from the Evolver. I also made one track that was specific for Dusk Till Doorn as well. It’s called “Overflow.” That’s a more tech-based track where I worked towards a pretty tech-y rhythm, and I used Logic for that.
Is Logic your preferred platform for music creation?
Definitely. In the studio I still use Logic 8 because I’m always a bit afraid of stuff going wrong when I upgrade. On the laptop I use Logic 9, and that’s a really cool platform. I do like to use a lot of hardware synths. I use the Poly Evolver a lot—the keyboard version. It’s unbelievable. I really like the distortion function. I made two tracks—one is called “Riff ”—using that synth. It’s such a unique sound. It’s unbelievable. It’s very fun to work with as well. I’ve also got a Moog Voyager for the more distinctive bass line sounds, the Virus C, the Virus TI, and some smaller synths. It’s a really workable studio platform.
What about Ableton Live?
I think Ableton is a cool platform, especially to get into music producing. Personally I use it for doing DJ sets, and that’s pretty much it. I prefer using Logic for creating my own music—I think it has more possibilities—but I think Ableton is a simpler way of learning how to use sounds. It’s particularly cool to make remixes in Ableton.
You mentioned the Virus, which is a staple among dance music producers. Which one do you use more?
I use the TI2—the new one. Personally I think the sound isn’t as complex and fat as the older Virus C. It’s a little bit thinner, so for some tracks I prefer the Virus C. In the studio it doesn’t matter as much because I’m used to working with MIDI and layering things, and that synthesizer [the TI2] is just very easy to use. It’s a brilliant setup, the Virus TI2, but the sound is definitely different. I’ve had it now for about eight months and it’s brilliant—it has a lot of presets that you can really build on.
It seems like with the Virus B and the C they were going for more of a straight virtual analog synth. It was before real analog synths like the Prophet ’08 had really come back. Yeah. That’s also what I like about the Evolver—it combines digital and analog oscillators and it’s capable of really complex sounds. Sometimes it’s such a distinctive sound that it’s “stubborn”—it can be hard to make it your own. The Virus C, on the other hand, is a very straightforward platform but still it has more complexity than the TI2. You’ve got the “analog” function, but sometimes that just feels like you’re adding bass, to be honest. I think that 18 K why it’s so popular, though, is because of the whole software integration function—you can automate it in your DAW like any other plug-in.
What are some of your favorite soft synths?
I like to work in Spectrasonics Trilian. It’s more sample-based, but it’s got really cool sounds, and combined with some plug-ins from Logic, you can make really fat bass lines. I spend a lot of time creating bass lines. Omnisphere is nice for atmospheric sounds. I use [Native Instruments] Massive a bit. I still use Rob Papen Predator a lot—it’s phenomenal. It’s a more woody kind of sound, very distinctive. Those are definitely my preferred software synths.
What are some of your musical influences or heroes that might surprise your fans?
Moby has always been a big inspiration. I get a lot of inspiration from listening to punk and to bands like Radiohead and Sigur Ros. They’re an Icelandic band. They kind of got discovered by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and they have a brilliant sound. There’s a lot of feel that goes into it. It’s good to listen to those kind of tracks and try to translate them into dance using dissonant chords. You’re using the keyboard the “wrong” way, and you get really cool sounds with that. That’s usually the basis for a lot of my tracks. I like to use melody, but in a different way.
Can you elaborate on hearing a pop melody and then translating it into an electronic dance track?
For instance, the first track from my album Supernaturalistic is called “Look Inside Your Head,” and the whole inspiration behind that was the
Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” It’s completely different, but you hear this “feeling,” and then you play the melody and you try to capture the same
atmosphere using a different melody, perhaps pitching it up, and basically creating a whole new track around that. The end result is something completely different in terms of melody and chords, but it conveys the same emotion and feel. It really works.
What are some cliché sounds in dance music that you wish people would just stop using?
You had this whole era—especially with trance music—where you had Roland JP-8000 string lines. The synth is brilliant, but I’d like to see people use it in a different way. It sounded very unique, but all of the sudden this huge string kind of sound that used that “SuperSaw” waveform, detuned a lot, was popping up everywhere. It’s time to say goodbye to those kinds of sounds, to be honest.
Speaking of detuning, there was the “Hoover” patch. . . .
The Hoover! [Laughs.] Actually, the Hoover-type patches they use these days have a little more freaky, dirty, Dutch kind of sound. It actually sounds very cool and fresh again, but the old use—that doesn’t work for me anymore. I personally like very woody sounds—percussion-like sounds as stabs or as lead sounds. For instance, with the “Riff ” track, the sound I made with the Poly Evolver has a very percussive sense to it. That’s my preferred tone. Evolvers are just phenomenal at those woody kinds of sounds.
Let’s talk about some tracks from Eleve11. At the beginning of “Love Is Darkness,” what was used to generate the organ-like sound that plays the opening motif? How about the more detuned trance riff later on?
The organ-like synth is a layered combination of a detuned Virus C sawtooth and a low, semi-stereo pulse synth from Logic’s ES1 soft synth. The riff was a triple-layered stab from the Virus TI2.
Before anything comes in that’d identify that track as “dance music,” rock drums anchor the intro. Between about 1:15 and 2:45, it almost sounds like ’80s new wave—Missing Persons or somebody.
The track originally was supposed to be a new Purple Haze track, but when I changed some electronic synths into guitar sounds it became more rock, so that’s why I decided to change the drums to a more band-like rhythm. Then, with the finishing touch of [vocalist] Carol Lee, who comes from a rock background—she’s part of the Dutch indie band Bettie Serveert—the track kind of produced itself.
The melodic hook of “Koko” is eventually played by a typical stacked sawtooth, but at first, it’s orchestral strings. Can you speak in general about bringing organic sounds into an EDM context?
The melody of “Koko” actually consists of about 12 layers of sounds varying from a midrange violin, a high range cello, a midrange dance piano, about three synths, a low pulse synth for a few chords, and of course the whistle that I recorded myself using a sampler. I feel that adding organic sounds to an EDM track gives it more warmth and dimension. I will be doing a lot more experimenting with that in the future.
What was the source of the piano sound at the beginning of “Believe,” and what was used for that angelic-sounding processing on the background vocals?
The piano was a combination of an orchestral piano and a dance piano, both from EXS24 in Logic, and I just played in the chords. I used a short reverb to add more warmth and then did some additional EQing. On the vocals, I side-chained two reverbs and a delay, each one on a different frequency and different pan position, and each with a different decay setting.
I love the Tangerine Dream-like intro to “Nano.” How was all that counterpoint built up?
The starting sound of “Nano” consists of a Virus TI2 arpeggio with a lot of reverb, in combination with a high-pitched FM synth from the TI2, with a slow attack and a guitar in the background. The main synth later on comes out of Spectrasonics Omnisphere—I think the patch is “Euro Synth”—in combination with a sequencer from the Virus TI2.
There’s also a lot more collaboration with vocalists on Eleve11 than I’m used to from house or trance. . . .
For me, the Eleve11 album created a platform to experiment a lot more with song-based tracks, using both male and female vocals. An “artist album” is good for that because, in my opinion, it needs to stay interesting from start to finish and needs to work in whatever environment where you might play it. I’ve also discovered the added potential of vocals creating a counter-melody that I sometimes didn’t even imagine was possible on top of the existing chords—that gives me extra inspiration to take the track a step further. For example, the vocals of “Love Is Darkness” gave me the idea for the big lead stab in the break. Before the vocals were added, I didn’t even have a lead.
I also notice that though there’s a little bit of ducking the rest of the mix around the kick drum—“Timezone,” for example—you seem not to overuse this technique. Is that conscious?
Absolutely. Also, sometimes I feel that there’s an obsession with some producers, pumping up the volume of their tracks to the absolute maximum. The problem you have there is that you lose every bit of groove the track is supposed to have and end up with a standard “kick-noise-kick-noise” rhythm.
How much deviating from the usual “club” song form can one get away with on an artist album?
For Eleve11, I made a “no-beat” intro and outro for almost every track because the album would lose its flow otherwise. Of course we’re also releasing the singles separately, with beats, so DJs can mix and beat-match them in their sets. The standard structure of an EDM track originates from a practical standpoint: Most modern producers are also DJs, and therefore build a track in a way that makes it mixable and something that’ll work in a club. However, you do see more and more producers removing the intro and outro beats if a track becomes more interesting because of that. You can still get good segues to and from other tracks if you use, for example an arpeggio-based synth phrase that has a rhythm of its own—like the way “Nano” or “Eagles” starts.
Are there meaningful sonic differences between all the genres that have cropped up in dance music—techno, electro, trance, house—or is it more cultural?
It’s funny how you picked those four distinct styles, because “progressive” is already a sub-genre between house and trance. There’s tech house and deep house, and dub house is kind of the new thing right now. . . . So, techno is really rhythm-based—usually faster than the other styles. The bass is lowered a lot, but it’s about creating this rhythm that feels good looped, and you can keep on dancing to it. You can listen to it all night. That’s what I like about techno. Electro is very freakish these days. There are a lot of uses of small sounds repeated, but changing subtly—it’s almost nervewracking.
Trance is a lot more about distinctive melodies. It’s a bit calmer, but it’s still a little bit fast. So there’s definitely a big difference, with trance being a lot more melodic, symphonic—there’s a lot more feel that goes into it. But then again, these days, styles are colliding more and more, which I think is a very good development. House is getting more melodic. There are a lot more influences that go into trance these days, and techno has changed a lot throughout the years as well—it kind of went from those very percussive jungle sounds to more minimalistic influences. It’s interesting how all these styles develop, come together, and then diverge again.
With all that stylistic flux going on, what would you like to do that you think hasn’t been done before?
That’s a difficult question because within music, there’s always a general sense of hitting a boundary, of “What can we do that’s more than just this?” I think a lot of influences come from keyboard and software manufacturers, in fact. They come up with new sounds and new possibilities. For instance, Logic has new features where you can do really freaky stuff with the pitch control and stretch functions. Then all of a sudden, because a function like that exists, a whole new style evolves. I think the future definitely looks bright. I can’t tell how it’s going to sound, but I know I’d like to combine different styles of music into utterly new things.
What was the first time that you heard a synthesizer and thought, “Wow, what’s that?”
How it started was, my dad had all the old albums from Jean Michel Jarre, the Equinoxe series. I think the reason why I’m an electronic dance artist today is because my dad would sit down, I’d sit on his lap, and he would tell me all these stories while those albums played. So I really got to listen intensely to that music. For me, Jarre definitely did it—he’s like the classical music of the synthesizer world.
Of course, there’s Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack. It’s funny how music really can make or break a movie. For me, one of the best pairings of a classical-type piece with a film was Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”—it made the movie Platoon so much more intense just because of that music. I think that being an artist, you listen differently—and more intensely—to music. When you go out to a club with your friends, you’re the quieter one because you’re always listening and your ears are focusing in on new stuff and the details of the music. Again, I think that’s all because of my early experience listening to Jean Michel Jarre.
Does your live rig go beyond what most people would think of as a “DJ setup”?
When I play live I only DJ, and I am looking into possibilities of playing instruments live as well. I think it’s very important that if I perform live, it’s actually live. So eventually I’d like to work with different equipment live instead of using just a laptop or CDJ decks. Another challenge I want to take on is to look at more event-type stuff—being a producer for bands, remixing, and also being onstage. There are so many possibilities.
Where would you like to see synthesizer technology go to next?
We live in an age where everything needs to be fast. You’re on the road a lot as an artist. I’d prefer to have just a simple block of equipment using processors of really cool hardware synths, that I could use for producing on the road. I’d like to see something compact, without any controls.
Do you mean a soft synth?
Hardware, actually, but with a software interface to keep the size down. You just connect it to your laptop and you have a massive synth with you on the road. That’d be brilliant for me because on the road I’m missing my big analog sounds, so it’d be cool to have something small to take with me that would have what I need. Soft synths are easier to take on the road, but half the time I’d much rather mess about on a Poly Evolver or a Moog.
Did you originally learn music by ear? Reading? Both?
Definitely by ear. I don’t know how to read notes, but when I hear something, I can play it. To make an analogy, my first synth I used to practice on was a little Roland Groovebox—the MC-303. I didn’t know what a filter was—I’d just twist a knob and see what happened. That’s how I learned all these musical terms and melodies as well. Likewise, the first time I tried to reproduce a melody, it took me three days. That was another gateway into dance music production—reproducing melodies that already existed, then just trying to make them my own. That’s how you finally learn how to produce your own music. It’s a really interesting, slow process at first. Then it kind of hits you, and it goes very fast after that.
What advice would you give to the kid who maybe has Ableton Live, a little MIDI controller, and a hard drive full of downloaded tracks, and aspires to your level of success?
Every bit of musical knowledge I have right now, I’ve taught myself. I taught myself to play the piano, how to use a DAW such as Logic, how to mix, how to use limiting and compression, and how to arrange a track. I feel that the process of having to learn these things myself, and sometimes even using synths and plug-ins the “wrong” way—and therefore the right way—is what has led to the sound and success I have right now. *Photos by Contessa Abono
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