SiBot spins some headz – Cape Audio College guest lecture.

SiBot in the house!

Starting with his history as a DJ, producer over the last 10 years.

Simon also spent time to get to know why all the students were attending the college and what are their personal aspirations in the music industry. It was great to see how interested he was in what the student had to say and what they were looking into learning about music production. After discussing the past he went into his future and now producers more as a single artist after trying many time to create “bands” from Max Normal to Play Doe.

He is currently producing music for Die Antwoord and Jack Parow just to name a few of the MC’s he is currently working with and a focus on international releases. Simon discussed how he created his first music for advertising. The highs and lows of working in advertising and trying to balance that part of his musical career which was a scratch DJ, competing in battles and aiming for the DMC competitions. After the realization on the amount of progressive DJ’s like Qbert who where leading this genre had laid down the rules and he wanted to be more exclusive which is what lead him down the world of musical production.

After answering some of the student questions he went on to play some of his past and latest tunes, discussing the methods by which he created music. From Famon Nigiri , Super Evil.  This meant the students got a rear insight into the creation of Super Evil, which came from a calibration with some French touring artists which seemed to be a good, bad idea. The Melody came from a  Fender Rhodes and the bass from a Wurlitzer electric piano. After searching high and low for a month, he purchased a very beat up Rhodes MKII, which he dedicated the song Strhaff Tak, which had a great sample which was a tribute to that specific unit.

When asked if he prefers hardware or software hi discussed how both work and that a producer using hardware might be frustrated by the way an interface works and on the same note software can also be thin sounding and difficult to use in a live set. He has tried several times to use software like Abelton Live but found you had to perform to the “rules” of the software which limited him as a versatile performer on stage. He demonstrated in-depth on how he configures his live setup around his MPD, Roland 606 and set of Kaos pads.

The students asked a lot about his work doing sound to picture, this opened up Simon to not only reveal the inside working of doing sound for films, from music, sound design to ADR. He inspired the class with work he had produced and how simple ideas were built upon and when finally added to the picture how it creatively transformed you sensory perception as a viewer. He alliterated the importance of the directors he has worked with which can be the core to building your career in the Sound world.  Simon is very focused on sound design and went in depth into the realm of sound manipulation through this art. The intense creativity  a sound designer needs to have when creating sound that truly do not exist in reality.

After a short break, out came the big gun synths in the form of Reaktor and Alchemy from Camel Audio. Giving detailed analysis of what makes up these synths and how a producer can manipulate them to create original and bizarre sound, which allows for originality and presence which is essential to stand out as a modern music producer. With modern soft synths you are only limited by your own imagination and the producers ability to tweek the parameters.

 To end off the night SiBot demonstrated how he performs his live show. He has a passion for the Kaos Pad 3, that is a major part of his sound which he openly admits he can get totally lost in when playing around in the studio. Like any good musician this is the way electronic musicians practice their skill with their instrument of choice.

 This was certainly an eye opening experience for all the students to have so many techniques and a great world of musical experience from sound design, to jingle writing to live performances. No easy task as a music producer in any genre but certainly as a electronic producer this is a very important but yet difficult task, how do you entertain an entire crowd of people as a single performer on stage with a whole bunch of buttons and synths. Visuals are so important to Si-Bot and he expressed how important it is to be professional about this and how he will go out of his way to work with organizers to make sure his performance is world class.

A personal thank you to SiBot for such a detailed and inspiring lecture. Hope to see you back in the Cape Audio College lecture room soon.

Article written by: Gaston Roulstone (Academic Head – Cape Audio College)