Timothy Allan - June 2006 English Version

CM>>> It seems to me that you won’t commit yourself on a special style of electronic music? You produce a wide range of music styles except, as you said, bar-star dance music, Mainstream MTV'ish electronic music and cheezy euro trance?

Timothy Allan>>> That’s mainly true, I do create a varied selection of styles. Even though I think they’re different, most people tell me that my songs have a certain feel that comes across, even on those tracks which are completely different styles. The “TA factor” some of my producer friends call it.

I try to make all the songs enjoyable to listen to, and some of them fun to dance to. I don’t think I’ve ever done a depressing track, or a noise/glitch track… they’re all pretty approachable and seem to appeal to a wide audience. I’ve had emails from people who don’t like ‘dance’ music, but liked some of my songs.

Initially I wanted to stay away from commercial styles of music and all the “cheese” that comes with them. I never really listened to the songs that you hear on the popular radio stations, and would listen to more underground, less popular music. As you mature as a musician however, you start to realize that commercial music is where all the big money is, so who knows what will happen in the future. That’s what pseudonyms are for!

CM>>> I had to laugh when I read on your website where you compare your musical range with "It's like being a fat man at an all you can eat electronic music buffet." But besides that I would like to know which styles, musicians influenced you? And by the way do you sometimes go to all you can eat restaurants?

Timothy Allan>>> That quote has been up there since I first made that webpage some 4 years ago!

I think my main influences have been the big progressive guys like Digweed, Satoshi and older Sasha tracks. I’m a big fan of compilation and DJ albums just because of the sheer variety you get from all sorts of artists. The Global Underground label in general has been a huge influence simply because almost everything they put out I seem to dig.

I listen to almost everything really, and I’m a real sucker for old funk tunes. I have albums ranging from Public Enemy, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash to Portishead!

CM>>> Let’s talk about the past: How did you become interested in music? And when did you start to play an instrument? Were your parents interested in art or music and influenced you?

Timothy Allan>>> We had a piano in the house when I was growing up, and my Mom was always playing on it. She’d also have classical music playing in the background a lot of the time so I think subconsciously that had something to do with it. I still remember running around the house singing the Hallelujah chorus when I was very young!

As a kid, I took a couple years of piano lessons from a lady down the street. At the time, I thought I was too cool for the lessons and just couldn’t get into the classical aspect of it, so I stopped taking them. Ironically, I had to suck it up and started taking lessons again in my mid twenties so I could get a more solid theory background.

CM>>>What was you first electronic instrument and when did you start to produce own tracks?

Timothy Allan>>> My first ‘real’ electronic instrument was a Roland SP-808 Groovebox. It was the original black model that came out before they released that fluffy looking pink version. I’d never owned any actual gear before, so it was pretty exciting for me. Plus, I’m a bit of a nerd and love programming hardware boxes like that so we got along great. After that, I bought a flashy Korg Karma keyboard to do the things that Roland box couldn’t do. For my first year of making music, I never used a computer. I wanted to use all hardware and learn all about synthesis and the other basics hands on.

I’ve been producing tracks for close to 4 years now. I figure that the first year or so was getting the basics down pat, and then the rest of my life is practise! It’s only been for the last two years that I have been going all out and approaching it quite seriously.

CM>>> You were born in Canada. Today you live in Melbourne,Australia. What was the reason to move to Australia- job, the love of your life or the warmer weather?

Timothy Allan>>> A bit of both actually! The company I was working with laid all of the staff off because of financial problems, so I was out of a job. My girlfriend Jen quit her job and we decided to go on a year long trip to Australia.

We backpacked around Thailand for a month beforehand and had a great time. It’s also the place where I proposed to her! We thought that we’d get married in Australia, so now our backpacking trip had become an eloping trip. We originally planned to stay in Melbourne for a few months, then go up to Sydney, and then along the coast. However, that plan seems to have failed as I’ve since been sponsored to stay in the country, and have now been in Melbourne for almost 3 years! Melbourne has a very diverse music scene and I’ve met a lot of great producers and friends here over the years.

CM>>>Wasn’t it tough when you moved to Australia to carry all your gear with you? Or how must I picture myself your musicians removal?

Timothy Allan>>> It would have been, but I didn’t have anything when I got here! All I had was a backpack and my portable Yamaha QY-22 sequencer to do little midi sketches on. It was almost 6 months before I realized that I would have to start using a computer if I wanted to keep making music.

When I looked at the costs, I realized that it was too expensive to ship my gear from Canada, and it was also too expensive to buy new gear. So I went to the computer swap meet and picked up a $250 computer to run an old copy of Cubase VST I had.

It was a year later when my wife’s parents flew over to visit us, and I sweet talked them to pack up most of my music gear and bring it down with them on the plane as luggage!

CM>>>Where can I buy your music?

Timothy Allan>>> Currently, you can pick up high quality digital downloads at www.beatport.com/timothy_allan . They’re not all on there yet, as the rest of the signed tracks haven’t been released yet. I keep my main website, www.timothyallan.com updated often so if you check that first, it will tell you where you can buy the tracks and when the release dates are.

CM>>>I saw that you got signed by Oh!records. How did you get in touch with this Canadian label? Do you know them from the time you lived in Canada?

Timothy Allan>>> No, I had not heard of them until I decided it was time to start shopping some demos around. I found them on the internet when I looking for a label who dealt in progressive type releases. I was looking for a label that was run by some respectable people, and who release the kind of music I was looking to get signed. Oh! Records fits both of those criteria, and Max and the rest of them have been nothing but great to me. It was also a cool coincidence that we’re both Canadian, even if I am on the other side of the world at the moment.

CM>>>You also offer a lot of music for free on your website. Can it be considered sort-of like “music freeware“? What’s the idea behind it? Ever thought about producing a complete album?

Timothy Allan>>> Since I started making music, I gave it all away for free. I used to have a heading on the web site saying they were my ‘practise songs’, and in a way they were. Most of them are not good enough to be released on a label, or to ask people to pay for them. Some of the first ones are really, really laughably bad. Others have great ideas, but aren’t mixed properly. Some are good all around, but just don’t have that ‘wow’ factor. I figured what’s the point of spending all the time making a track if you’re just going to throw it away. I’m not really embarrassed of them, as at the time it was the best I could do.

Some people have written me saying that listening to them has helped them as they start out, because they know initially you’re not going to sound like what you hear on the radio or in the club. Another point is that just because I personally don’t like the track doesn’t mean that someone else won’t. Just the other week I had a guy in Florida email me saying how he liked this old song of mine, which I think is mixed awfully! You never know who is going to like what, and you’ll definitely not know if you never put it out there.

To answer the other question: I have made an album... sort of. You can’t buy it anymore, but I have about 10 copies of it left for keepsakes. It was called “Departure Gate” and it was made just using my keyboard, drum machine and sampler when I first started making music. I had it sold in local record stores back in Calgary Canada, and they all sold out. So there are some people out there who have copies somewhere!

I’d like to put out another album at some point; however it probably won’t happen for a while. Currently, I’m more interested in putting out singles and EP’s and getting the results from those. I’m also trying my hand at remixing which is going pretty well and there is a collaboration or two in the works as well. I always like to have a few irons in the fire.

CM>>> What’s your vision or goal? Do you dream to become a fulltime musician who can live from producing music or do you say „No things are good in the way they are“?

Timothy Allan>>> I’ve been rethinking my goals recently as things are starting to happen that I never thought would, in a good way! Last year I would have said that I was content making music, making a couple bucks off of it, and working away at my day job. Now that things have started to take off a bit, I’m rethinking that. I’m a bit torn, as I do enjoy my day job, but I also enjoy making music. Ideally I’d be able to merge the two, but we’ll have to wait and see.

In the near future, I’d love to get some more releases and get my name out there a bit more. I’d also like to get into some other areas as well, perhaps television or video game music. Most of my tracks so far have been free of vocals which makes them good background music for commercials and TV shows. In fact, I’m going through the paperwork now for a track to be licensed to a very popular TV program, but I don’t like spilling the beans until all the papers are signed so that’s all I’ll say!

CM>>>I know that you have a technical job as a computer expert. Is this job a result of your interest in electronic instruments or were your interest in computers the reason you became interested in synthesizers? Which will lead us back to some questions I asked before....

Timothy Allan>>> I’ve been a software developer for almost a decade now. It does get a bit hard on the eyes to program all day and then work on a music sequencer all night, but it’s the price I pay to have my cake and eat it too.

I would say that I’ve always been a computer guy, ever since my parents bought us an Apple IIe computer back in the day. I’d sit and muck around with it and was generally fascinated with all the stuff that I was able to make it do.

My first introduction into making electronic music was when I got into music “tracking” on the computer, which some would argue is a big foundation of electronic computer based music. Trackers were very basic audio sequencers that were able to generate self contained songs that you could pass on to your friends on BBS systems. Looking back on old school trackers now makes me realize how much things have progressed in such a short time. I can’t believe some of the stuff the old tracker guys were able to pull off with such limited resources.

CM>>> You aren’t a friend of sampling CD’s but you have produced a House sample CD called “Housematic“ which received great reviews in many musicians magazines.

Timothy Allan>>> Oh, I do like certain sample CD’s. I’m not a big fan of loops, but sometimes there is just no way I’d be able to record what I’m looking for at the time. I usually use them for drum hits, horns and sometimes ethnic instruments that I can’t synthesize or record myself.

Housematic was a project that came to me from out of the blue. Damien at Tekniks UK found my website just searching for producers through Google. He emailed me asking if I’d be interested in creating this sample CD project for his company, so I immediately fired him an email back saying I’d love to take a crack at it and could start right away.

After much sweat and blood, I finally delivered the finished CD on time to them and the gears started turning. Tekniks gave it the Housematic name, and it was picked up by the big sample CD companies like Time/Space and Big Fish Audio.

Subsequently, it was reviewed in all the big music magazines: Future Music, Computer Music, Interface, and Sound on Sound. The reviews were mainly positive with Future Music and Computer Music both giving it 8 out of 10! I was on Christmas vacation reading one of the magazines, and almost fell out of my chair when I saw my CD in there! What a great feeling that was, as I hadn’t known before hand that it was to be reviewed. It made for a great Christmas present.

CM>>>What’s more complex and difficult - producing tracks or producing sampling CD’s? How must I imagine the production steps building/producing a sampling cd?

Timothy Allan>>> I’d have to say the sample CD definitely. It was a world of hurt to make, but I learned so much, my mixing skills improved, and the pros outweighed the cons by far.

The CD itself consists of over 30 construction kits and some bonus sounds. So really, creating this style of sample CD is like creating a lot of songs.

For those who don’t know what a construction kit is, it’s basically a 32 to 64 bar mini song. That song is then broken down into loops of its elements i.e. kick, snare, synth, stabs, fx, hats etc. Those drum loops are then further broken down into the single drum hits I created to make the loop. So if you like the snare drum hit in one song, you can dive right in and grab the raw sample I used. It makes it very flexible for people because you can either grab an entire loop, effect, or if you like making things from the ground up, you can grab the single hits.

I think I had about 6 weeks to complete the project and deliver it to Tekniks, while still holding my full time job. So for those 6 weeks, all I did was work on that CD every minute when I wasn’t at my day job. There were a lot of very late nights as I basically had to create 35+ songs in 6 weeks! I think I saw my wife a few times, but the majority of the time it was just my monitor.

CM>>>Any plans to produce more sample CD’s?

Timothy Allan>>> It would depend a lot on my circumstances at the time. During the creation of Housematic, I had no time to create new tracks or work on anything else. That said, I’m always up for a challenge and for learning something new, so I’m sure I’d do it if I was approached.

CM>>>We talked a lot about the broad range of your music. But despite the range of styles, your tracks have their own identity as a result of the unique sound and the kind the arrangements that are made. Do you have a special piece of hard/software you always use for your tracks? Is there a special progression when you produce a track?

Timothy Allan>>> Haha, the “TA Factor” I talked about earlier! I can’t say for sure what it is, as I always am using new sounds and new ideas. I don’t have any ‘special’ kick drum or synth patch, it’s a hunt for sounds every time I start a new song.

I was chatting with a friend the other day who wanted to trade synth preset files, as he liked this certain sound I had made in this song. I told him that I couldn’t because I created the sound from scratch, recorded it, and didn’t save the settings. I almost always do that as it forces me to never use the same sound on a different song. I find it helps me work a bit faster as well because you’re not always going back and tweaking the MIDI.

When I am creating a song from scratch, there is usually no set way of doing it. A lot of the time I will start with the drums, but there have been times where I will just noodle around on a synth and make a cool sound, or find a snippet of audio from somewhere that I can work with. Then it just kind of assembles itself, sometimes quickly, and sometimes painfully slow, but it always works out. I finish every song I start.

CM>>> Do you also do live gigs? And how do you present your shows? Do you use a laptop or also use synths and hardware during a show?

Timothy Allan>>> I have done half a dozen or so live gigs in Melbourne so far and they’ve all been very well received. There is a great party called aLive that happens on the first Saturday of every month and is put on by some friends of mine here in Melbourne. It’s a fantastic avenue for people who are on the fence about whether or not their music is ‘there’ yet, and it lets them see how their act works in a very casual setting. Only live electronic acts are allowed, no DJ’s!

It’s very friendly, and a lot of the people there are budding producers themselves so tip swapping and nerdy chatting is pretty normal. It gives people like me the chance to get out and try their hand at doing live performance without too much pressure.

I bring out my trusty laptop, as well as a Korg drum machine and a bunch of MIDI controllers for the show. Like everyone else and their dog these days, I use Ableton on the laptop and thanks to a clever setup, I never have to touch the keyboard or mouse during the entire show. The live show consists of about 50% of my current produced tracks, and 50% brand new material that sounds great live, but just isn’t enough for an entire studio track. It’s tricky to get studio songs into a live set, and vice versa, especially if you set it up to have as much control as I like to do.

I run about 15 stereo channels in Ableton, plus another stereo pair coming out of the Korg drum machine. This gives me a crazy amount of control and lets me do whatever I can think of at the time. It also means a lot of work and concentration with all the midi controllers to keep in under control. It’s no cakewalk when I’m up there by far, but it sure is fun.

CM>>>Besides electronic music, what do you do in your spare time? Australia must be ideal for activities at the beach?

Timothy Allan>>> You’d think so, and so did I when I first came here. I didn’t bring one pair of pants to Melbourne because I thought it was going to be tropical all the time. Man was I wrong, this place gets cold. This morning I had to scrape ice off my car windshield before I went to work; who knew that happened in Australia?

Seriously though, my spare time is pretty much nonexistent at the moment. If I’m not at work, I’m in the studio. Occasionally I get out for a beer with friends, but the majority of the time those are the two places you’ll find me.

CM>>>Are you interested in the football world championship which currently takes place in Germany? Your tip, who’s going to win the world championship?

Timothy Allan>>> You guys must be having a blast with all the hype going on right now! I’ll probably get hammered for this, but I’ve never really got into it. All you ever hear about in Canada is ice hockey. But if I had to place a bet, I would have to go with Brazil or Germany.

CM>>>Can you name me the last record you’ve bought? Which artists do you like?

Timothy Allan>>> Oh, it’s been ages since I’ve picked up a new album. I think that it would have to be Hernan Cattaneo - Renaissance Masters Series Volume 2, which had some great sounding tunes on it. One of my goals is to get a track on one of those compilations, I better get cracking as there is some serious competition.

Some of the bigger artists I’m currently enjoying listening to are Dousk, Da Sunlounge, Lawnchair Generals, Coldcut, Jamie Lidell, and even some LTJ Bukem.

CM>>>What do you need for a perfect day?

Timothy Allan>>> A warm early morning, a cup of coffee and a 30 hour day would be good!

www.timothyallan.com
www.myspace.com/timothyallanmusic

Interview Michael Mück

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