Meet Ch!mes, a self-taught electronic music producer from Slough in the UK. We noticed Ch!mes in the RepostExchange Underground chart with his track ‘Unsigned’ and were drawn to the experimental sounds and downtempo beat. He takes us through his creative process as an avid Ableton user and his top tips for creating original sounds!
I have been producing for nine years now. I am primarily self-taught. I would watch tutorials on YouTube about sound design, song structures etc. pretty much every day whilst getting some hands-on experience by making tracks on a DAW called LMMS back in the day, every day.
I started off using LMMS (Linux Multi Media Studios) when I was trying out music to see if it was something I would be interested in taking further, but then eventually moved on to using Ableton which is what I still currently use. LMMS was great as it was just so simple to use which was great for a beginner. It had nice yet basic effects (nothing too techy) and it was free!
Ableton is my bread and butter although it took me months to understand, it has absolutely everything I need to create, mix, master and perform a track (if need be). It is super versatile which is very important I think as an asset.
My favourite pieces of gear are my Audio Technica ATH-M40x headphones and Ableton Push 2. The Audio Technica headphones I love because of the crisp sound quality they provide. Everything is so balanced and beautiful sounding. The Ableton Push is great as it’s just really fun making beats on it with the ability to control so many different parts of a track on the fly. Again, a very versatile piece of kit.
Favourite software plugins are Serum and a distortion plugin called Fuzz Plus 3 by Audio Damage. Serum is my go-to sound design kit for synthesis. I love Serum because it has proven to be quite easy to use (thanks to so many tutorials available on YouTube, haha) as well it gives me so much control over the sound I want to create. Fuzz Plus 3 is my go-to distortion plugin because the sound is so clean and powerful!
My workflow, I would say, is kind of rigorous as I try my best to make a song within the same day because I think it is the best way to capture a moment or feeling as these can change by the next day. In addition, it’s great for productivity and overall creativity I think. I tend to make tracks based on my mood at the time of making the song. I also make sure I have specifically a CloudKid music visualiser to look at while creating because I find their visualisers inspiring. It helps with capturing moods.
I used to watch two YouTube channels religiously to help improve my sound design skills when I first started. They are Rocket Powered Sound and XLNTSOUND. I also went to university for music production, where I finally learnt how to mix and master properly.
I come across writer's block every now and then, but the way I overcome the challenge is by continuing to create while never aiming for perfection. Whatever idea I think sounds half decent, I will finish the track anyway because it gets ideas out in the DAW which now creates space for better ones in the future.
Use audio from a personal video you took and use it as ambience in your tracks. For example, if I see something cool or record something because I just found it interesting that day, I take the audio from that video and use it as background noise in my tracks. I think it adds a slice of life as well as personality into the songs as it makes the track more personal to you.
I don’t personally go out to look for feedback. I just release tracks and whatever is said about them by curators and my listeners is basically what I look at to evaluate what works in a track as opposed to what does not work so well.
Now this is a tough one… I love a large number of my tracks but I think Light Bulb Moment is Ch!mes classic. It was a track made in the moment and I feel it conveys a lot of feeling and embodies the Ch!mes’ sound nicely. Furthermore, the responses from listeners about the song are amazing. Picturesque is also very similar.
RepostExchange has helped me find a new audience on SoundCloud in addition to providing me with another medium to identify how my releases are being received.
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This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
