King Roc: Loopmaster

This month Loopmasters announced London DJ/producer King Roc AKA Martin Dawson has joined their artist series with a 'Deep and Tech House' package, so we thought we'd ask him about it.

Also known as Two Armadillos along with Secret Sundaze man Giles Smith, Martin Dawson is a diverse producer of music from electronic and epic (see last year's Chapters LP) to deeper and more techno orientated. He gigs and DJs around the world and works with a host of contemporary producers for labels like Get Physical, Mood Music, Dessous and more. As such, it makes perfect sense Loopmasters asked him to come up with a load of loops and the like for their latest software package release...

How has your year been? What’s taken up most of your time?

It's been a good year thanks. I have been working on a lot of different music. My main focus has been productions under my own name as Martin Dawson and by the end of this year I will have released with Cocoon, Moodmusic, Kling Klong, Get Physical, 202vision and Crosstown rebels. I have just finished a mini LP for Moodmusic that will come out in February next year and am working on the final touches of my second King Roc album. I have also had some great studio session with Giles Smith from Secret Sundaze. We have been working on our Two Armadillos album and this will also be released in Spring next year... so yeah it's been a busy few months. I am continuing my collaborations with Glimpse and Andre Crom and I have just started working with Catz n Dogz. We are finishing off our first EP together that I am really excited about and it will come out following on from a remix we did for Jesse Rose.

And how have your music tastes evolved this year – what you been listening to?

I love writing all kinds of music but my main focus is more deep house and techno orientated. At least this is what the Martin Dawson stuff is sounding like. The King Roc stuff is much more electronica and live guitars these days. I need the variety to keep me really excited about what I am working on. The last albums I bought were Sebastien Tellier and Blood Red Shoes, which are pretty different sounding but really good music.

So how did you get involved with Loop Masters?

Matt at Loopmasters emailed me a while back about doing a sample pack for them. I have been building it up over quite a long time in between solo productions and collaborations. Because my focus has been less on King Roc material this year, releasing the sample pack now felt like a nice way to round off the work I have done over the last 2 to 3 years on that project.

Do you use these sort of things when you are producing your own music?

Yeah I use samples all the time... but that said it is important to make them into your own sound. So I often chop up the loops I work with using recycle and program the patterns myself. Using a loop can be a very good way to get a vibe on a track moving quickly. I feel it is important to work fast to keep the inspiration moving along. Spending 3 hours on one sound just doesn’t do it for me. In fact I think it is safe to say the best things I have done have happened in 3 hours not 3 days.

I interviewed you around the release of Chapters and you said “The problem I had with dance music was that I found I was approaching the writing process from the same angle every time.” Doesn’t a pack like this only make that situation worse?! How can people avoid falling into that trap?

For sure you have to be careful not to just make your music using other people’s samples. This takes away your own sound and originality. But having some simple loops to hand quickly can keep things moving along and this helps keep creativity buzzing. As I said above, it is important to make the loops and sounds your own and I certainly don’t find the core idea of my track by just taking some bass loop from inside a sample pack. But for example chopping the loop up, moving the parts around, repitching, and effecting the parts can give you something original that can form the foundation of where you go with your new track.



How did you go about deciding what sort of things to put on the collection? Did you compile on the fly or plan out different aspects you wanted to cover or…?

With my pack I tried to make sure it worked in the way I like to use samples. So there are a lot of percussion loops with a variety is parts. Dropping these into your loop can help to quickly get your track going. As I said I never use the parts as they are exactly, but it s good foundation to start with. So I just started working on track ideas but instead of arranging into full tracks, I broke the loops down in to layers for the sample pack. It's sometimes hard to give ideas away like this but as I said I have been more focused on deep house and techno under my own name so I felt the right time to put together a collection of samples that shows what I have been doing as King Roc up to this point in time.

And how long do you listen to a loop before you are happy with it? When/how do you know if it’s killer or filler?!

For me making the loop takes between 30 minutes and 2 hours. After that I know if it going to be worth continuing with. The thing to bear in mind is not every track I write is supposed to be some peak time bomb. I enjoy writing very subtle deep tracks that would only work as warm up or after hours music. So I very rarely throw ideas away. It's just important to know what you are looking to write when you sit down in the studio for that session.

Are there enough things to make whole tracks or are they more starting points or…?

I would say my sample pack would give you the string foundation for a good track. But I have put anything on there that will make in the no. 1 seller. I have left that bit of space up to the other producers. The sample pack is pretty big at 800MB. That’s about twice the size of most of the other packs on Loopmasters. So it's still a lot of material to work with.

I wonder how you characterise deep music as against tech? What are the sounds, structures, emotions etc which, for you, define each? Put another way, what are you looking for in a decent deep or tech record before you play it?

Tech music is sharper overall in production technique with crisper kicks, claps and hats. Deep music using quite different drums and synth sounds. This is a general explanation and of course there are records that cross this definition but I think it is fair to say for the most part that the sound and EQ balance of the 2 styles is quite different.

What advice would you give to people on how using samples such as these in their own tracks?

As I have said.. mess with them. Don't just slap a bunch of them together and call it your own music. Otherwise what's to say someone else with the same pack won't do the same and then you have no sound of your own. Use the samples as a guide to get ideas going but twist them into your own track.

Are you someone who fully supports digital music making rather than using instruments, analogue gear etc?

Absolutely. There are a millions ways to make original sounding music. There is nothing to say you have to buy a bunch of analogue synths if you don't want to. The main point is to find your own creative style. There are no rules, just your own creativity is important.

Will there be any more Two Armadillos or King Roc productions coming anytime soon?

Albums form both production names are coming next year :)

What else have you got coming up?

Martin Dawson 'What The Fuck' Get Physical
Martin Dawson & Glimpse 'Blue Train EP' 2020vision
Martin Dawson & Glimpse 'No One Belongs Here More Than You' Crosstown Rebels
Martin Dawson 'Sunday Smoking LP' Moodmusic
Jesse Rose 'Where Were You Last Night' Martin Dawson & Catz N Dogz remix – Made To Play

Kristan J Caryl