The Third Man aka Toby Leeming, is a born and bred Londoner with musical roots in Scotland where he lived for 4 years whilst studying at University. That was the time he got in touch with DJ’s, producers and promoters and started to teach himself how to DJ. One of his main influences have been the regular Techno nights that sourrounded him featuring the likes of Stephen Brown, Neil Landstrumm or DJ Rolando - the reason his taste was very much slanted towards all things techno and particularly the classic Detroit sounds.
Here is his contribution to Whatpeopleplay, describing how he recorded "Messier 66" that is out on Applied Rhythmic Technology:
The Messier track was meant to be something that is essentially simple at its heart but develops through details, FX etc. through a series of crescendos. That was the basic plan at least – keep it simple and raw.
The underpinning to the track is a slightly twisted 909 kit and a 303 esque bassline. On top lies a stabbing chord pattern that filter sweeps up and down, sometimes firing off to different delay units a reverb sends. There are various other bits – a little monosytnh whilsting line and some squelches and so on, but really the key is the modulation and ducking and rising of the bass and stab sequences.
The fun for me with this tune was having written it and got all the parts I wanted, I played it to Kirk and it was good – but we both felt the song developed too slowly. I went back to the drawing board, with my midi controller (a homemade mixing deck I built) and stripped the parts down and fired off a mix of the track live, sequencing, modulating and effecting it live as I went.
It needed a little tidying up but ultimately that’s the version of the tune I liked best. So often you get stuck in a hole focusing on the detailing of parts when actually the key is getting the parts to peak just at the right time. In reality I think it’s the most basic tune I have made but it seemed to work.
© 2010
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