An Interview with Nick Baxter of SKP Sound Design
Today, Nick from SKP Sound Design releases his second ReFill: Europa Grid Sequence. Click here to check out this expansive and spacey pack of sounds for Europa, along with the great patch and song demos created with sounds from the ReFill. To celebrate the release, I talked to Nick about his history as a sound designer and producer, his approach to ReFills, and just general Reason musings. Enjoy!
Mike McKew – To start, can you give a brief introduction to yourself and your work? Who you are, where you come from, etc.
Nick Baxter – My name is Nick Baxter and I’m the ReFill creator behind SKP Sound Design. I primarily record electronica/ambient music under the name of Skeptical and a few other electronic styles under various pseudonyms. My studio is based in a small coastal town in Fife, Scotland, called Newport-on-Tay.
Mike – How long have you been making music? What are your influences and how did they come to be your influences?
Nick – I’ve been cooking up tracks since around 1999. Originally, as a wayward youth (I’m 37 now), I was working as a DJ in the rave scene which I had largely outgrown by the close of the 90s, but it had led to a keen interest in the production side of dance music. So in 1999 when I discovered the ‘wonder’ of credit cards, I went out and bought a Yamaha CS2x and RM1x sequencer to get started on my music journey. About a year after that, I remember discovering all this weird chillout music from Warp Records artists such as Aphex Twin, Plaid, Autechre, Black Dog Productions and of course, Boards of Canada. In those post-rave days, I didn’t really like the whole pop-trance explosion that was going on, it was all too clean and safe, but when I heard Warp’s output I was hooked on that left-field sound.
Mike – I understand you’ve been involved in some online kerfuffles in the past, particularly surrounding an illegitimate release under the Boards of Canada name – can you give us your version of the history about that, as well as your current thoughts regarding the matter?
“What the hell, lets try something risky.”
Nick – Ah, the “Chameleon” fake. At that time (late 2010, I think…), I was running my own label, SKP Recordings, so I was on a guerrilla marketing rampage. Viral videos were just starting to become a thing, and digital distribution was starting to become the accepted norm. I had constantly been compared to BoC in reviews and was well aware of their radio silence dating back to 2005. I used to spend hours arguing on the Black Dog Towers board about how independent musicians don’t ever seem to get a fair chance unless it’s a leg up from someone already established. So I decided to put that to the test in my own twisted way. I created the “Chameleon” track and then uploaded it to YouTube masquerading as new Boards of Canada material. I noticed straight away there was a 50/50 split in the comments, some people actually believed it was them, which convinced me to push it further. I knew lots of established names were starting to move from the traditional label driven promotion setup, to self-published iTunes releases cutting out the middleman. With BoC’s 5-6 year radio silence and this new distribution becoming the norm, I thought, “what the hell, lets try something risky.” So I uploaded the “Chameleon” track to iTunes mistagged as Boards of Canada and published by Music70. 48 hours later, the internet went absolutely insane, with even mainstream media sources picking up on it. Same thing that happened on YouTube happened here, a percentage of people believed it was BoC, and now through an official channel like iTunes they were even more convinced.
Needless to say it didn’t take long before Warp took action and I got the smack down. Once it was discovered that I wasn’t an outright scammer and that it was merely a naive stunt, Warp were okay with me, and all the proceeds were turned over to them. I’ve never been sure what BoC themselves thought of it, but i do hope there are no hard feelings. It was an odd transition period in the music industry which enabled the hoax to occur. I very much doubt the anyone could pull it off today without some sort of ‘red flag’ going up. I suspect the way digital releases were administered changed significantly after the event.
You can read an article that covers this incident on Brainchops here.
Mike – What are the origins of SKP? What does SKP stand for?
Nick – SKP is really just a bad acronym or shorthand version of Skeptical Productions (the first incarnation of SKP Recordings). If I remember correctly it originally stemmed from a forum post somewhere. I adopted it as a moniker and prefixed all of my projects with it. It doesn’t really make any sense but it sounds cool.
Mike – How long have you been using Reason? What drew you to using Reason as opposed to other music-making programs?
Reason 6 became a viable solution for me and still is to this day. In fact, it’s just got better and better.
Nick – I didn’t start using Reason wholesale until version 6 in 2011, before that I was a pure hardware guy. I did flirt with Reason a few times around version 2.5 and have a couple of earlier EP releases that contain Reason tracks alongside hardware only tunes, and nobody ever noticed the difference. Eventually, once I’d had kids and could no longer get away with shutting myself in the studio for hours, or taking up the entirety of the living room with gear, Reason 6 became a viable solution for me and still is to this day. In fact, it’s just got better and better.
Mike – When and how did you get involved in sound design? Are you self-taught or did you learn from someone/somewhere?
Nick – I’m purely self-taught. In the early days I was always obsessive about getting things sounding “right” so I spent inordinate amounts of time tweaking things until they were. Usually when I started an album project, I would make a big bank of sounds which I would then use to create the tracks. My ReFills are basically an extension of that process.
Mike – Moving more towards the present, what are your current goals when it comes to music?
Nick – With music, I just intend to “keep on keeping on.” I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever stop doing. Plus with the ReFill projects, I now have huge banks of new sounds to play with!
Mike – Do you work on music for a living? If so, do you focus more on producing music or sound design? Which do you prefer and why?
The music and sound design go hand in hand for me, one can’t exist without the other.
Nick – I am now currently ‘surviving’ from my music and sound design endeavours, which is nice. We are poor, but happy keeping the wheels turning and enjoying the day to day work. The music and sound design go hand in hand for me, one can’t exist without the other. I’ve never been a presets guy from day one. Always liked to roll my own.
Mike – It seems like you’ve been in the game for a while, but you didn’t make a commercial ReFill until Reason 10 – and now with Granular Manoeuvres and Europa Grid Sequence, you’ve covered a lot of ground in a short period. Can you explain your thought process behind this shift?
Nick – I had thought about releasing sound packs for a long, long time, but honestly I just never got around to it. I remember doing YouTube videos back in 2013 where I would just hit record and make a sound with Thor or Antidote or something – the seeds were planted back then. I think it was Navi Retlav that suggested on the old Propellerhead board that I should make a ReFill, so it’s better late than never I suppose!
Mike – What’s your process when creating a ReFill? Do you target a genre, or say, “I want that many pads and this many basses,” or create random sounds until you have enough?
I tend to start off with a concept, much like the way I would approach music making.
Nick – I tend to start off with a concept, much like the way I would approach music making. For example Granular Manoeuvres was focused on my initial influences (Aphex etc) mixed with a bit of 80s soundtrack stuff, and Europa Grid Sequence is firmly planted in the direction of a space opera with a very obvious theme, however, in the right hands they are not genre-specific – that isn’t an approach I ever intend to follow. I do however like to make a decision early on about the amount of patches, it gives me a very specific goal that allows me to work on the product systematically. I work in quarterly cycles so I have a 3 month personal deadline on ReFill projects.
Mike – When creating a patch (in Reason or generally), what is your approach? Do you have a sound in mind when you start, or is it a lot of tweaking until you arrive at a suitable result (or perhaps a mix of these)?
Nick – Honestly, I just start messing about until something clicks in my mind. Once I have reached a point where I have a very definite idea (very much like the inspiration to write a song), I will stick with that and then name the patch based on whatever chain of thought the sound has taken me down (again very much like naming a piece of music).
Mike – What is the type of sound that you have the most difficulty with and why? (talking about categories like leads, pads, basses, etc.)
Nick – Hah. Basses. I really struggle with basses. In my own music, pads, leads, ambience, and basses are all interchangeable. It’s only on rare occasions that I will reach for a generic monophonic bass sound, so it’s hard to make them and be creative with it, but hopefully I’ve done alright! 🙂
Mike – Can you give us any hints regarding future projects?
Incoming in approximately 3 months will be a collection of Combinator patches that use every device Reason 10 has to offer.
Nick – Well, now that Europa Grid Sequence is completed and running free, it’s back to the drawing board. Incoming in approximately 3 months will be a collection of Combinator patches that use every device Reason 10 has to offer. So it’ll be patches that make use of the players, Pangea, Humana, et al. as well as golden oldies like Thor and Malstrom. The ReFill theme is yet to be decided.
I also just completed a bank of patches and Combinators for a couple of new Rack Extensions that should be out very soon.
Mike – What is your favorite device in Reason and why? (maybe stock and non-stock)
Nick – Stock: Pulverizer. It’s a very versatile stock filter. You can do soooo much with it. Among other things, its great for adding subtle saturation and tremolo. Typical Propellerhead Swiss army knife device that I couldn’t live without.
Non-stock: Rostnomo. It’s a fantastic waveform generator for use in Grain. Randomize the patch until you have something nice, sample it, put it in Grain and hit the set button. Voilà, infinite new sounds… and it’s free!
Mike – Is there anything else at all that you’d like to share with the audience?
Nick – Stop being such negative Nancies and be excellent to each other. Reason has a great community. Please do not destroy it.
Nick, thank you for talking and for Europa Grid Sequence! Again, head to Nick’s website by clicking here to see what this new ReFill has to offer. You won’t be disappointed!