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New EDM Album Presence by Slowform

Slowform Finds Presence on Debut Album

Congratulations Kaitie on the release of your debut Album Presence! How much time did it take for you to complete the album and what were the most groundbreaking new concepts that you learned while making the album? 

Thank you! This project took just over a year.. Well, I guess a little more than a year if you count the tracks that were on my initial EP submissions that ended up being cut throughout the revision process. But, for the tracks that made it into the final project- just over a year. About half of the tunes on the album were worked on throughout that full year (sometimes taking a month or two off at a time), and the other half were written just a few months before submitting my final (once the project changed from an EP to a LP). 

I definitely learned a lot throughout this process. My mixing skills improved a ton (as I re-did some of the mixdowns 8+ times) and my listening/referencing skills improved lots too. I also got much faster– both in mixing and writing. Since I was working with a rapidly approaching deadline to get this wrapped up, I didn’t have the time to overthink things and waste sessions on the tiny details that don’t really matter. It was a great lesson in not procrastinating and just getting something done and out there. 

What are some of your favorite approaches for quickly getting a great idea down in the DAW? 

Always starting with an intro. Even if it’s super minimal and just some impacts/textures.. Creating a drop coming out of some sort of atmosphere/tension is soo much easier than trying to create a drop coming out of nothing (what I used to do). So often when I sit down to write I’ll start by opening Omnisphere and getting some sort of noisescape/texture just to get an atmosphere and vibe going (sometimes this initial sound makes it into the final version of the track, other times it doesn’t but is a great starting point to help get the ideas flowing). I also really like using the “convert audio to melody/harmony” feature to get the ideas flowing at the start. Either using a cool riff I found on splice or a sample of an old record or even just a soundscape that has a tonal quality- you can get really interesting chords/melodies that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own. Often I’ll use that as a starting place for my chords/melodies and then edit them to taste (ill.Gates did a TWD on this- Episode 205- Melodic Deconstruction).

Slowform

How do you approach Collabs? Do you have any best practices to share?

Honestly I haven’t really done that many collabs at this point- only two VERY early on with some good friends (s/o Trigem and Smoakland). These were both in like my first year of producing though so I hadn’t even begun to dive into mixing/phase 3 detailing, so there wasn’t a ton of back and forth on those projects other than getting the initial arrangement down. This is something I’m hoping to change come 2022 though!

Tell us about your new Product available in the Producer DJ marketplace.

I created a Presence LP sample pack for anyone who is interested in grabbing some of my sounds from the album. I basically went through all of my projects on the album and picked out my favorite sounds used in each and put them in this pack- so any and every sound I thought was dope enough to keep handy in my library is in here 🙂 There are various drums/percs, atmospheres/textures, melodies, mid basses, wubs, subs, effects, and a lot of crazy sound design-y sounds. I also stemmed out “Tune In” and “Just Be” and are making those available as well.

Who are you listening to for inspiration these days?

Ivy Lab, Truth, CharlestheFirst, Kll Smth, Nils Frahm, Tsuruda, Khiva, Atyya, The Widdler

What are your top 5 favorite VST’s at the moment?

Omnisphere, mWaveshaper, Portal, Thermal, GClip

What can we expect from you for the rest of 2021 and beyond?

I’ll probably release one more single before the end of the year and will be putting a mix up on my soundcloud towards the end of the year as well (featuring some tracks from the album as well as a handful of unreleased tunes I’ve been working on lately). You can get the first full A/V experience at the Dojo TV House Party on Wed. Nov 24th. And for 2022 I would really like to put together a body of work again- either 2 EPs or 1 LP. I really enjoyed creating a project like that. I’d also like to release a single at least every other month- shooting for every month though. 

Slowform

Is there anything else that you would like to share with us?

Really just want to share my appreciation for ill.Gates, the Dojo, all of my mentors, and the amazing community here. This album would not have been created without you all. And thank you so much to anyone who’s taken the time to listen to my music and share it with friends. I could have never imagined this is where life would take me and I am just so grateful for everyone helping me down this path <3 Looking forward to seeing where my music goes from here. All the love!

Pick up the Presence Sample Pack here and the Presence Stem Pack here

Stream/Download the Presence Album here.

Follow on Social Media:

Website: https://slowform.producerdj.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/slowformmusic

IG: https://www.instagram.com/slowform.music

TW: https://twitter.com/slowformmusic

SC: https://soundcloud.com/slowform

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6djBciTcjdySyRXq3ZQAWw?si=Ej_TAiM4QOOE0MJqAI2J9Q&dl_branch=1

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzOBAoVxkYsgiwXUWJd56A

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