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Controller 7 interview + South Paw Symphony (Controller 7 mix!) by Buddy Peace!

The Bay Area’s own Controller 7 let us pick his brain a bit, allowing us to cover some hometown history and future plans. Humble and to the point, he breaks down his early path in music, his beatmaking process, and the making of his enjoyable ’02 release, Left Handed Straw. Here are seven questions and answers with the low-key beatsmith.

1.) How did you get involved in making beats?
I started with cassettes from The Colombia House music club. I then started buying cds [when they were still in the long boxes]. I bought a few hip-hop 12-inches when I was about 15 or 16, but I didn't have a turntable. I would sneak into my brother’s room and record them onto tape when he was gone. He had one of those crappy all in one stereos that had a turntable on top. I eventually got more and decided to get my own turntable. I had a crappy 8-track cassette receiver that I used for my stereo. It had an aux input and a phono input and I was able to push a button halfway down, allowing both a cd player and a turntable to play at the same time. It was like a mixer without separate channels or faders. I was hooked and shortly after bought some 1200s. I bought them from the classifieds in the newspaper when I was 16 or 17 and I still use the same 1200s today. Eventually I decided I wanted to make my own beats. I bought a Roland MS-1 sampler, which is a terrible sampler. I remember telling my parents that "all I need now is a drum machine and I'll be able to make beats." I bought a Roland DR-5 or something like that. Also terrible. It was a bad combo and wasn't what I wanted.

I used to shop at Tower Records a lot and I met Dave Dub, who had been on an early Peanut Butter Wolf EP. He worked there and we used to talk whenever I’d go in there. He was in a group with this guy named Tape Master Steph. They knew I had a Tascam 4-track and asked if they could come over and record a song. Steph brought over his Ensoniq EPS and I was blown away. It sampled and had a sequencer! That was amazing to me. I found one at a used shop, sold the ms-1 and the dr-5 and moved onto the EPS. That's how it all started for me.

2.) Walk new producers through your production process.
I've gone through different phases. When I first started I was just really innocent and didn't know what I was doing. I would get so excited to hear something looping and throw some drums on it. I would make beats really fast.

These days I actually take more time and plan things better. I used to just grab stuff and make a beat in an hour or so. There was definitely a benefit to that. It was fun and carefree and I didn't get hung up on minor details. Now I'll spend more time trying to get things right. I like to figure out the whole map of the song ahead of time. Almost like an outline for an essay.

I usually start with a main sample. Sometimes I’ll start with drums, but I usually start with the sample first. I’ll go through tons of records and look for things that work well with what I’ve already got. Sometimes I'll spend days, months, or even years looking for something that I think is missing. A lot of the time I just never find that missing element. That's kind of what differentiates a beat and a song for me. Some samples are more flexible and allow me to develop on them and the ideas come naturally. Sometimes I'll be working on something and there is just nothing I can add to change it. So, in those cases I usually just decide that that one will be just a "beat" and not a "song" if that makes any sense.

3) Left Handed Straw is a great album; the artwork, everything was smooth.Talk about making it and describe the time in which it was made.
I made Left Handed Straw when I was going to Berkeley. I was so excited about music then and I was eager to work on anything I could. I made most of that stuff really fast. The funny thing is that a lot of the beats were made in an hour or so, but piecing the whole album together took about 6 months. I had most of the individual parts done, but I would spend 3 or 4 days getting the transition from one beat to another right. Sometimes there would be a drop in record static or something that just felt wrong to me and I'd go back in and add little things to make it sound more seamless. I'd add little things that you don't really hear, but help the overall flow sound more natural.

I made it using a 4-track and an mpc2000. The funny thing about the 4-track was that once I finished a section I was stuck with it. It wasn't like pro tools where I could easily take a chunk from the beginning and move it to the end. So, when you listen to LHS you are listening to how it came together over the 6-month period. I laid out the first 10-minutes while I was on Christmas break in 1999. I was originally piecing it all together as a mixtape for my friends to listen to. It was like a combo of all these beats I'd made over the past year and a bunch of little skits and records I had sampled for other projects. I made a lot of stuff specifically for LHS and specifically to fill in certain spaces. I had a micro-cassette recorder to record lectures at school, but I ended up using it to record sounds all over Berkeley. A lot of that stuff ended up creating the atmosphere of the record. There are a lot of things on that record that embarrass me, but I still enjoy it for what it is.

4.) As a producer, what is your dream project?
I used to want to make some magnum opus sample based epic masterpiece, but I'm not all that concerned with that these days. I'd like to make a whole album with a vocalist, but I've never really found a good fit. I'm slowly working on a few projects right now. I don't have any real dream project. I'm just happy working on stuff I like to listen to. I'm not trying to be famous. I just want to make stuff that people respect and enjoy.
5.) How did Buddy Peace’s South Paw Symphony happen?
Buddy Peace bought a t-shirt off of me about 7 years ago. We ended up talking through email and he sent me a cassette he made of some remixes and mixes. I really liked it. It had some great stuff on it. We've kept in touch since then and he's probably sent me about 30 other mix cds. He's crazy. I actually can't remember if he asked me if he could do the South Paw Symphony thing or if he just did it. It was right after my "expansions" ep came out. He did a great job. It's kind of like his take on my music. It's more than just a mix. He did some re-edits and made some tracks of his own using my songs. He's an incredibly nice guy.

***Buddy Peace's South Paw Symphony in its entirety below. Thanks Bud!

6.) What’s a cool, obscure track you think our readers should check out?
Dennis Olivieri ‘s "I Cry In The Morning". It was made famous because DJ Shadow sampled it for 6 Days, but the original is amazing. It's just a beautiful song.

***Hear “I Cry In The Morning”.


7.) What’s on your plate next?
I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I've been on a bit of a musical vacation. I haven't put anything out in awhile, but I've got some stuff done. Hopefully I'll get some stuff out soon. I've got about two albums worth of stuff done. One is more of a collection of beats and out-takes from the past 7-years and the other is more of a focused album, along the lines of an updated Left Handed Straw. I've got some mixes done too. Some half-done. Some ideas still in my head.

***For more info on Controller 7 and his releases pictured above, please visit Controller 7.com

***To find out more about Buddy Peace and his ongoing work, visit his myspace and 2600 Recordings.