Mouth Water producer and founder, Lawrence Fancelli combines acoustic instruments and soundscapes with analog and digital synths to deliver a nostalgic blend of modern dance-floor-oriented beats. Lawrence spent many years honing his production skills behind the scenes while working as a sound engineer and playing bass in bands in New York and in his native Florence, Italy.
Now, Mouth Water has enlisted the production prowess of legendary Italo house producer Alex Neri (Planet Funk/Kamasutra) and DJ, producer, and drummer Matteo Zarcone for a blistering remix package.
To celebrate the drop of his ‘Arrowhead – Remixes’ EP, Mouth Water invites EG into his OSB Studio in the stunning Tuscan countryside for 5 creative studio tips.
1. Sloppy editing
When copying and pasting clips in the daw, keep the quantize grid on but don’t be too precise, this way happy accidents can occur such as your clip landing a 16th or an 8th note earlier or later than intended. Most of the time this won’t work, but every now and then it could yield some pleasant results which you would never have thought of.
2. Don’t try to make all elements perfectly audible.
I’ve heard many teachers say a good mix is one where all elements are well balanced and perfectly audible, but I personally disagree. I like a few elements to jump out at you and others to just be lurking in the background.
3. Tweak the knobs throughout
I like to record my musical performance first, then run that midi file into an analog synth while tweaking its knobs throughout the entire length of the track. Even just subtle little tweaks make it more alive than keeping the same static sound throughout.
4. Automatic backups
Schofield’s second law states that data doesn’t really exist unless you have at least 2 copies of it. Let’s make that is 3 just to be sure. So I have an external drive backing up my work automatically every hour, plus a drive that backs everything up when I plug it in at the end of the day (or night). I also like to use different hard drive brands or models to reduce the probability of them breaking at the same time.
5. Timing
Figure out which time of day you are more productive doing certain tasks in order to boost productivity. While some boring tasks like editing are usually better carried out during daytime, most creative people are more inspired at night. Whether it’s the lack of distractions or being tired that makes us more creative, we should figure out when to do what and plan our day accordingly.
Mouth Water’s new ‘Arrowhead – Remixes’ EP is out now via Through The Void. Purchase your copy here.
