TWO LOUD
May 1, 2002 12:00 PM, by Chris Gill
TIMO MAAS raises a glass of French champagne and proposes a toast. “To 14,” he says, clinking glasses with his production partner, Martin Buttrich, in celebration of the debut of “To Get Down” at No. 14 on the UK pop singles chart. Cups of coffee, bags of fresh German pastries and the remains of several “jazz cigarettes” rest on the table — some of the daily staples that fuel Maas' and Buttrich's sessions at Time Tools Studios in Hannover, Germany.
Considering the contrasting upper and downer effects of their consumables, it's no wonder that the new Timo Maas album, Loud (Kinetic, 2002), boasts such a wide palette of musical styles and attitudes. The vocal tracks alone cover the gamut of dance-music styles: “To Get Down” is a raging, guitar-driven stomper; “Caravan” provides a creepy trip-hop vibe courtesy of Finley Quaye; “Help Me” features a vast, cinematic soundscape and dramatic vocals by Kelis; and “Shifter” is a funky, driving tune with a sassy rap by MC Chickaboo. The instrumental tracks are similarly diverse: In addition to Maas' signature 4/4 “hard 'n' wet” sound on “Manga,” “Old School Vibes” and “Like Love,” the album includes moody interludes such as “Hard Life,” “Bad Days” and “Hash Driven.” (“I called it that because it's as long as the time it takes you to roll a spliff,” says Maas.) Add in the previously released tracks “Ubik” and “O.C.B.” as well as “That's How I've Been Dancing,” featuring vocalist Martin Bettinghaus, and you have one of the most diverse, eclectic and satisfying artist albums ever to come from a dance-music act.
“The music we make reflects how we feel and where we are,” says Maas about his comfortable work environment. “You can hear our surroundings and even the weather in our productions.”
The ongoing activity at Time Tools Studios also plays a significant role. The floor where Maas' and Buttrich's studio is located also houses studios for hip-hop, pop and other dance-music producers. “There's a lot of activity going on around here, and everyone is working in a different musical direction,” says Maas. “We don't fight against each other, and we're not jealous. They'll call us assholes only when we are really being assholes. They're not upset because we're successful. All the other guys are successful in their music direction as well. Christian Fleps does pop for Jeane and Colorblind; Dennis Gökdag — we call him Mini Wilkie — is producing Ian Wilkie; and there's some hip-hop in the other studio. When you run out of ideas or you're paranoid from listening to the same thing all day, you can go next door, have a puff, drink a coffee and shake your head to something else. It's very healthy.”
The working relationship and friendship between Maas and Buttrich is also healthy, which may explain why the pair has managed to produce more than 100 singles and remixes together over the six-and-a-half years they've known each other. Buttrich and Maas met in 1995 when they were working phone sales for the distribution department of Peppermint Jam Records. “I used to do phone sales for German Telecom before that,” recalls Maas. “I had developed a rough style of selling things. I was teaching Martin to be a little more aggressive. He was often shocked by what I said on the phone, but I sold records. We just liked each other.”
At the time, Maas was developing a name for himself as a DJ and had co-produced a handful of 12-inch singles. Buttrich had experience producing dance music, as well, and he had already released several singles under the names Rhythm Assault and Phunk Diggaz for the Peppermint Jam and Adam & Eve labels. (He still puts out solo releases under the moniker Sounds of Life.) “I played snare drum in a German folk marching band for six years,” says Buttrich. “When I was 16, I saw a computer, keyboard and sampler at my friend's house, and I asked him if he could show me how he made music with it. I liked it and I started doing some tracks with him. After a while, he moved on to other musical pursuits, so I set up my own studio. It just came together.”
Maas and Buttrich have come quite a long way since they first collaborated on their Kinetic A.T.O.M. single “Borg Destroyer.” In addition to finishing their first album, the duo has recently done remixes for Roger Sanchez (“Nothing to Prove”), Garbage (“Breaking up the Girl”) and Moby (“We Are All Made of Stars”), adding to a list of remixes that already includes Madonna, Kelis and Placebo. Timo Maas' popularity outside dance-music circles is notable. “His music makes me want to get up and walk around,” says Garbage's Duke Erikson, showing that even if you can't dance, Maas' music still will move you.
Maas plans to bring Buttrich to America when he tours here in May and June. While Maas mans the decks at clubs and festivals, Buttrich will be working in recording studios in Los Angeles and New York, further pushing the boundaries of the Timo Maas sound. “We plan on spending some time hanging out and soaking up the vibe of those places,” says Maas. “It should be inspiring to hang out at a streetside café in Manhattan, watching all the freaks walk by.”
Finishing up the last drops of champagne, Maas leads us into the studio to listen to the freshly completed remix of the new Moby single. Within the first few beats, it's obvious that the duo has another chart-topper on their hands. But right now, the pair are more interested in following the success of Loud. “I've got two more bottles of champagne in the car,” Timo confidently confesses.
What made you decide to do an artist album?
Timo Maas: It was time for that. We've put out a lot of singles and remixes, but it was time to really define our sound. As a DJ and remixer, that's what I need to do to go to the next level.
Did the work you did on “Ubik” influence you to do an album?
Maas: We did that song about a year before we started working on the album — we started getting the vibe in November of 2000. “Ubik” wasn't really connected, but the song was too good to not include on the album. We didn't look back at much of our old stuff. We were more concerned with looking ahead and thinking about what could be cool.
You cover a lot of ground on the album: progressive dance tracks, moody instrumental interludes, some breaks and some vocal tracks. Why did you do that instead of making a straight-ahead dance album?
Maas: This is dance music in every direction. We've never gone in any particular direction or done anything that people have expected us to do. We wanted to go even further into the unexpected. The album is a showcase for what we are able to do. Just to do a DJ album of 13 or 14 floor slammers would be boring. Our interests are bigger than that. We're into hip-hop, funk or whatever. I don't see why there should be any definitions. If we want to use guitars on a dance record, then why not? It feels good.
I hear a lot more natural instruments on this album, such as guitar, bass, piano and organ. Even the drums sound like acoustic drums instead of electronic ones.
Maas: Martin works very hard to program the drums so they sound natural. Before we started on this album, we did a couple of sessions with musicians to gather ideas. Some of those sessions inspired tracks that appeared on the album. It was a natural process. That's part of the reason why the album took awhile to make. We both had to agree on the direction. It wasn't that easy because I was traveling a lot and Martin was back here in the studio. We'd phone each other a lot. Our phone bills were very expensive last year. I spend every minute when I'm here in Germany in the studio. We're very proud of what we came up with. It sounds quite laid back and honest.
How does your collaboration work when you're on the road? Does Martin send you MP3 files?
Maas: We try to do the basic work when we're together in the studio. Creativity isn't always there when you want it, but we try to do as much concentrated work as we can in a couple of days. While I'm traveling, Martin will work on the mix.
How do your songs start? Do you have a direction in mind?
Maas: It depends on whether it's a remix or a production. When we do a remix of a vocal track, we'll work on the vocals first and build a drum loop and sounds around it. Sometimes we'll be working on a track and realize it could be a good backing for the remix we have to do the next day. It really depends.
How did “Manga” start out?
Maas: I was coming into the studio one morning, and Martin was listening to a couple of weird sounds. He was just going through some samples. When I came into the studio I said, “What the fuck is that sound? It sounds weird.” We put some techie 4/4 backing behind it, and it started to come together. A lot of things just come together because the vibe is right.
How did you do the breakdown on that? It seems like the sound is simultaneously speeding up and slowing down.
Martin Buttrich: I used [Wave Mechanics] Speed, which is a pitch-shifter plug-in. You can graphically assign what direction you want to go. I assigned one axis to pitch and the other to speed.
How did “To Get Down” come together?
Maas: The guitar part came from a session we recorded with a guitarist before we started the album. We originally wanted to do a big-beat song, but it sounded too obviously like a colleague of ours [Fatboy Slim]. We decided to use a 4/4 beat that was stomping and slower to create a cool housey groove at 112 bpm. It was not as obvious as going in the other direction.
How did you choose the different vocalists you used on the album?
Maas: Martin Bettinghaus is a friend of ours. When he did “Ubik” with us, it was amazing. We thought it was time to do another song with him for the album. He is part of our good vibe. So we brought him back for “That's How I've Been Dancing.”
Buttrich: He helped us out a lot when we were recording “Shifter” with MC Chickaboo. He would hang around and say whether something was cool or not.
Maas: He was a vocal coach for nearly everyone — Kelis, Chickaboo and Finley Quaye. He was often in the studio when I wasn't here and supported Martin by doing creative work. Chickaboo is a friend of Leon Alexander's girlfriend, so it was a family thing. Kelis was on our wish list. Martin introduced me to her music. He gave me her CD, which I still have. Martin told me to listen to it and tell him what I thought. I loved it, and he said that he wanted her to collaborate with us.
Buttrich: The funny thing is, we were asked to do a remix for her.
Maas: At first, they weren't so sure about having her collaborate with us, but then they said they'd do it if we'd do a Timo Maas remix of one of her songs. So we did it, and we got the collaboration. Everything went wrong with that session, but by the end of the day, it was one of the best songs we've ever done. That song worked really good as an instrumental. [The instrumental version, called “Maas Attacks,” is featured on Paul Oakenfold's Ibiza (Perfecto, 2001) compilation.] After half a year of thinking about it, having the idea, refusing it and having the idea again, we finally got her in the studio. She was ill with a cold, but she gave us a perfect performance.
Using Finley Quaye was our publisher's idea. We asked them about collaborations. Even though we're big in dance music, a lot of artists we approached turned us down. To make things easier for us, we asked our publisher, EMI London, to help us. Finley is with the same company, as well, so they made it possible. We had some trouble getting him into the studio, but we finally arranged a day, and he made it. He wasn't the easiest artist to work with, but he's fantastic. Let's just say he's extremely spiritual in every direction. [Holds hands as if he's smoking a joint.] It wasn't too bad. I was still able to drive at the end of the session.
Phil Barnes, who did the vocals for “To Get Down,” works with Christian in the studio next to ours. We tried all these different vocalists, but their singing was too obvious. We decided to give Phil a try, and he did exactly what we wanted. He wrote the lyrics, too.
Did Leon Alexander write the lyrics for “We Are Nothing”?
Maas: Leon asked me what he should write. The lyrics were originally for “Old School Vibes,” but the vocals didn't work. We liked the lyrics, so we created these weird noises to go along with them.
“Help Me” is the first track, but it goes to a silent breakdown pretty quickly.
Maas: We just thought that it was a fantastic song, and we wanted to put it first on the album to surprise people. We weren't thinking that there is an extremely long breakdown that early.
It does catch you by surprise and force you to listen.
Maas: We also tried to create a track order where the second half of the album wasn't boring, which happens very often. Most times, the songs that aren't that good are at the end of the album. We wanted people to listen to this album all the way through to the last song. I think that the second half is even more driving than the first half.
You have a lot of hardware, especially outboard processors, in your studio. Do you prefer to use hardware more than software?
Maas: He has everything.
Buttrich: And I use it all because it is so expensive. A lot of plug-ins don't sound so nice to me.
Do you track to Digidesign Pro Tools?
Buttrich: I use Pro Tools hardware with [Emagic] Logic Audio software. I do some MIDI sequencing, as well, but I prefer hard disk recording. The sequencing on Pro Tools is not so good. And you can set Logic so everything reads in German.
Is the Studio Electronics SE-1 still your main synth module?
Buttrich: I use it for basses most of the time. Sometimes I'll have a friend of mine who is a bass player come in to play bass, too. I'm more of a programmer than a player. I know the keys, and I can play some easy things, but I'm not great. I just hire someone else to play what I can't.
Do you use any soft synths?
Buttrich: Sometimes I use Native Instruments' Absynth, but most soft synths sound too clean. We like dirty sounds. For small things, Absynth is perfect.
Is the E-mu E6400 your main sampler, or are you using a soft sampler?
Buttrich: I've just started working with the EXS24, but I like to have something in my hands. The E-mu's filters sound quite warm. I'll go through presets on my samplers and program them with Logic. Most of my drum sounds are samples.
Maas: Martin never uses drum loops. He programs everything. The only loops we use are things like guitar and bass that we've recorded here — all the stuff that has to sound warm and that you can't really program to sound as funky as we'd like.
What plug-ins do you use the most?
Buttrich: I like [Wave Mechanics] Time Blender and Pitch Blender. They're some nice toys, but after a while, the sound is always the same. You can't use them much because they are so unusual and distinctive-sounding.
Maas: Real machines sound different all the time. Maybe it is getting 5 volts more power, and it will give you a different vibe. That happens a lot with the old machines. That's one of the main reasons why Martin is not into plug-ins and soft synths.
Buttrich: I do like the Bomb Factory plug-in version of the Moogerfooger, which sounds quite good. I use a lot of equalizers and de-essers. I use a lot of Waves plug-ins, too. Plug-ins are good for fine-tuning. I always try to make sure that what I record sounds as good as possible before I record it.
Do you use your distortion pedals much?
Buttrich: I prefer to distort things on the Mackie mixer.
How did you two start working together?
Maas: I had a song that I had done with Gary D. called “Drug Oriented Society” by Klubkraft. Gary was going into a trance direction, and I wanted to make something more cool. The original song was too acidy for Gary, and I needed a B-side so I could release it. So I asked Martin to do the B-side. We just did it and were amused with it. We were very stoned the whole time, and we had a good time. We built up a team of three people — Andy Bolleshon was working with us, as well. He left the team one-and-a-half years ago. We did some more work together; I did my DJing; and we'd meet every couple of weeks in their studio. Martin and Andy were putting their studio together at Peppermint Jam. We did some remixes, and then the three of us did our first record together, which was Kinetic A.T.O.M.'s “Borg Destroyer.” And the rest is history. We did more and more until it turned into a full daytime job.
A lot of your early work still sounds fresh.
Maas: The biggest problem we had in the beginning was that Martin already had a sound that was like nothing else. No one wanted to hear an individual sound. Now, it is a good thing, but in the early years, it was hard to sell records. Martin did great records on his own, and we did great records together from the beginning, but no one was interested, because we sounded different. Martin was able to go in many directions, too, so one day he'd be doing tracks for Sounds of Life, then a Timo Maas song the next and then Kinetic A.T.O.M. or Orinoko. Martin is a really vibey person — both of us are. Since I've been playing our stuff out for a while, now it's a little easier. Martin is not going out to clubs, so he only knows underground dance music from the stuff that I play.
How have you managed to remain together for more than six years?
Maas: A DJ always searches for someone to realize his dreams. We don't have a contract together — it's a friendship. That's what holds us together as a team. We discuss everything. It's not always nice, but we always figure out a way to agree and make a handshake. We trust each other. With all the money that is involved right now, that's quite rare, but it's good. That's how it should work. We don't like stress at all. We try to avoid stress as much as possible. When he's not having a good time, I'll break his nose. [Laughs.] We're having fun. By the end of the day, we're laughing.
Some people say that it's not fair that the Timo Maas name appears on the records when Martin does the studio work. How do you justify that?
Maas: Timo Maas was never a single person doing the music. It was a collaboration from the beginning, initially between three people and now two. In the beginning, Martin wanted to stay in the background. I was the one who was going on the road as a DJ. He's been in my shadow, but I don't mind talking about him. Most of my colleagues have somebody working for them in the background, but only a few have someone as talented as Martin. He's a genius. I would not be able to do this on my own. Most of the press just asks for me, so I'm glad that we're doing this interview together. He's the man. He's got good ideas — sometimes.
Check out www.timomaas.com for the latest news about Timo Maas.
Timo Maas Gear
Apogee PSX-100 A/D/A converter
Apple Cinema display
Apple Macintosh G4
Behringer Ultra Curve Pro DSP 8024 digital stereo EQ/frequency analyzer
Big Briar Moogerfooger Lowpass Filter
Bomb Factory Moogerfooger plug-in bundle
Digidesign Pro Tools|24 hard disk recording system
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi distortion pedal
Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress
Electro-Harmonix Micro Bass Synthesizer
Electro-Harmonix Small Stone phase shifter
Emagic EXS24 sampler software
Emagic Logic Audio Platinum
Emagic Unitor 8 MIDI interface
E-Max 2 sampler
Empirical Labs Distressor
E-mu E6400 samplers (2)
Eventide Harmonizer
Genelec studio monitors
GML parametric EQ
Korg MS-20 synth
Lexicon 224 digital reverb
Lexicon 480L digital effects system
Mackie 32×8 mixer w/expander
Manley limiter
Manley mic preamps (2)
Native Instruments Absynth soft synth
Ramsonics HD-DEF 35 EQ
Roland RE-201 Space Echo
Roland XV-5080 128-voice synth module
Studio Electronics SE-1 synth module
Studio Electronics SE-1X synth module
TL Audio 5021 Dual Valve compressor
Universal Audio 1176LN compressor/limiter
Wave Mechanics Pitch Blender
Wave Mechanics Speed
Wave Mechanics Time Blender
Waves Platinum plug-in bundle
Yamaha NS-10 studio monitors
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