10 minute read
ADP: The Hit Maker
London-based producer and artist, ADP, has come a long way since his bedroom DJ days, where he spent much of his time recreating the beats he loved from rap songs, finding samples, and remaking them. Even back then, though, he was forward-thinking: he knew music production was where he needed to be. Self-taught through trial and error, his work ethic, determination, and natural talent for beatmaking paved the way for a musical life where composition, and now complex production, have turned out to be two of his finest attributes. It’s led to work with a string of major international names: Krept & Konan, Chris Brown, Dua Lipa, M.I.A, and most recently, a new project with Pharrell. Quite the journey. We sit down with this humble creator in his loft-style West London studio, where the lightbulb moments happen.
ADP has been in this space for two and a half years – the minute you walk in, you can tell it’s been treated well acoustically, but it’s also got that ‘homely’ vibe that he likes so much, with great natural light – if he’s in the mood for it. He’s just back from a BRIT Awards party, so is happy to keep the blind shut this morning.“Long night,” he smiles, switches on the air conditioning, and sinks into his chair.
We start off talking about some of the artists, and big records, that have influenced ADP’s style and overall approach to producing music.
“I was a big fan of Dre – The Chronic was a game changer for me, along with the whole Diddy / Bad Boy era, and Biggie, of course – that ‘90s scene was pretty much all I listened to,” he reflects. “Then I got into Swizz Beatz, DMX, Rough Ryderz, and the early Cash Money [Records] stuff, Master P, and the down south trap stuff.”
Once he’d started recreating the beats he loved, he began making his own, and it went from there.
“It was just trial and error, and researching stuff online, like ‘what does a compressor do?’,” ADP explains. “I kept going until it sounded right to me, and then it was about figuring out the process, and working out in what order I needed to do things with the audio. Which plugin comes after which, and so on - and then make a chain.”
Most projects ADP embarks on, he approaches with a fresh mindset, though he always has his Pro Tools recording template that he takes everywhere with him.
“It really works for me, because as soon as anyone hears what I can do – a vocal recording, for example - they seem to love the sound of it,” he says. I ask him to take us through this magic chain. “Well, I have the Manley Reference mic, which is great – that’s going into the Manley Core Reference channel strip, and then I go into my UA 1176 - and that’s just so clean that by the time it gets into my UA Apollo, I hardly have to do anything. It’s such a great chain.”
And from there, it’s into his go-to Waves plugins, of which there are a handful:
“Once in Pro Tools, it’s literally a case of me opening up my Waves Renaissance bundle: I love the R-EQ, the R-Comp, and the R-Vox - and I also dial in the C6 multiband compressor, which is great. Then, I’ll use the doubler on the lead vocal, just to add some thickness, really, and that’s it. I’ll bring in the Pro Tools standard reverb, and then my go-to delay is the Waves H-Delay, which is just amazing. And it just works every time. The Waves stuff is sick, and every part of my chain counts, you know? It’s part of my sound, for sure.”
The word ‘producer’ has become a funny one in recent years – some creators and composers who self-produce often don’t believe they’re actually producers; and on the flip-side, some of the real old school might still argue that you’re not a producer unless you’re in a huge room on an SSL or Neve, with an engineer by your side. We laugh a little at the various interpretations, and decide that any creator with talent could and should label themselves a producer. Which brings us to ADP’s unique route into production.
“It honestly started back in the Myspace days! [laughs],” he says. Really? “Yeah, man - I was connecting with people, sending beats to people, and then they’d take the beats, record vocals over them on their bedroom setups, and send me the vocals back, which I would then drop into a mix, and try to create a track. Essentially, I was making them sound as I thought they should sound... with varying results! [smiles] It would literally be, ‘nope, that doesn’t sound great, let me try again’, until I found I really had it. And eventually, I did.”
SLIDING DOORS
ADP is most definitely self-taught, I decide – which makes his story even more impressive, and interesting. But there were pivotal moments along the way, of course, which opened doors that have played crucial roles in his musical journey so far.
“Luckily enough, I met my old landlord - Hank Hughes – at uni, as he went back to do a degree later in life. He had a building at Ealing Studios, and he’d heard my stuff, and liked what I was doing,” ADP says, adding that he’d already done a work experience module at Hughes’ studio as part of his commercial music degree at Westminster. “He believed in what I was doing, and said there was a studio there for me if I wanted it. He said he wouldn’t charge me full rate until I was up on my feet – so I kind of fell into having my own studio, which was amazing. Especially in that place, as everyone would go there.”
Rather than audio lightbulb moments, as such, ADP says during his time at university, he and a couple of his friends ‘just connected’, and ended up making songs together for the whole three years.
“At that point, I guess I thought, ‘ok, now I’m a producer, I know what I’m doing’,” he smiles. “Well, I thought I knew... I still think I know what I’m doing, but you have to learn every day, man, in this business...”
Wise words, indeed. Conversation turns to some of the artists that have had an impact on ADP’s career so far – and vice versa, of course. Krept & Konan is certainly one.
“Yeah, we definitely just connected,” ADP reflects. “We did one session – it wasn’t what they wanted to do, actually, but was what their manager was going for at the time – and then they were looking to do an EP with rap beats. From there, they liked what I did, so I ended up doing their whole mix tape, and as a result, just ended up working more and more with them.”
TREND SETTERS
Mix tapes and EPs are at the top of the tree in terms of what artists seem to be churning out in 2019. I ask ADP if the industry is in any danger of losing the album.
“Well, people aren’t doing albums as much, certainly not to begin with,” he says. “It’s single, single, EP, mix tape. Then, later on in their career, they will be more likely to go down the album route.”
Through Krept & Konan, ADP met South London rapper, Yungen, which led to more high-end production work:
“I did his Black and Red project/mix tape, which led to him signing a deal with RCA, and then I did all his singles after that; he’s been a big part of my career journey, and still is. I also did a lot on Project Purple that he just dropped - and I mixed it as well. Yungen and Krept & Konan were the main two in terms of pivotal points in my career, I would say.” And then the phone started to ring. A lot. “Yeah, I think people saw that I was doing full projects for artists, not just one-offs – doing ‘start to end’ showed how involved in the whole process I actually am, I think.”
Dua Lipa and Chris Brown are two other huge names that appear on ADP’s musical resume.
“The Dua thing was me and songwriter, Andrew Jackson; we got in, wrote a song, and at the time, he and Dua were represented by the same management,” ADP reveals. “And they heard it – and loved it. So we got her to cut it a couple of times, and we had it perfect. She was performing the track, Want To, on tour, and everyone went crazy for it. It didn’t end up going on the original album release, but it got synced with Jaguar with their E-Pace car, so got released as a single, and now it’s on the Complete Edition Deluxe. It came organically, really, which was nice.” As did his work with Chris Brown: “Yeah, me and a mate of mine worked on this project - he was in with Chris’s team through some of his LA connections. So we put together four or five songs for him, and sent them through. The first two we made, they came back to us on the same day asking us to send an instrumental, as Chris was going to cut them there and then! Now, he cuts a lot of songs in a day, so there were no guarantees, but a year later, we’re still on the project - and that was amazing. This was just through the writer’s connections.”
THE LONDON SCENE
The music scene in L.A. is arguably as good as it’s ever been – but what does ADP think of the current scene in London, and its young talented creatives?
“I mean, it is all so accessible now; I see a lot of new producers on Instagram, and they’ll just make beats and tag the artist in their story, or their post, and then people just see it and like it; and then the producer starts getting songs with these people, and they’re getting released, and getting names for themselves,” he says. “But when I started, it wasn’t like that at all. You had to position yourself in certain rooms and circles to build a relationship, and get your stuff heard; just hang around, and someone might say, ‘oh, what are you working on?’ And I’d be like, ‘here you go’, and I’d play something. But now it’s great due to the accessibility of it all. Amazing, really. Just put something out there, tag them, and they’ll hear it.”
As ADP goes to pull up a recent mix, I spot a pair of Pioneer DJ decks. I ask if he still incorporates them into his production.
“You know, not for a long time,” he says. “But the last time I did, it was a Krept & Konan song called Gangsta Party – a west coast, old school, bbq summer song. I chopped Krept’s vocal, put it into Serrato, scratched it in, and stuffed it into the beat – but that was last time I did it [smiles].”
Although projects-a-plenty go on within the walls of ADP’s studio, the one project he is always thinking about is his own:
“It’s always in the back of my head. I never plan to make songs for myself, as it never works - it’s better just to let stuff happen. Then I might go, ‘ah, that might work for me’. But that is what I am most excited about. Though I just came back from doing stuff for Pharrell’s new project the other day, which was super cool.
“To even have the opportunity to be there with the other guys who were in the room was insane: Poo Bear, Murder Beatz, Boi 1da, London On Da Track, and little old me, the English guy! [laughs]”
Joking aside, ADP eventually acknowledges that it’s quite an achievement to even be considered at that level. So what about a current day in the life of ADP, when it doesn’t involve flying out to Pharrell’s pad in L.A.?
“[laughs] I just listen to music, go through samples or loop ideas I find online, or just start playing, and see what sticks,” ADP explains. “I don’t have a lot of free time to make beats anymore, because I am doing a lot of additional production and mixing - but it varies day to day. I still make beats in the session, but I don’t have time to sit and make them, which I miss, actually. But I love finishing people’s songs, as it’s always an opportunity for me - and I love mixing, too.”
MIX MASTER
As ADP plays one of his recent mixes, the impact and complexity of his beatmaking is clear to see (and hear). He offers a few little mix techniques.
“I like to use parallel compression on my drums to give it that extra pop; and I will normally group the percussion – anything in the same frequency range, really. I will mix, then sub-mix, just to make life a bit easier,” ADP reveals. I ask if he mixes as he goes. He does. “Yeah, never from scratch; my rough bounces are always pretty close [to masters]. I do all my drum programming in FL, which for me, slaps way harder than anything else – then I just bring it back into my main DAW to mix.”
ADP’s main monitors are Adam Audio S3XVs linked to an Adam Sub12 for low-end reinforcement. It’s loud in here, I can tell you.
“They are set up horizontal right now, for the room shape, and they sound great; I am very happy with them,” ADP says. “I don’t get any fatigue when I use them, and I do a lot of long sessions in here, so that’s important to me; and when the Sub12 is hooked up to my mains, that’s when the room really shakes..! [smiles]”
FORWARD THINKING
I ask ADP if he has to be ahead of the game, so to speak, from a production perspective, bearing in mind that many label schedules result in releases taking a year or more to see the light of day once they’re recorded.
“You know what, I listen back to some of my year old mixes, and they still sound new to me; no one knows they were made back then,” he reflects. “The Dua Lipa track I made three and a half years before it was released, but it sits nicely on the album, and is still very ‘now’. So yeah, maybe a bit of out of the box thinking does help, sometimes.”
And ADP has been turning his hand to piano recently, too – should we be surprised?
“[laughs] Well, I learned to play piano when I was younger, then I quit, as I wanted to play football - which I was rubbish at! But yeah, the other day I recorded my first ever song on a grand piano, live, with a singer, in free time. I played, she sang; it was amazing, actually. Sounded fantastic.”
Yet another string to the ADP bow. So finally - 2019 and beyond: any artists or musical trends we should be looking out for?
“The London scene is popping now, especially the urban scene,” concludes ADP. “The UK drill scene is now crazy popular, with tracks going top 10, top five, even number one – so that’s definitely something to keep an eye on.”
