Infected Mushroom Interview Reveals Production Tips and Tricks

Innovators, beatnik tricksters, obsessive-perfectionists, un-serious, electronic-rock geniuses? Time will tell, yet The Legend of the Black Shawarma, Infected Mushroom's 7th anthology absolution will in fact grab the armchair from beneath you and leave you thinking- I'm not abiding what was this accurate agreeable chaos, but I can't stop affective even afterwards the clue has finished.
Hailing from brilliant shores of Israel, now based in addition brilliant city, Los Angeles, the sun consistently seems to flash in Infected land, the amount of which is Erez Eisen and Amit Duvedevani. But seriously, amid the hard-earned success, the mess, the nuclear shows, the clandestine jokes you will acquisition two actual do-it-yourself affectionate of artist scientists who write, produce, mix, master, abuse and fix about every detail of their music.
Part 1: "It's consistently changing, you know"
AF: Can you bound present the band? Who's accomplishing what?
Eisen: We started- my accomplice Amit Duvedevani, accepted as Duvdev, and I, Erez Eisen, in 1996 accomplishing some abhorrent music. Now today we are like a big bandage you know, not so big, but we accept a bagman alleged Rogerio Jardim he's a abundant bagman from Brazil, he lives in America now. We accept an Israeli guitar amateur Erez Netz, which is advised one of the best cyberbanking guitar players, the best in Israel. We adulation him. And aswell Thomas Cunningham, a adolescent bang ass guitar amateur from America who performs with us. This is Infected Mushroom.
AF: What do you accede to be your influences? You're application some 'metal' gigs and some 'jazzy organs' on the aforementioned tracks, some hip-hop influences, some Spanish music influences...
Eisen: It's consistently changing, you know. It started with cyberbanking like Psytrance bands, which is Simon Posford, accepted as Shpongle as well, aswell Hallucinogen. At the time we admired X-Dream, Etnica, abounding added bands from this genre. These are the capital ones. And boring through the years we became accessible to everything. We are alert to radio and MTV, not as it is today, horrible, but how it acclimated to be with added abundant metal stuff. Even if it is hip-hop sometimes, a few Jay Zee tracks, it can be nice. Maybe we don't like the accomplished abstraction but we like some ideas. We try to just accept fun in the flat basically and to be as artistic as we can.
AF: Your appearance has afflicted a lot in the accomplished few years. If you go aback to your old advance and you accept to them, what are your thoughts?
Eisen: The Gathering, which is the aboriginal anthology as Infected, I tend to anticipate that is has a few appropriate advance for me. I anticipate Tommy the Bat is one of them, and a few others, but the assembly is horrible. I'm not so appreciative of it, let's say. But, you know, I was 16 I anticipate if we did it. So it's OK.
AF: Do you activate authoritative a song in your flat or sometimes you charge to go to achieve abroad to get inspired?
Eisen: No, it's consistently in the studio. We accustomed accomplishing advance on the road, but we never did one. Sometimes we appear with just no account into the flat and we just adjudge on a BPM, usually it's just 145, and we just alpha kick, bass line, and somehow searching for sounds and stuff. Sometimes we are lucky, aggregate goes calmly and we accept a clue traveling on actual fast, and sometimes we get ashore like a anniversary on a track.
AF: I apperceive what you mean. I accept been ashore for 10 years now.
Eisen: If we are stuck, I capital to bang myself sometimes, I capital to say "that's it, I cannot do anymore music, I accept no added ideas", but afresh Duvdev said "let's see it as a action in the studio", like a video game- there is a akin that is in fact harder to pass, and you accumulate aggravating until you move to the next level. So this is how we see it these canicule and it in fact helps. For us, if we accept these abhorrent canicule we just accord it a fight. Sometimes it's the lyrics. Duvdev comes in with lyrics, and from there we get something- which is abundant easier. Every time it's something different.
AF: What would you accede to be your bigger claiming as a band?
Eisen: We consistently accept challenges. I assumption the aboriginal big claiming was to accomplish the bandage happen, to acquisition the guitar player, to acquisition the drummer, to address the locations for them, because the advance are already affectionate of active for us, and we didn't ambition to accomplish it blatant for the reside show. It's affectionate of hard, in the beginning, to anticipate about what the guitar amateur would play that will not complete too busy, and how to add a bagman that will not actualize too abundant of a mess.
AF: In the flat you can actualize and aftermath music beneath ideal conditions. It afresh becomes a claiming to re-create that complete on stage. How do you access that?
Eisen: Yeah, for date we try to accept a little bit added bass, this activity that you accept a big apostle and you ambition to feel the bass, not just apprehend it. This is actual important. And for the blow of the frequencies we try to accomplish it as acceptable as we can compared to what we had in apperception in the studio- which never happens, by the way. With our luck, we go to abhorrent complete systems a lot of of the time. It's consistently a claiming to do a able complete check.
Part 2: "I abhorrence compression": Accessory and Complete Design Technique
AF: I see that you accept a Blue Microphone, how did you accept this one?
Eisen: We accept two Blue mics and a Blue Bottle. If we were in Israel, we had a lot of luck award a guy that had all these old academy mics, including the top end Neumann and appropriate Telefunken. Actual acceptable mics. The way I abstruse that I accept to do tests is, I alarm it the dark test. You almanac WAV files and afresh you just accept whichever sounds best. No amount what it is, you accept to go with it. So we activated let's say 5 mics, and the Blue articulate the best for us - in everything.
AF: Seems to be a acceptable way to choose.
Eisen: This is consistently what we do. Sadly, we sometimes acquisition out that we absorb money on, for example, big-ticket compressors, and at the end we acquisition that a constituent articulate better. Which is annoying, but if it sounds better, it sounds better.
AF: I see that you accept an Avalon pre-amp. How do you usually use it on abandoned instruments, like on guitars, synths?
Eisen: The Avalon pre-amp we use for synths, so we bung some synths to the Avalon - it just sounds so abundant bigger than abutting it directly, of advance with asymmetric cables. We use it aswell for guitar recordings. It's the aforementioned as the synths basically, I am just abutting the achievement to the Zoom furnishings processor for guitars.
AF: The G7?
Eisen: In the flat we use the G9 actually. It's the same, about the same. We affix it anon to that and it sounds great. The abandoned abrogating affair I accept to say about it is that it gets adulterated appealing fast. Unlike the Neve 1073. But it still sounds good. If it's not distorted, it sounds in fact absolutely good.
AF: I've apparent pictures of your home flat 6 or 7 years ago and now you accept bigger one in L.A., but you still use the Dynaudio BM6A. I accept the aforementioned brace for 7 years as well. They are acceptable but affectionate of advancing in the top pitched sounds. You never capital to advancement to addition affectionate of speaker?
Eisen: The affair is we had lots of monitors in the past, and again, we aswell had the Dynaudio BM15 and aswell the... I don't bethink the model, it has two woofers and one tweeter, it's in fact big-ticket like $6000. We said let's try, and it didn't complete as good. The mix didn't appear out as acceptable as we had on the BM6A. So we said fuck it, it sounds acceptable enough. Maybe we are traveling to change in the future, I apperceive there are a few monitors which are declared to complete abundant bigger for mixing, like the Adam I heard acceptable being about.
AF: And you are acclimated to these ones, so your aerial apperceive altogether how they work...
Eisen: We've acclimated them for so abounding years. I can bandy these speakers into about any allowance and get a appropriate mix.
AF: Do you accept a additional brace for mixing?
Eisen: No. I abhorrence this system. We acclimated to try that as well, it just confuses me. I cannot mix like that.
AF: What compressor or limiter do you use on the final mixes? Because your advance don't complete so aeroembolism compared to added cyberbanking music songs.
Eisen: We don't use compression at all in the final mix.
AF: Ok. Interesting.
Eisen: I mean, this is our- let's say- our secret. Big secret. We do the arrive ourselves as well. We basically abstruse that if we advance the accretion in fact top and get aggregate adulterated in a way that you don't apprehend distortion, you just see the red in fact absolutely - say 6db+ you don't apprehend baloney yet and we almanac that analog to addition convertor afresh we get abundant bigger sound. We accustomed even the Waves Ultramaximizer- I don't acquisition them aural bigger than what we do. I acquisition the Waves, for example, demography abroad the highs a little bit. And not abandoned Waves, a lot of added companies that do the aforementioned things. The highs consistently go away, and something in the data goes away. This way, we almanac it analog, in our case we almanac it to the Prism Sound, and we get the Prism Complete adulterated ['visually'. So the inputs are adulterated and the beat shows that it cliping but my aerial don't apprehend distortion]. We get in fact top accretion and with a complete that doesn't complete compressed.
AF: Yeah definitely, if you accept added dynamics that's better.
Eisen: I abhorrence compression. If I can abstain it, I adopt to abstain the compression. Especially ancillary alternation compression.
AF: It's acceptable to apprehend that because you apperceive added and added humans just abbreviate and over-compress...
Eisen: I don't accept why. They overlook about the music. Area is the music? But afresh again, it's a amount of taste. Everybody does what feels bigger to them.
AF: So do you mix aggregate in Cubase?
Eisen: Yes, we do, we mix aggregate in Cubase. We are in fact overextension the channels on the RME AES32 mixer, so we do the aural over there in a way. I anticipate it sounds better, and afresh we almanac the two outputs to two inputs of addition soundcard, the Prism Sound.
AF: What are your adopted basic synths?
Eisen: I acclimated to say lots of being but I anticipate these canicule I anticipate abandoned Omnisphere. It's in fact amazing and we aswell accept Trilian, which is in fact absolutely good. We bought the accomplished Native Instruments backpack for example, and I ambition to say Massive - it is an amazing synth, but it doesn't plan on Cubase properly.
AF: You beggarly it crashes?
Eisen: Consistently crashes. Massive, sometimes if we in fact ambition to accept a altered sound, we use Massive on addition computers angle alone, sadly. I anticipate these are the best VSTs. I don't anticipate there is annihilation abroad that can analyze to the Spectrasonics stuff, in agreement of everything. And we aswell accept for strings the Vienna Symphonic Library, the constituent VSL.
AF: In one of your songs there is a violin, arena in fact like a violin, is that what you use?
Eisen: Yes. This is what we use.
AF: I anticipation it was a absolute one.
Eisen: It's big-ticket shit, the Vienna, in fact expensive, but annihilation compares to it. It sounds so realistic. And if you address it in the appropriate way, it's unbelievable. The Vienna is amazing. Even the congenital in Cubase 5 plug-ins are aural in fact good. The synths themselves, the complete superior is good.
AF: Now what about the accouterments accessory you use mostly if you play live?
Eisen: Able-bodied it's actual simple. As a synth, I use abandoned the Motif XS6. Authoritative it with the Edirol PCR-800. It's appealing good. I ascendancy the blow with the Boss Volume pedal. For a mixer we use the Yamaha 01V96 adaptation 2. Which is great, in the reside appearance we just advance the button and 99% of the soundcheck is done. The abandoned affair I accept larboard to do is just final EQ for the system, and that's it.
AF: Actual practical.
Eisen: I am aswell authoritative the mixer from my midi ambassador from the Edirol keyboard. So if I charge added guitars I don't charge to access the mixer, I just advance added guitars...I accept aggregate controlled from the keyboard. Aggregate is in fact quick in the reside show, because I am accomplishing the bond for the live.
AF: And on the computer allotment you never had any crashes while arena live?
Eisen: We did a continued time ago because of our mistakes. We had the applesauce accepting by aberration an anti-virus accessible and it absitively to attending for an amend or something. Today we accept a advancement for aggregate almost. But we don't accept crashes for abounding years now luckily.
AF: A few account ago we were talking about your mixes. They are consistently actual 'precise', with no redundancies on the spectrum, even if you accept big synths playing. For example, I apprehend in your appointment that you said "the harder plan is to mix things appropriate and abolish exceptionable frequencies". Would you abate the spectrum of a lot of of your instruments if bond to ability this goal?
Eisen: I high-filter aggregate except the bass and the bang drum. In fact I fabricated a constituent in Reaktor that apparent the affair of bang and bass. I basically fabricated the ancillary alternation EQ in a way. Every time there is a kick, there is a high-pass clarify on the bass bandage for example. Every time the bang plays, the bass bandage has a high-pass. I acclimated to do it manually. Afresh I said, you apperceive what, let's do it in Reaktor, it's appealing easy.
AF: It's in fact alive well. The bass and drums are in fact consistently actual precise.
Eisen: You just apple-pie the mix. Whenever the bang doesn't play, it still sounds fat. Especially if you consistently ambition to accept bass arena on the bang at the aforementioned time. That's the bigger botheration - you just acquisition yourself accomplishing a bass bandage that you don't in fact want. Bassline afterwards the ones on the kick. For me at least, we apparent this affair for Infected. Except that, I low cut aggregate that doesn't charge bass, unless it's a break, and in the breach you can accompany aback all the bass. But if the bang comes, I anticipate a lot of of the mix sounds cleaner if you cut at atomic 100-120 Hz. Abundant clearer.
There are so abounding techniques that I use - stereo synth, so that the synth will complete added stereo. I am accomplishing a address of bifold tracking like on guitar. Basically let's say I accept a simple bass line. So I play a little bit with the cutoff, I play a little bit with the attack, with the decay, a little bit with the absolution of the sound. I am accomplishing a continued affair that I am arena with it. Like let's say, 8 bars, ok. And afresh from these 8 confined I consign the 8 confined to an audio file, and afresh I breach the 8 confined to 4 and 4. The aboriginal 4 I put on the larboard channel, and additional 4 I put on the appropriate channel. And afresh I accept this baby movement in the bass line, and I recorded the movement manually so it's not so precise. The larboard approach is not absolutely as the appropriate approach and afresh it sounds added stereo afterwards any effect.
AF: Like a chorus.
Eisen: Yeah like a chorus. But if you capital to complete added like a choir you play aswell with the tune, the off-tune.
AF: This sounds like you in fact accept two players at the aforementioned time.
Eisen: Yeah. It sounds like two players at the aforementioned time. You don't in fact apperceive what is traveling on, but it sounds added stereo and added fat in a way. So I am accomplishing it about for everything, to be honest. About any end that we do - we just almanac a best version, afresh we cut it in the middle. The aboriginal allotment we put left, the additional allotment right, and that's it.
AF: Actual absorbing for our readers, these kinds of tricks.
Eisen: I accept so many, I don't apperceive area to start, I don't ambition to bore you to death.
AF: I will not be apathetic even if we allocution all day.;-)
Part 3: The Legend of the Black Shawarma
AF: I am traveling to play the addition from Poquito Mas. The aboriginal 10 abnormal you accept an acoustic guitar which affectionate of drops and gets angle confused as if you were about to blemish on it. I am absorbed to apperceive how you accomplish that complete -it gets angle confused but not absolutely like a angle shift.
Eisen: Basically what I do in abounding things is, I take, let's say, one agenda from the guitar allotment and I just administer an aftereffect on it. This angle about-face if I am not amiss is Soundforge because I abhorrence the angle about-face on Cubase. So I yield it to Soundforge just to angle about-face and I acrylic how low I ambition the angle about-face to go. It's in fact simple on Soundforge to do that. And afresh I yield this allotment of the beachcomber and accompany it aback in time, and just put it in this second. If I ambition a trigger, I just mark a baby part, I bend the baby trigger, it can be a few samples even. I try to abstain clicks if I'm accomplishing it, searching for aught crossing. Afresh I just do the activate and put it in the appropriate time.
AF: What adjournment do you use? It sounds like a adjournment with a clarify on it, it's a plug-in?
Eisen: In fact it's a adjournment that I made.
AF: I accept the Lexicon MPX-1 and it reminds me of one of the furnishings on it. It's in fact nice. To mix a clarify on the delay.
Eisen: It's an 8 tap adjournment on it, and on anniversary tap there you can add any aftereffect that you want.
AF: On the guitar, just afterwards the intro, you accept an amp effect. You said you are not application guitar amps.
Eisen: No. Not at all.
AF: So the furnishings that you are using...
Eisen: On this specific guitar, it's basically traveling to the Avalon apple-pie and from the Avalon it in fact goes to an LA2A, a absolute one, a little bit compression. I anticipate for highs, to accomplish the guitar brighter, I use the Pultec UAD plug-in. I adulation the top frequencies in the Pultec. Usually I just accept the accomplished settings.
AF: On Sa'eed, the alpha bang parts, is it your bagman who is playing?
Eisen: The percussions actuality are in fact just borer on an acoustic guitar.
AF: Really?
Eisen: Yeah with the fingers, just borer on the physique of the guitar and application the aforementioned stereo address that we talked about before. The bang of the accomplished affair is application an acoustic guitar, just boot on the guitar. It articulate appealing cool. We didn't apprehend to use it. I don't apperceive how it articulate like that. We just accustomed it, and the mic was in fact abutting to the tapping, and it sounds like that.
AF: Sometimes you accept surprises.
Eisen: Consistently acceptable being is by surprise.
AF: At 1:00 you accept some aftereffect on the voice. How do you accomplish this affectionate of complete on the voice?
Eisen: Basically, we cut every affricate of the word. Let's say "I feel ashamed", we cut the "I" and afresh in the chat "feel" we just cut the "f", the "ee", and afresh the "l". For example, abandoned the "ee" of the "feel" we activate that one. A in fact baby activate until we get the pitch, the agenda that we want.
AF: Yes. Because if you do a bend on it makes appropriate harmonics.
[Editor's Note: the complete is acquainted depending on the breadth of the loop: abundance (in Hz) = 1 / aeon of the bend (in seconds) - example: To ability a "A", your bend has to be a assorted of 2.2727 milliseconds]
Eisen: Yeah. If it's in fact abbreviate you get these appropriate harmonics. So you charge to apperceive the breadth of the bend that you are accomplishing until you get the appropriate pitch. Basically we do this on every syllable. On "ashamed" there are a lot of them. Usually, on the "s", the "t" and the "d", the ancestry of words, the consonants, we keep, we don't blow them, and abandoned accord complete we trigger. It takes a lot of time.
AF: I anticipation it was a constituent that was accomplishing that. So you are accomplishing that manually.
Eisen: I achievement there is a plug-in. Amuse accord it to me. This is what we do. We did it a continued time ago on a clue alleged I Wish. This was the aboriginal time we accustomed accomplishing it - on the anthology Converting Vegetarians. We did it actuality again, but abandoned aberration is that we put this one through a baby distortion. We in fact did it because we didn't accept the time to abolish all the clicks. We were lazy. If you sample a articulation with clicks through distortion, it doesn't complete like with clicks anymore.
AF: You apperceive Depeche Mode, right? Do you feel some cantankerous access sometimes?
Eisen: Of course. Listen, we are big Depeche Mode fans. We are actual afflicted by them. Even from Cities of the Future. It's very, umm, aggravating to be Depeche Mode in a way. Acutely we are far from that.
AF: It's in fact creative, actual different, but we can feel the access somehow.
Eisen: We like the ambit changes of Depeche Mode, and aswell the way they do being is in fact altered and nice. So we try to do it in our own way but acutely everybody can apprehend that it's, you know, baseborn from Depeche Mode.
AF: Not baseborn but influenced. Now on Project 100, there is a actual nice Rhodes piano. Is it a constituent that you are using?
Eisen: No. It's just the Motif XS.
AF: And do you play any specific aftereffect on it? Like an AM/FM modulator on it?
Eisen: There is a fast LFO, I anticipate the LFO is on the panning, if I am not wrong.
AF: OK so already afresh it is chiral plan on the sound, as adjoin to a preset. On [the song] Franks, in the alpha there are some in fact air-conditioned chords, like some beggarly EQ and some overdrive. So already again, what apparatus and what aftereffect do you use?
Eisen: I anticipate it's aswell the Motif XS traveling through distortion. This baloney is not that great. In fact it's with the Cubase amp simulator. I added this assimilate the Motif sound, but I don't bethink what appearance of complete it is.
AF: The big affair in this almanac is your collaborations with Jonathan Davis, Perry Farrell and the Doors. Is this something that you've capital to do for a continued time, coact with added artists? And what was their contribution?
Eisen: We can alpha with the Doors. It was the Doors clue that Warner Brothers requested us to remix. They did a remix CD for abounding Doors tracks, and basically we got accustomed to use it in our anthology - The Riders on the Storm. We got aboriginal channels from the Doors which was in fact agitative to get all these air-conditioned recordings, which articulate appealing acceptable I accept to say. This was the easiest one because it was pre-recorded so we didn't in fact collaborate.
With Jonathan Davis from Korn, in the alpha we asked him which song he capital to sing. He chose Killing Time in the beginning. He came to the flat and we said, 'do you apperception aggravating Smashing the Opponent because we anticipate it fits added to your style'. And he said 'sure'. He didn't convenance it, but we just printed the lyrics, he gave it a shot, and I anticipate not added than one hour recording and it was done, the vocals.
AF: So basically, the lyrics and the melody curve were accounting and he just performed them?
Eisen: Yeah. Aggregate was accounting before. He just came and performed the vocals. Aforementioned for Jane's Addiction singer, Perry Farrell. We asked him if he minds accomplishing Killing Time, and he admired it. With him we did two altered sessions. We agitated him twice. Actually, he knows us for a continued time. He has Classical Mushroom EP and The Gathering, which was actual awe-inspiring for us. Like, why do you accept these albums? It was appealing fun.
Our move to Los Angeles was the move to accomplish collaborations with people. In Israel we were appealing bound to Israeli artists, which I accept annihilation against. But it's bound to Hebrew mainly. We accept dreams, as kids, you ambition to plan with big artists, and you never accept that you will be able to do, so we said let's try. We about got Dave Ghan from Depeche Mode singing, but at the end it didn't happen. Hopefully, it will appear with Dave in the next album.
AF: Last catechism about your lyrics from [the track] "The Legend of the Black Shawarma", they are actual absolute and they are about sending a bulletin but maybe with a little bit of a warning. I am bold these are not absolutely accidental lyrics, is this something that you've accomplished with time and now you ambition to allotment with your listeners?
Eisen: If we started accomplishing lyrics, we said we will address about aggregate except about love. Because, it's not that we accept annihilation adjoin love, but every song is about love. So we said aggregate but love, which was not so hard. And boring it became the Duvdev road, a lot of of the lyrics. He came into the flat with about all of the lyrics and maybe I didn't like one or two words. Duvdev is a appealing crazy guy. He has lots of awe-inspiring ideas. Lots of them we cannot even address about. We try to address being with beneath meaning, that will accessible humans to anticipate about stuff. Or we address actual un-serious lyrics that it's just clandestine jokes amid us and our friends. So amuse don't yield our lyrics seriously.
AF: So you beggarly that in fact you don't ambition to catechumen vegetarians for real?
Eisen: Why not? No, I'm just kidding... Aggregate is just funny, don't yield it too seriously. Converting vegetarians, if there is a acceptation it's mostly meaning: catechumen yourself from alert to approved music and be accessible to accept to added kinds of music.