Miles Davis Quotes

You can get the oldest drum machine out and whack out four sounds like a kick, snare, and two types of high-hat, and try and come up with the freshest thing on the spot. The gear can guide you - you can choose one bit of gear and it's obviously got its restrictions and its limitations, but at the same time, you've got to exploit what it's capable of and what it's best used for.

I think I compose as a listener: improvising and listening back excites me because I get to ideas that never would have occurred. Then I bring in the computers and samplers... and I begin to loop and process and change them.

When I went in there, we used drum machine on "Time After Time" and "Human Nature".We don't use the drum machine to play a pattern. You play the pattern by being consistent.

The best way to use the auto-tune is not to! And that's what I do: I do not use auto-tune!

When I recorded for Columbia, I could usually do anything in one take...I would invariably want to use the first take because that would be the one that was spontaneous and fresh.

I've got the recording process down, and I can knock it out very quickly.

The voices on the record, that was trying to treat my voice like guitar players treat guitar tones.

I just play intuitively and work the same way in the studio. I don't have any magical effects or anything that helps me to get my particular sound.

When we started there was this element of these experiments we were doing where we weren't really sure how the music would play out because the music was all on different players.

There's a lot of stuff you've gotta know about Auto-Tune before you can start using it, because it's the hot thing to do.

It was spontaneously composed as I was playing it. And then I added a couple of other overdub textures on top of it after the fact. But it's one of those things where I wouldn't be able to sit down and specifically write that. That's just what came out.

When I'm making records, I like it to be quite fast. Don't let the band learn it too well.

I jump into the process, and the record begins to gel at some point. Then I begin to get a picture of where I'm going. But it's not always something I know on the front-end.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.

When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.

When we were making Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light, we were jamming. From that we were taking the best bits and then recording and improvising on top of those.

If I improvise vocals at an early stage of the song, I just kind of listen to the roll, and then I kind of have a little vocal hook.

My best capacity is to edit. If anything, I am a specialist at editing: my usual approach is to record a song very long. In the beginning just jam, jam on and on. Then break the song and play with it.

When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.

When I'm recording, I usually just mumble and hum a melody and then fill the words in as I go.

If the beat feels like it don't make you move right, I scrap that and go to another track. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour to get one done.

When you're sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice - you've gotta figure out how to make a song: 'I've gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.'

Thundercat, specifically, is insane. I'm always surprised at the things he comes up with when we're jamming out together. I gotta try to keep up with him and his ideas, be able to respond without speaking, and come through with some more music. He challenges me to keep it musical and not so computer.

I don't really write. I'm an on-the-spot type of person. This beat, let's listen to it; let's vibe. And then I'll do a melody, and then we'll go back and do it.

In the studio, I don't use an amp, I just go direct into the desk. It's virtually acoustic, what I'm doing.