The German brothers in rhythm taking you Higher…
Interview by Dan Prince
Dirk, Marco welcome to DMCWORLD! Where on the planet are you today?
Dirk: “Hey Guys, I ́m at home in Germany, recovering from the flu…(sitting in the bath tub while writing this!).”
Marco: “In Germany – sitting in the office.”
What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after rolling out of bed?
Dirk: “As I did a private trap/hip hop-mix for our cars and friends while I was ill, I was listening to the last track I included which was Jennifer Paige – ‘Crush’ feat. Lauryn Vyce (Goshfather & Jinco X Jaycode Edition).”
Marco: “I did not hear any music today, but when I woke up, the last track I heard before going to bed was still in my mind: José González ‘Stay Alive’.”
A brilliant start to 2015 for you smashing into The Buzz Chart with ‘Higher’ – loving the old skool breaks and 90s piano drops!! Please talk us through the sounds and history of the track…
“Thanks a lot! Well, we started the track with building the piano around that vocal sample which was originally sung for another track of us, but we did ́t have used in the end. The weird arrangement of the piano needed a rhythmic support so we did a research in the depth of our sample-library and found a couple of breakbeats in a Stylus Library. Actually we have used different parts of 3 different breakbeats to get the „right“ groove. After that we did the drop with a couple of piano samples and a couple of bass and lead sounds layered which are all done in Native Instruments Massive. The notes and rhythmic are almost the same like the piano. As this bass sounds standing alone were sounding a bit to boring to us we added a guitar-sound (Atmosphere) playing a bit different than the Bassline/Lead. The beats are kick, single hi-hats, claps and snares. Last but not least, we needed something for playing the intro and we found a Arpeggio in Arturias ‘Analog Factory’. As we were not 100 % sure with the sequence of the notes, we took the sound and made a better fitting sequence. It turned out that this sequence fits in the whole track and we left it playing like this. That’s it actually. It took a week finishing the track altogether.”
When I told Buzz Chart boss Guy Garrett that I was interviewing you today he shouted across the office…”we love Inpetto at Buzz HQ! This new track is the perfect example of the festival sound of 2015”. Thoughts on that little comment?
Dirk: “It’s overwhelming! We are really happy to get love by professionals of the music biz!”
The track was quickly supported by the likes of Oliver Heldens, Deniz Koyu and Thomas Gold. Who are some of the producers out there that you admire who you always check to see if they have given you a thumbs up?
Dirk: “It depends on the track itself, as we produce in different ‘genres’. Always great to see if big ones like Tiesto or David Guetta are playing the tracks, because of their big audience. Getting a thumbs up from Axwell or Eric Prydz would be a big thing as we admire them for their producing skillz. But this hasn’t happened too much… yet!!”
What is coming up next from you studio wise?
“We are doing the final touches on 3 new Inpetto singles and already done one new Inpetto Remix. But too early to come up with details.”
How does the studio partnership work between you two – who excels in what department?
Dirk: “We actually work at different times of the day. I am in the studio from 9 a.m till the afternoon and Marco works from afternoon till midnight. All the ideas I have during the day will get a check by Marco in the afternoon. I am more into writing melodies, chords or doing the arrangement of the track. Marco is great in making sounds and doing the mixing and mastering. And he is reading up on new stuff when it gets more technical. He ́s the one with the bigger patience and insistence.”
What is the last GREAT studio toy you bought yourself?
Dirk: “We actually do not buy a lot studio gear so the last GREAT studio toy was an Access Virus TI Polar.”
Okay let’s rewind for a moment. So the only musical experience you had when young was at school, there is no history of any musicians in the family…so what first got you hooked or interested in electronic music?
Dirk: “Hard to remember…I think it all started with MTV showing these screensaver-like Dance/Techno-videos. My first ever album I bought was The Prodigy – ‘Experience’, because I loved ‘Everybody In The Place’ or the piano parts in ‘Wind It Up’. I also caught myself adding melodies to any track while listening to them or asking myself how a track or a sequence was made. Not sure why we both ended up in the music industry without having a musical background. I always have listened to a track in a different way, so until now I can ́t remember one single lyric of a song but I know what instruments are playing what note.”
Marco: “I think it was some beatbox software for our Commodore64. You could create simple beats out of a few preset samples. Very very limited compared to the plug-ins nowadays, but you could spend hours with arranging these 4 or 5 samples. And as we just tried but never got useful skills playing an instrument, electronic music was like the only option for us.”
True or false? You forced your grandma into buying you your first keyboard?
Marco: “True! I think we were 13 and 15. It was the first time at an a exhibition that we put our fingers on a keyboard – and we were so impressed what you could do with it. We wanted it so bad, so that we chose our grandma to be the sponsor!”
You started to make music together in 1995 but it wasn’t until 1999 when your first track was released. How were those four years for you…frustrating or simply enjoying the learning curve?
Marco: “It was everything but frustrating because it was just a hobby in the beginning. It was pure fun to understand how music is being created and to experience progress over and over with every new remix or track. Later we sent out tracks to some labels which refused them. This was disappointing sometimes because we were convinced of the tracks we did at that time. But listening to them today, we can understand the labels‘ decisions.”
Dirk: “It took a bit longer than nowadays because you had to spend a bit more money in equipment, learn how to use it and get to know the right persons. Today you only need to download a DAW and its synths (mostly for free). PCs or Macs are strong enough to make a whole, good sounding track with just a computer. If you don ́t know how to make a sound you just need to watch a YouTube tutorial. The A&Rs of any record label are easy to find on the internet. What is kind of frustating nowadays was a usual learning time in the past.”
Great answer. The world of music knows of you also as part of Fragma who brought us one of the biggest dance records EVER in ‘Toca Me’. You teamed up with Ramon Zenker to create this piece of dancefloor history…had you any idea at the time what you had created with that tune?
“We never expected the success of ‘Toca Me’. We were convinced that it should have the chance to be heard by other people, but what happened with that track was simply unreal.”
You have ghost written for many people and have had other aliases along the way. What has been your proudest achievement so far?
Dirk: “The proudest achievement maybe that we are still playing a role in the dance music industry.”
Nice! What are the 5 big tunes in your box this weekend…
1 Chris Lake – Chest (Original Mix) Ultra
Awesome bass! This track is so enormous, so powerful.
2 Michael Calfan – Tresured Soul (Chocolate Puma Remix) Unique
Bass lead, great beats as usual. This should be the future of EDM.
3 Tchami & Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body (Future House Original Mix) Ultra
Diggin’ these guys stuff at the moment. So clean and good sounding! Could have been any Tchami track in here.
4 Jerk & Bastard – Bring My Beat Back (Original Mix)
Great sounding atmospheric piano-future-vocal-house.
5 Eric Prydz & Chvrches – Thether (Original Mix) – Pryda
Love his way how he does a build up. Always great sounding, many details and enough power for a dancefloor.”
Outside of electronic music, what do you find yourselves listening to and do you think this is apparent in your productions?
Dirk: “I love listening to alternative rock / indie like Daughter, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, José González for example and of course this is apparent in our productions with the way we play chords or melodies. We also try to include ‘real’ instruments like guitars, strings etc. into our productions.”
Marco: “Every genre can have it‘s interesting tracks, which get my attention because they touch me in a certain way. This can be an interesting sound, a good melody, a powerful guitar-riff, extraordinary arrangement a good voice or the unusual usage of an effect. This can be Alternative Rock over Hiphop to Pop. When a song got my attention, I start to analyze it and hear it in layers. You want to know the reason of sounding so interesting, and maybe to take it into consideration for one of our tracks.”
A DJ date in your diary you are really looking forward to this summer?
“We hope to play again on Ibiza this year, but nothing planned yet.”
And finally. Inpetto – ‘in the secret of the heart’. You are brothers. Do you have any secrets you have from each other…?
Dirk: “As we are both introverted…of course!”
Marco: “I can‘t tell you here!”
