The turntable has been used as an instrument since the early days of hip-hop in the 1970s. The days of analog vinyl scratching have evolved into the digital era, in which physical records are no longer needed. French turntablist group C2C have brought together an eclectic collection of sounds spanning generations of music throughout a variety of cultures with their debut album, Tetra. As they prepare to play a sold-out show at the Independent in San Francisco this Saturday, C2C’s DJ Atom spoke with The Daily Californian about creating their own samples, their scratching of both music and video and how the turntable holds its own as a modern-day instrument.
Daily Californian: Even today, many people don’t see DJs as “real” musicians. How would you defend your case to someone who thinks live guitars and drums are the only way to play music?
DJ Atom: The thing is, you have to make a difference between a DJ spinning tracks, making a DJ set (what we like to do as well) and a turntablist using the turntable as an instrument. What we do with C2C is that we play our own music with our instrument: the turntable. Musically, it’s just like a “real” band: One of us plays the bass, one is on the drums, the other got the guitar and the last one controls the voice. We’re transforming the use of an object which wasn’t made for creating music on the first basis, just as a New Orleans washboard player would do.
DC: You guys move and bounce around at shows. Most DJs aren’t as active onstage as you guys. What inspired you guys to be different in that regard?
DA: It’s just that if you’re on stage, in front of a crowd, it seems obvious to try to entertain and interact with the people. Scratching DJs are normally used to practicing in their bedroom in front of a wall, so I guess the “showmanship” part of the thing doesn’t come first, but it’s so important!
DC: There are mixed feelings about dubstep within your group. From both sides, why or why not do you like dubstep?
DA: Dubstep can be the best and the worst at the same time. Coming from hip-hop, we all love fat beats, big basses and surprising sounds and patterns, and the double-timed groove is so pleasant for scratching practices, but on the other hand, we’re not really digging the eurodance and crappy commercial part of dubstep, as it can sound sometimes. Plus, now in 2013, this style of music has been quite overexposed.
DC: Your beats encompass a wide variety of music and mixes from all over the world. Could you talk about the diversity of your tracks and what influences your creative process?
DA: When we used to enter DJ championships, the only material we had was our record collections. We were digging samples, so it didn’t really matter the style of music; the most important was to find the good sound. We’re also very inspired by the way ’90s hip-hop beatmakers used to work, finding samples from all different kinds of music and mixing it with other ingredients, beats, basses, scratches to create something new. The digging culture is really what opened us to a wide variety of music.
DC: How many of your samples do you make yourself? How do you feel about creating your own samples? Do you feel it adds more personality to the tracks?
DA: On this album, we really wanted to make something personal and original, but the “beatmaking” culture is also fully part of our creative process, so the thing was to create our own music but trying to make it sound like samples. For example, on “Down the Road,” we recorded the guitars and dobro with a very good blues guitarist, using the right guitar with the right amp and playing the right way.
DC: Could you discuss the animations you use during live shows? Who makes them? How do you go about figuring out which animation to use for each song?
DA: We actually scratch and manipulate audio and video simultaneously with our turntables during the live shows. We have animated shapes on the screens which correspond to each sound we use to recreate the song live. At the end of the day, you have a perfect video illustration of the music. We imagined and drew the visuals by ourselves, and we met this amazing motion designer called Remi Paoli who made all the animations. We’re using the video plugin for Serato Scratch Live, which allows us to load not only audio files but audio-video files (.mov, .avi) in the software and scratch and manipulate it as much as we want in real time.
DC: What do you think it means to be a DJ? Is it a matter of choosing vinyl over MP3? What do you think it takes to scratch with the best?
DA: I don’t think vinyl/CD/MP3 is really the point, to me. Being a DJ is all about messing with tracks and real/virtual turntables. Whether you’re doing a DJ set, a DMC routine, a beat or a live show, I guess the main thing is to have fun, be original and do your thing.
Of course, on the technical side, practicing is also the key, as it is to master every instrument.
Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at [email protected].