Having been a resident DJ in London, Ibiza and Moscow, Dom Kane now regards himself primarily as an engineer and producer, operating from a personal studio that he continues to refine. Among the latest additions is an Audient iD22 AD/DA DAW interface and monitor system.
‘I started my career in the industry as a DJ and released a few tracks with Rui Da Silva on his Kismet imprint,’ he recalls. ‘Then I was spotted by a few agencies and started touring internationally, and landed residencies at Ministry of Sound in London, Space in Ibiza and A’Priori in Moscow. Later I decided I wanted to learn the science behind the hardware I was using, so went and got myself a degree in engineering, which was when I started taking sound-design far more seriously.
‘About 70 per cent of my time that’s spent sound designing and engineering these days, and the rest is spent producing my own work or collaborating.’
Kane regards himself as ‘a glutton for punishment’ over the studio, which presently only has a temporary control room. ‘I’m doing the whole thing myself, so the learning curve is almost vertical,’ he says. ‘I guess that’s the downside to being a fussy nerd, I still can’t find the perfect control desk either, so I think I’m going to have to build that myself too.
‘When I was planning the design of the studio, one of the big decisions I had to make was whether to build the control room around a mixer/console or synths. Since 99 per cent of my work is electronic, it’s incredibly rare that I need more than a few I/Os at any given time, so having the iD22 and some Adat expansion is more than enough.
‘Having the F1 and F2 buttons gives me mono and phase-reverse respectively, which is life-changing from a sound-designer’s point of view. Being able to hit them both and listen only to the stereo field makes my workflow so much more efficient, and even more so when it comes to mixing and mastering.’
Kane is also involved in a number of sample libraries, Soundsnap and Loopmasters among them. ‘It’s weird to hear one of my loops in other people’s music, but I’ve been fortunate and it’s happened quite a few times now. In fact, I heard a UK Top 40 track a few months ago where the producers had built the entire track around one of my lead synth loops in a pack I did with Castro for my sample label, Quantum Loops.
‘I know people have mixed feelings about producers that use loops, but I think they’re a great starting point for inspiration in the writing process and it’s great to hear what people do with them. I always have to point out that house music was built on sampling disco bands and drum machines, and if it wasn’t for samples, we wouldn’t be doing what we do today.’
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