“Bigger, better and louder” | Producer & DJ Paul Maddox on RME and Dynaudio

Techno and Hard House producer Paul Maddox on RME and Dynaudio in the studio

Paul Maddox has been producing dance bangers for over 20 years now. One half of UK Techno outfit Spektre, his collaborations with fellow producer Rich Wakley have found their way into the setlists of heavyweight DJs such as Adam Beyer, Carl Cox and Alan Fitzpatrick, including a Beatport #1 with their track “Back In To Consciousness”.

As a DJ he’s played a string of iconic clubs including Fabric London and Space Ibiza, along with multiple stints at global festivals such as Exit Festival and Pacha Buenos Aires.

Alongside DJing and production Paul’s also an educator, with multiple contributions to the music production and education website Producertech.

We spoke to Paul about his choice of RME audio interfaces both on the road and in the studio, as well as his recent decision to add Dynaudio Core Series for monitoring.

 

20 years of techno

“I’ve worked as a DJ and producer, both as a solo artist, and as half of Spektre for the last 20 years.

“I’ve also engineered, co-produced and mixed for various dance music artists, including Darius Syrossian, Pleasurekraft, Brian Kearney, Lisa Lashes & Lili Chan, and many others over the years.”

Like a lot of dance music producers, Paul is primarily ‘in the box’, although he says he does still have a soft spot for outboard.

“I work on the road quite a lot,” Paul says. “I don’t take any of my outboard gear with me, so I’m very much working with software. That way I can make music anywhere and pick up where I left off when back in my own space.

“It’s obviously a lot more practical to just travel around with my RME Babyface Pro FS and a laptop. I might get more outboard at some point – when I’m not working on 20 different projects a week! But it’s the ease of jumping between projects that’s the priority for me right now.

 

“The drivers are rock-solid, the sound is transparent”

 

“I’ve been a fan of both RME and Dynaudio for a long time. I have the Fireface UCX, and before that it was the old Multiface with the PCI card. The drivers are rock-solid, the sound is transparent, and the people are great. Yeah, I’m a fan!”

 

 

They just sounded right for dance music…

“The first good set of monitors I heard was when I was working in-house at a studio,” Paul explains. “They had a great setup. Then when I started to build my own home setup, I decided on the original Dynaudio BM6A mk1s.

“They just sounded right for dance music. They had more punch, not as clinical as some, but still detailed enough for accurate mixes. And they were enjoyable to work on for long periods. That’s really important to me, since I’m not just a mix engineer, or a mastering engineer, although I do both – much of my work involves writing with clients, so I need things to be honest yet engaging.

“I don’t want them to be overly flattering, but do I want them to have a vibe, and a punchy bottom end that excites people when the ideas are rolling. It’s not enough for me to just say to a client ‘don’t worry, the mix will sound good on a system’, but it sounds cold and clinical while we’re working on it. Neither of us is going to be excited by that.

“So yeah I’m a big fan of the BM6, that’s a great speaker. I’ve tried other monitors over the years, and there are many many great speakers out there, but none had ever clicked with me in quite the same way was the BM6as did.

“I was using something else for a while, but when those developed a fault I put my old BMs back on the stands, and suddenly realised I had missed how good they were. They were immediately familiar, it was a bit of a light bulb moment.”

This familiarity is what led Paul to discover the Cores, Dynaudio’s current range of flagship studio monitors.

 

“bigger, better, and louder”

 

“I wanted something slightly sharper and more modern, but still like the BMs I always loved working on,” Paul says. “That’s why I contacted you guys (Synthax), and was recommended a pair of Core 47s and a Core sub for my room.

“I’ve had them for a while now and I’m really, really happy. They deliver the familiar Dynaudio sound that I missed, and provide exactly what I wanted: a great-sounding system that’s bigger, better, and louder.”

Thanks Paul! You can follow Paul and Spektre on Instagram, or check out some of his music on SoundCloud.

See the full range of RME Audio Interfaces

See the full range of Dynaudio Studio Monitors

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Dynaudio is world-famous for making hand-crafted high-end loudspeakers for living rooms, home cinemas, cars and professional recording studios.

Since the beginning in 1977, the company has made iconic products rooted in a love of music and film – reproducing exactly what the artist intended. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Renowned for exceptional sound quality, rock-solid reliability and ultra-low-latency performance, RME devices are used in professional recording studios, live sound rigs and broadcast audio applications worldwide.

With its industry-standard drivers, flexible DSP-based TotalMix FX software mixer, and innovations like SteadyClock FS, RME continues to set the benchmark that others in the industry aspire to.

 

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