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Mix Master Mike has a turntablist’s resumé that few others can battle. Three time Word DJ Champion, founding member of scratch super group Invisibl Skratch Picklz, award winning producer and much more. To most people, Mix Master Mike is the DJ behind The Beastie Boys, whose energetic scratching has been part of the Beastie’s sound since The Beastie Boys’ 1998 album Hello Nasty.

When he is not busy with backing the Beasties or performing his legendary DJ sets, Mike has also found time to release several albums worth of his own music and it is mostly in this capacity that he has found use for Reason.

Being a road warrior, Mike got introduced to Reason from his Beastie Boys band mate Ad-Rock while touring. He soon discovered that this was a perfect way to keep making music while away from his studio, the Zektar Cell Block.

We met with the Mix Master in the studio in Hollywood Hills one night as he was preparing to take off for a DJ set. The conversation touched on how he is using Reason in his productions and we also got a glimpse of his work methods as well as a sneak peak of material that he is working on for his upcoming album. Don’t miss this!

Transcript

Introduced to Reason by Ad-Rock on tour

Mix Master Mike: …on tour, Ad-Rock, my bandmate, broke out his laptop and he was like, “Yo, you got to check out this program, Reason.” And it’s crazy. I’m like, “Really? It’s on a laptop, and is it effective?” And he’s like, “It is.” Coming from him, he’s like one of my all-time favorite beat makers in hip hop.

Interviewer: So you got exposed to it by Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys.

Mix Master Mike: That’s the crazy story. It’s insane. Yeah, he’s actually my teacher. He’s the first guy to ever show me the program, and he ran through it, and I was just, wow, I was blown away. I was like, “Wow, this is great.”

Meet Mix Master Mike

Interviewer: Hey, we’re here in Los Angeles with Mix Master Mike at the Zektar Cell Block, and Mike’s going to show us a little bit of what he’s doing in Reason with his productions. But first, for any of our users out there that for some reason might not know your history and what you’re doing, why don’t you give us a little bit of background on your history and what you’re doing now with the Beastie Boys as well?

Mix Master Mike: Well, I’m Mix Master Mike, DJ assassin for the Beastie Boys, founding member of the Invisibl Skratch Picklz, three-time World DJ Champion, and on tour with the Beastie Boys right now. And I’m happy to be using Reason the way I’m using it right now.

What Mike loves most about Reason

Interviewer: If there’s one thing about Reason that sort of is your thing, that you really love about the program, if it’s a device or a sound or a workflow, I mean, it doesn’t have to be one thing, but what’s something that really grabs you?

Mix Master Mike: I mean, there’s a lot of things I love about the program. I love the synths. The synths are amazing.

The synths: Malström and Thor

Mix Master Mike: The Malström, I go back and forth from the Malström to the Thor, so it’s just like… I love those devices so much. I wish I knew them 100%, but I think I know them about 85% right now, but I’m getting there.

The sequencer: “audio Legos”

Mix Master Mike: But I love the sequencer, ever since I was shown the sequencer by yourself.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mix Master Mike: It kind of took me into another realm of music making, and now I’m just with the sequencer and I’m just chopping stuff up, and it’s like playing audio Legos.

Interviewer: Exactly.

Mix Master Mike: You know what I mean? You’re just swiping this, swiping that, and it’s amazing. So I love the sequencer. The sequencer is amazing.

Interviewer: That’s great.

A preview of the next album

Interviewer: I mean, it’s really exciting. I know you’re working on stuff right now for your next album, and you’ve given me some previews that no one else has heard yet, and it’s crazy stuff, in the best sense of the word, man. I think everyone would really be interested to see a project that you’re working on, and maybe you can share a little taste of something that you’re doing.

Mix Master Mike: I’ll be more than happy to. I mean, there are no secrets here in the Zektar Cell Block, there are no secrets. Although we’re here in LA, in the Hollywood Hills, you know what I mean, we leave it out. So we’re going to expose it right now. So this is the serial wax-killing villain, chilling in here with Reason. Let’s go.

Demo: “Backdraft”

Mix Master Mike: Yo, what’s up, this is Mix Master Mike, and you are in the Zektar Cell Block, the zone, is what I like to call it. We are here, and I pulled up a track called “Backdraft” off of my new record, Beta Capsule. So we’re going to run through this. Peep game. So here it goes. Okay, sort of like a hypnotic type of theme I like to go by, depending on my mood. But here’s a part coming up I want to show you.

Chopping a funk record with ReCycle

Mix Master Mike: Okay, so that certain part, that was a horn hit, and that was different elements from a record that I chopped up using ReCycle. I sampled one of my funk records and imported it into ReCycle, and I chopped it up like three or four different ways. How I did that was I chopped them up and had them all laid out on the keyboard, and so I would do something like… so it was something like that, and then it comes out like this. So that was a pretty fun part.

Replaying and deconstructing samples on the keys

Mix Master Mike: What’s dope about it is you can actually take your records and you can just replay them and lay them out on the keys and kind of decompose and deconstruct samples. You sit there, you hit the record button, and you have it loop, loop, loop, and you play it all these different ways, and if you like it, you keep it, basically. And here’s more of the song.

Wrap-up

Interviewer: All right, Mike, so thanks for showing us how you’re working in Reason, man. It’s some really, really great stuff, and I can’t wait for everyone else to hear some of what you’ve been doing, that you’ve exposed me to on your other tracks. But thank you again for having us out, man, and we look forward to the next album, and one that’s coming out. I’m looking forward to the tour as well, with the Beasties, man.

Mix Master Mike: Sounds good. Sure. All right.