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Digitalz are back again and they do it with a new release. This uniquely inspired duo have made a name for themselves through a handful of tasty songs.
The music of this unique duo is unclassifiable, but unrivaled. Close your eyes and let the sensations flow.
Digitalz, thank you for joining us in this interview. I'd like to start by asking you about your technical approach to creating music. What equipment/software do you normally use?
Hey mate, thanks for having us. As we’re a duo, we have different setups. We both have Macs, however I (Thibault) use Logic and Adrien prefers Ableton. I have a pair of Focal TwinBe6 Monitors & a pair of AvanTon, Adrien has a pair of Adams A7X. We find that checking your mixes on different monitors is a huge advantage for better sounding mixdowns.
Our audio interface is an Antelope Orion 32, Dangerous 2bus + as a summing box. A UAD card because we love their plugins and of course Midi keyboards.
Your new single 'Beg For It' has a very good impact. What were you inspired by to create it? How do you turn your inspiration into the final product?
Thank you mate! We are glad you like it. At the time we decided to try to blend each other's genres in our productions. So we sampled some hip-hop drums, added EDM synths on top and then those bass guitars. The first draft was born in one night, we had just one break and the drop instrumental. And from there, making it into the final product was one of the longest processes we’ve had on the album. Since it has such a simple melody, a lot of work went into making it interesting.
We spent one and half years reworking/fine tuning the song until we were satisfied, adding new vocals, changing the arrangement, etc.
Towards the end we had the idea of adding a rapper over the last chorus as our "Link-in Park & Jay-Z moment”, it proved to be the missing piece we were looking for.
Do you have a favorite track on the album?
Yeah actually, (Thibault) Mine is a single we made with one of our favorite french producers, that is gonna be out on album release day. (Adrien) Mine is the album outro, I love the vocals and the dreamy feel that it has.
How is your sound evolving? What artists and genres do you enjoy the most right now?
When we started this project, we didn’t care much about having modern sounding mixdowns, elements coming out of the speakers etc.. Just the originality of having a blend of electronic and acoustic sounds was enough for us. But as we go further into the project we’re starting to dig these kinds of mixes. We’re actually trying some sound design stuff right now, our goal is to always try to bring something new to the table.
The artists we love the most In the actual electronic music scene are Odesza and Golden Features (the bronson project). We also loved Madeon’s last album. Then Drymer is definitely a producer to go and check out!! Also it’s hard not to mention Billie Eilishwho is awesome.
How do you feel that your music impacts your listeners?
Not sure how they feel about the songs we can only tell you how we felt when we made the songs.
Not sure we can say how people feel about our songs. If people are touched the same way as we are by them that’s awesome, because we will feel like we have created a special connection. If our music is interpreted differently by our listeners, that’s great too, as long as we manage to take them on a journey and make them feel different emotions.
What other projects are you working on right now?
Well, we are releasing a song every month so that’s a lot of work, and working on the sequel at the same time.
How do you start a track? What leads you to take an idea and develop it to carry out a project?
We love to work around vocals, they inspire us. So a lot of songs start like a remix, and then we take out the vocals and contact a songwriter that we think could fit to the song. Or sometimes with just chords we really love. We can easily work hours to find original chords that move us and that will drive the whole mood of the song.
Speaking within the creative process, I feel the improvisation in your works. Are you more in favor of improvisation than having everything programmed or having everything programmed and leaving some parts to improvisation?
It is true that we used to be slaves to our emotions, most of the time, being led by them and just going with the flow. For the next songs we’re producing right now, I think we found a better balance between when to stop the composition part and when to start the production side of things that will be more scripted etc... We’re not trying to have finished products right away if it is to release them three years after making them. We’re trying to first write songs that make us feel something, and then we’ll start producing the whole thing to have something a bit more modern sounding.
Do you think we will be able to return to "normal" events and festivals soon?
We sincerely hope so, we're making very energetic/powerful music so it would be a shame to keep that at home. We’re working on a live show at the moment so we hope we’ll be able to share this soon.
What keeps you active during the confinement?
Red wine and music!
And finally, how do you see the future in such uncertain times?
Probably a lot of people have made songs during this lockdown, so I think a lot of great music is gonna be released soon. Live shows are slowly gonna be back so we see nothing but a bright future… Anyone can be cynical, dare you to be an optimist.
