Magazine: Knowledge Magazine
Title: DIGITAL NATION - URBAN ASSAULT
Words: John Murray Hill
Photos: Juan Garcia
Issue Date: May/June 2008


Urban Assault - aka Faust & Shortee - are hardworking DJ's living the highlife. Residing in Hollywood, playing at Hugh Hefner's Playboy parties, mixing and producing drum & bass, hip hop and breaks - its all in a days work for there dynamic turntablists. Kmag stood in their way and threatened never to move unless they answered all of our production related questions. 

"We are best known as Faust and Shortee," the pair introduce themselves. "We produce and play D&B under the alias Urban Assault. As Faust and Shortee we've produced several solo and joint albums rooted in turntablism, breaks and downtempo, having had tunes on numerous compilations, EPs and singles.  We were also featured in the film Scratch and continue to tour and produce music regularly."

This male/female combination of performers is far from a gimmick – they're renowned as some of the most talented in the industry, having paid their dues and then some. "I've been DJing for 22 years," Faust Reveals, "and am known mostly in the turntablist and party rockin' scene. I've played hip hop, funk and electro since the beginning and progressed into electronic music like house, breaks and drum & bass 14 years ago. My first solo album Man or Myth was the first record made up entirely of other records and scratching. It also featured Shortee, Shotgun and Craze. I currently produce hip hop, breaks and drum & bass amongst other things."
 
Shortee, whilst a relative newcomer compared to her DJ partner, is no stranger to the "enviable legacy" club. "I've been Djing for nearly 14 years, " she begins, "playing everything from hip hop, funk, 80's, breaks, house, techno & drum & bass. My debut solo album The Dreamer was the first and only turntablist album by a female. I've also produced an instructional DVD series that teaches people how to mix, scratch and beat juggle [www.how2dj.com]. Recently I co-created the first battle/DJ tools record geared for women alongside fellow female turntablist DJ Step1, called Bikini Wax. I currently produce hip hop, breaks and drum & bass."

Faust & Shortee have blown apart the myth that, in order to be a successful artist in the field of drum & bass, you have to ply your trade in that respective industry only. "Each style of music has different sensibilities when it comes to mixing them." Faust & shortee uncover their secrets. "Some techniques work for other genres. For instance, we are used to mixing funk and hip hop, which are very fast-paced and require lots of short mixes. This helps us to pull off complicated transitions within D&B. If we want to do some trick mixes in drum & bass, like queuing up some double drops for example, we'll find ways to mix quickly within 4, 8 or 16 bars and then have them play together for 32 to 64 bars. We also play house and the mixes are long and seamless. We apply this to hip hop and it helps balance out the choppy nature of hip hop mixing.  Combining all these techniques gives us more ways to get in and out of records and do something creative and different." 

Mixing music at the same tempo is easy. Mixing music at drastically different tempos requires brains, creativity and, above all, flair. "We could just mix out of the end but it tends to become predictable," they tell us.This process is seen as a bit of a cop out by hardcore DJs. "Yeah," Faust continues, "so we try to keep it mocing and entertaining. When we make mix CDs we do a lot of blends - some longer mixes and some quick ones - whatever works best for the songs and keeps the flow intact.  It's important for us to be able to pull off the mixes live as well, so what you hear on our CDs is how we sound live. As far as production goes, each genre influences the other. For example, sometimes we use D&B-style sounds in our hip hop beats, especially when making our basslines & main leads."

Creatively, versatility appears to be the name of the game as far as Faust & Shortee are concerned. What, though, makes their technical side tick? "Our studio consists of two very modest PC based setups running Cakewalk's Sonar 7 rewired with FL Studio.  We use Kontakt 2, Rapture, Z3ta and Dimension Pro and edit in Sony's Soundforge.  The effects we use most are the Waves Platinum bundle, Sonitus, Blue, GRM, Timeworks, Nomad, Voxengo, Antares, BBE and we have a gang of other plugins and virtual instruments.  We also have a third computer running Korg's Oasys PCI which is a synthesis architecture program for making sounds and multi's; it has just about every Korg sound ever made.  This is great for creating everything from traditional patches like strings, brass instruments, organs and so on to completely destroyed ones for any conceivable purpose.  Other hardware includes an EMU SP 1200, Korg MS 2000, Pioneer EFX 1000, Pioneer EFX 500, Rane TTM 57SL mixers & 2 pc laptops running Serato."   

"We make a lot of D&B tunes that incorporate hip hop beats in the intro or breakdown," Shortee adds. "Having roots in hip hop production helps in creating authentic sounding hip hop beats. It's also helpful to step away from things.  If we are writing D&B tunes for a month straight and start to get burned out we'll just go into a different direction and make hip hop, breaks or maybe just throw on jazz records and listen to something completely different.  This keeps the production process from becoming stale, after all the fun is in the process.  We love making music but most of all we are still fans who love all types of music."  
 
Whilst one can easily copy sounds from classic music, scratching can't be imitated without considerable practice. "Playing an instrument or understanding music theory makes you a better producer," Faust says. "Shortee's been playing drums and percussion since age seven and she has a strong background in traditional music theory. We both play the turntable as a percussive/melodic instrument. When scratching we can improvise like with any instrument, except we aren't limited to just one sound and we can control everything from pitch, direction and cutoff, simultaneously.  We use the turntable as a controller.  A great scratcher can blend rhythmic and tonal manipulation of a sound with musical finesse."

The technicality behind the art of scratching (and the process of recording it) is extensive. "The biggest misconception about scratching is that it's limited but that's not true at all," Faust and Shortee reveal. "Its technical range is very broad and can be adapted as a percussive and tonal musical instrument with ease, but it takes a lot of practice to build up your chops. When we first started making records our knowledge and methods of recording were limited and we only used EQ while bouncing down to an 8-Track cassette. Nowadays we treat scratching like vocals – a limiter and soft knee compression at around 2:1 helps tame the peaks and bring up the valleys. In Sonar, we can loop a piece of the beat and record multiple takes one after another on separate tracks grouped in a folder. We can listen to each separately and discard parts we don't want using non-destructive editing techniques. The style and amount of scratching is based on the type of song we are working on. Every track is different; if it's an intro or turntablist song, then scratching is a key component. If it's an electronic track, we use scratching to add a new musical element."Scratching is a live aspect that can't be manufactured using a computer. "There are some things that would be near impossible to reproduce with editing and gating," Faust and Shortee agree. "It would take forever when you think of the swing and variation of techniques that are happening while improvising to the music and cutting up on turntables. Afterwards, things can be effected, filtered, distorted and edited to blend with a song. There are many tracks that have elements scratched in and most people don't even know it."So, where does the rookie scratcher start? "Not every mixer is suitable for scratching; it has to have a crossfader with a sharp cutoff," Faust and Shortee advise. "We use the Rane TTM 57SL, it has Penny and Giles faders with ultra sharp curves plus an effects send/return. We also use Serato, so anything is fair game; we can take a part of the song we played or programmed and scratch it in, such as vocals, synths, drums or tops of the bassline.              

K Mag is based in rainy London, so Faust and Shortee told us about the opportunities for urban music DJs/producers in their hometown of sunny Hollywood. "Every major label and television network has a base here, so when it comes to licensing for TV, movies and games this is the place to be," they reveal. "The DJ market is more commercial, but there are plenty of weeklies, raves and festivals dedicated to electronic music. The weather is just an added bonus."
 
What about Playboy parties? Is the saying true, "What happens in the grotto, stays in the grotto"? "Playboy was planning a 50-city tour and asked me to audition," Shortee recalls. "To their credit Playboy places a lot of importance on skill and was looking for an actual DJ instead of just a hot chick behind the decks. I competed against hundreds of female DJs for the job. Doing the Playboy Mansion is insane; it's like playing a huge catered backyard party except there are tons of celebrities, playmates and Hugh Hefner in the mix. Most of the girls aren't wearing much and you will definitely see some crazy things, but as the DJ I have to keep the vibe going strong amidst the chaos. Unfortunately there are no drum & bass parties at the mansion; mainly top-40 hip hop because that's what the playmates want [Hef actually prefers techno and house, go figure]. Regardless, there's only one Playboy Mansion, so if you put a bunch of half naked people together and add some booze, the infamous grotto always lives up to it's name!" 

"We are launching the digital download portion of our two labels Heavy Artillery and 5 Star Records this summer," Shortee concludes. "We have numerous projects dropping this year including original D&B and breaks tracks and beat libraries. I have joined forces with Reid Speed and MC Tali and together we have a group called Queens Of The Jungle. The direction of the collaboration is focused on original production and performance.""Shortee just finished up a mix for Easy Records – 'Jungle Story' – which drops May 26th," Faust bigs up his partner. "It's a 2-CD set which includes the album, plus Shortee's mix of all the tracks, which she juggled, cut up and blended with some exclusive originals. Our remix of DC Breaks' 'Do You Believe' for Restless Natives, has just come out, and have a 12" following that entitled 'Gotta Have It' on Restless in September/October. Shortee and Step1 are working on a follow up to their "Bikini Wax" record, which we released on our label 5 Star. Shortee has three new workshop DVDs (mixing, scratching, juggling) coming later this year in relation to her instructional series."       

And before the guys start getting any ideas, Shortee is happily married to Faust. "I'll be back on tour in the UK and Europe during May and June," jests Faust's wife. "Peep the websites and MySpace for more info!"

www.faustandshortee.com
www.djshortee.com
www.djfaust.com
www.queensofthejungle.com
www.urbanassaultdnb.com
www.heavyartilleryrecordings.com
www.5starrecords.com
www.how2dj.com
www.twiceasnicedjs.com
www.myspace.com/djshortee
www.myspace.com/theoriginaldjfaust
www.myspace.com/urbanassaultdnb
www.myspace.com/queensofthejungle

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