A seasoned traveller, Hungarian glitch hop superstar AMB is headed to Australia for five weeks later this month including a headlining slot at Manifest
Aside from a 15-year career as a producer across the breakbeat, house and glitch hop scenes, AMB is also a highly regarded educator, and is the only Ableton Certified Trainer in Hungary where he runs imPro – Budapest School of Music Technology.
Before he jets out from Budapest, we managed to tie AMB to his computer long enough for him to answer the following questions.
You’re about to embark on a five week tour of Australia... I guess there’ll be plenty of downtime... any R&R planned?
Not much planned actually apart from the shows and of course hooking up with a lot of the guys I've been in contact with for years, but never actually met. I like to take it pretty easy on a tour and let the events shape it, so I'll just do whatever seems like the best idea between shows probably.
Being away from home for so long; are you used to spending time away from family/ friends?
Pretty much I suppose, yeah; never been away for more than four weeks, though. It's always a bit tough but you know, it's one of those things you put up with if you've chosen this path. And of course, it's tons of fun at the same time.
Is the ‘Get Loose’ EP a solid representation of your sound right now?
Yeah, those tracks reflect my current dance music sound pretty much. Aside from that, I make downtempo and chill tunes quite often as well. I like to balance it all out with kinda deeper stuff too, I suppose. My upcoming EP with Gravitas Recordings is a good example of that. It's got six original tracks plus a fantastic remix by The Widdler.
You posted on Facebook in late August that you’d spent five weeks planning your live set... what kinda sonic treats do you have planned?
I've been playing with that live set for about a month now. It's an Ableton Live project that I built and it's got all the stems from my songs, lots of loops, sounds, and some tasty effects of course — all controlled by my Akai APC40 controller. I’ve only prepared a live act once before, but that one I didn't really enjoy to be honest, probably because I was too pushed with time then. This time ‘round it's different though. I've been having lots of fun just putting it together.
You’ve been a music producer since 2000; what’s been the biggest technological improvement you’ve enjoyed the most?
Back in the tracker days when I discovered Sound Forge I was blown away. No limitations, no coding-like interface, sample sizes didn't matter all of a sudden, it was heaven. So I actually made complete, finished tunes entirely in Sound Forge, sequenced everything in it. At any one time I had a calculator open that I used to get the exact time code in seconds and milliseconds where to insert my sounds. It was a complete nightmare of course if you think about it now, absolutely ridiculous. But actually the biggest improvement, or definitely one of them for me was just after that, when I found out there was a software that could do the same thing Sound Forge could, only it could do it with more than one stereo track at the same time. It sounded like magic. It was called Acid. But my computer at the time was way too slow for it, so it really felt like a dream come true when I upgraded and managed to run Acid for the first time. I'm really grateful to have lived through those kinda things by the way, I think I was born in just the perfect location in time.
What else is fresh from the AMB studio?
Apart from my EP with Gravitas, I've recently finished a remix for the Sugarbeats guys that's coming on Adapted Records soon, and of course I can't wait to get back to the studio and get down to some heavy-weight dancefloor tracks again!
You’re the founder and leader of imPro – Budapest School of Music Technology. Tell us a bit about this? I've always loved teaching. When I was a teenager and played the drums I taught drumming, then later I taught English for a few years, but it was not until I moved back to Budapest after my studies at the University of West London that I got into teaching music production. At uni, I just couldn't believe that music technology can be thought in such an effective and professional way. I mean, I hadn't seen anything remotely similar to that before in Hungary. So when I moved back to Budapest I started building imPro. It took a good year of really hard work, but it was worth it. We created something truly amazing and revolutionary and you can still feel that atmosphere today, after four and a half years. Since then we have all learnt a lot, we hung out, we partied hard, and most importantly we built something that changed all of our lives. That's including the team and students. We're the only Ableton Certified Training Centre in Eastern Europe. We've worked with SAE College several times, with guys from Point Blank, and of course with our friends at Ableton.
Is there an average week for AMB?
My life pretty much revolves around a handful of things that are usually spread out in my schedule with, ideally, not too much overlapping. Often I'll be sitting in the studio making tunes for weeks, or mastering, then touring, overseeing imPro, or teaching when my module, mixing and mastering is on.
As we move into the second half of 2014, what sounds are you digging at the moment?
I'm still loving glitch hop from the US; the laidback west coast style, or the sound from Denver, Colorado. There’s so much talent out there it’s hard to keep up, really. Still, I really enjoy discovering new sounds. Aussie glitch hop keeps being amazing, too. That aside, I'm into stuff that’s a little unusual or has a strong character, whether it’s glitch hop, future garage, or deep house.
When you hear the term glitch hop, what do you think?
I think of the genre I love and feel at home in, and I think of the bad name it's received in recent years.
Away from music, what else occupies your time?
I love skating, I'm a big fan of TV series like ‘The Wire’, ‘GoT’, ‘True Detective’, ‘Fargo’; I love British humour like ‘Peep Show’, ‘Darkplace’, ‘Mighty Boosh’, and pretty much everything Ricky Gervais or Stephen Merchant does; I love to read books especially by Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin. I think I'm also slightly addicted to catching up on news.
How will we be listening to music in ten years time? It'd be awesome to have implants that could play music in your ears/ head.
What's your favourite non-music app?
Camera; love taking photos.
AMB Tour Dates
Fri 19th Sep - Plantation Hotel (Coffs Harbour)Fri 26th Sep - Manifest (SE Qld)
Fri 3rd Oct - We Love Bass (Hobart)
Fri 10th Oct - My Aeon (Melbourne)
Sat 11th Oct - The UFO Club (Sydney)
Sun 19th Oct - Secret Location (Perth)
