School of Electronic Music Producers #005: Luke Burras
Music Production and Audio Engineering Diploma graduate Luke Burras has been putting his sound to vision and sound design skills to the test in the world of fashion!
Hey Luke! For those that don’t know, give us info on what sort of music it is you produce?
Hey! Since studying the Music Production Diploma at the School of Electronic Music, Manchester I’ve been producing bits of techno, hip hop instrumental stuff and more laid back bass-driven music. I guess influences of mine are changing all the time but a few main ones currently are Mount Kimbie, Majid Jordan, Joey Bada$$, James Blake, Chance the Rapper, Mac Miller etc.
In terms of the production, I’ve been using Logic Pro and a load of third party plug ins. About a year ago I got the Fab Filter EQ which I’ve been using much more and I think it’s helped pull my mixes together a lot. I also have UAD but I need to save more money before I can buy many more plug ins for that!
Your Champion Ad music is amazing. Can you talk us through how that all came about?
Thank you! To say it’s mine would be bad because a very good friend of mine was just as much a part of it as me. A friend’s brother knew I made music, and gave me a call one day. His friend worked for an advertising production company and she needed someone to make a track for Champion’s clothing ad that they were filming to use as a 2 minute YouTube promotional video. I said yes and got my friend involved following this; the next thing I knew we were in my room making it. It’s been a great opportunity.
What was the process of working with the visuals?
The video was filmed and made over the track. So we finished the track about 6-7 months ago, and the video came about 4 months after that onto YouTube. Literally we sat on Logic and made a tune to something that we could see people modelling clothes over. I has inspiration on what they wanted it to be like from some of their previous videos though, it wasn’t without a fair bit of research.
Are there any golden rules you learnt from the project?
In the last year, and in the Champion track, I’ve learnt not to limit myself so much with a straight-minded approach to how music should be produced. I’m processing sounds a lot more, making a track and re-sampling it, pitching things up and down, stretching them to 20 times their original length and putting them through just the wet end of a reverb.
I used to make a sound I was pretty happy with, EQ and compress it, maybe use a delay or reverb and that was it. But now I’m not afraid to delve into the depths of what Logic and my bank of 3rd party plugins have to offer. I prefer exploring the possibilities of sound to playing it safe.
Fancy taking the course Luke did? Check out our 15 month Music Production and Audio Engineering Diploma if you’d like to skill-up!
