German artist Andreas Schreck, also known by his alter ego AGENT! has released on some of tech house’s biggest labels in Get Physical Music, Moon Harbour, Desolat and of course Cocoon. Andreas has been relentlessly touring the world for some time now, but he found the time to sit down with EQTV.CO.UK to chat about his upcoming release for Get Physical Music amongst other things….

What has been happening in your world recently?

End of June I will release my second EP on Get Physical. The EP is called Sultan EP and includes a collaboration with my homie Dompe and a killer remix by Andre Salata. Next to it, I am just building up my new studio and I am really happy about my new equipment. I love to produce with my TR8 and TB3 from Roland, Ableton and only a few Plug-Ins. Especially I am looking forward to using my brand-new S2V Adam Audio Monitors.

You have been touring a lot recently, can you tell us a bit about your recent gigs and where has stood out for you and why?

Yes in 2017 I already toured in South Africa where I played shows at the CTEMF (Capetown Electronic Music Festival by RedBull) and another show in Johannesburg. The CTEMF is a very big and famous event and I was really happy to be a part of it. After I was touring in the Dominican Republic, which is kind of my second home as I got a residency at the Vibe Club in Punta Cana. It is amazing to see the scene there growing and growing. I also toured in the USA and Mexico with tour stops at the WMC in Miami, in Dallas, Juarez and Queretaro. At the moment I am on Aruba Island where I played a club gig and a Corona Sunset Cruise. Aruba is tropical paradise on earth – one happy island

You also hold a few residencies outside of your native Germany, can you tell us about those and why you chose them? What is so special about them?

I got a residency at Vibe Club in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic which is ran by my close friend Felipe Alemais. I have been part of it since the beginning and I am really happy that I can support them growing. The start of Vibe Club was about 2 years ago and nowadays it is one of the best clubs in the Caribbean. We got international headliners and the best locals playing there.

With you travelling so much do you get the chance to work on music when you travel, or do you prefer to get into the studio rather than work in airports and hotels?

Of course, I get a lot of inspiration during my travels. I love to enjoy exotic places, street food and street wear. I keep those impressions for my productions at home. In my studio, I work up those ideas.

Your track “Shake” which can be found on the Kittball Konspiracy VA is currently doing very well in the charts and dancefloors. Where did the idea for the track come from?

I love that old Miami base area sounds like 2life Crew and those bangers. It´s a mix of this and Chicago stomping house. Dompe also loves Chicago house a lot so we got that common groove.

Where have you found this track has worked especially well?

Lucky me I can test the tracks all around the world in various situations. I feel it works very well on open airs, beach parties and also in the club nights, the ladies always shake what their mama gave em after the first drop

Do you have a specific dancefloor in mind when you craft your tracks?

Not really, I got more a special vibe in mind always fitting to dancefloor needs basically, I love tracks you can remember after the first time hearing them. It’s more interesting if you get that kind of earworm after you leave the party.

Word on the street is that you have a huge release coming up on Get Physical Records, can you tell us more about that?

Yes, the “Sultan” EP will be released on the 28^th of June at Beatport and on the 14^th of July on all other platforms. I am really happy to drop my second EP on that famous imprint. The “Sultan” EP feels best at home in dark, hot sweaty basement somewhere – where the bass throbs and the crowd’s cheer. The title track, a joint adventure with Dompe brings a flashy groove together with catchy sax lines with one goal: get the floor moving. “Alien Nation” takes the energy further, with a crushing sub bass and a stunningly effective techno-fueled pressure.

When you are not flying around the globe DJing, you call Berlin home. Where is your favourite place to play in your hometown?

Of course, there are a lot of amazing venues in Berlin and each of them has it’s special vibe and I really love many Berlin locations. I recently played a gig at an off-location at Volkspark Friedrichshain with around 3.000 people in front of me. It was incredible. I love to play at Sisyphos and Suicide Circus a lot, also there are this newcClubs like Birgit & Bier or Anomalie which represent the Berlin underground.

What else do you like to do when you finally stop at home?

Berlin has got really nice and cheap food, I am always looking forward to eating a nice kebab when I come home In summer Berlin is really the place to be, you can chill at so many beautiful spots. We got lakes and green green green parts surrounding us everywhere.

What other releases and special gigs do you have coming up that you can tell us about?

I will spend most of the summer in Europe. I will play some nice festival, for example, the Twin Lakes Festival. It is a new festival but the lineup is really top-class and the location is beautiful. On the 12th August, I will play at an open air at an old castle ruin which looks really historic and impressing. On July 22nd  I will be back at Boogie Box in Abu Dhabi and I am really looking forward to it. I was impressed by the city surroundings and the lifestyle there. Next, I will play a tour in Greece and more shows in Munich, Berlin and many more. Check my homepage for being updated with my gigs agent-music.com – see you around !

Arriving from the creative minds at Native Instruments, STEMS is the freshest format within production and live performing. The multi channel audio file can now channel your in such format you can control each element individually. With the STEMs project now in full throttle, EQTV sits down and delves deeper into the tool and why it has garnered such support from the likes of Kerri Chandler, Luciano and Carl Craig.

STEMS has gained a lot of recognition this past week at Sonar with an incredibly positive industry response, how long has the process taken to launch fully and what were your initial expectations?

Developments for Stems actually began years ago with the original Remix Decks in TRAKTOR. Not only is Remix Decks a fun feature for DJs to use, it was also a technical milestone that showed we could play multiple audio files at once under DJ control…the foundation of Stems. What we didn’t expect was the extreme positive response from the industry. We knew there would be plenty of artists and record labels interested in this format, but we just didn’t expect it to be the extreme numbers we’re seeing now. So this already seems to be a great success…and the product isn’t even released yet!

You can create stem files pretty easily using the Creator tool, tell us more about that?

DJs normally play just one stereo file, but Stems allow them to play 4 simultaneously. So the artist needs to create these 4 parts from their song, and that’s the first step in creating a Stem file. Our Stem Creator tool is what takes those 4 files (and the original stereo file) and compacts them into a single Stem file which can then be played. The tool simply has 4 slots to load the stems, and a 5th slot to load the master. The real magic, however, comes from the Compressor and Limiter in the tool: this allows the user to apply final compression and limiting to the mix of the stems to give it a finalized sound. The same Compressor and Limiter settings are used during playback so the Stems also have the same finalized sound, even when the user is manipulating the mix. As a last step, you can include all the information about the song, like the Artist Name, Song Name, Album Name, Record Label, and so on…and even include the Cover Art! When you click “Export”, the tool collects everything and packages it into the .stem.mp4 file ready for use.

And the advantages when DJing, how does STEMs develop the track or mix even further?

The Stem file gives the DJ additional control over the music when performing his mix. Sometimes, when mixing two songs together, the drum parts of the two tracks might be too clamorous when playing simultaneously. With Stems, the DJ has the ability to pull down the volume of one of those drum parts during the mix so it doesn’t get too noisy or overloaded with drums. DJs can also do simple tricks like make instrumental or vocal-only versions of songs just by adjusting the mix of stems. But things get exciting when DJs start applying other DJ techniques to the stems, like isolating portions of one song and expertly layering them on top of others (such as layering a vocal from one song on top of another which didn’t have vocals). DJs can remix tracks by completely silencing certain stems and then playing new samples or loops of their own (like replacing the original drums or bass with new drums or bass samples). The wonderful thing is that, when presented in a DJ context, this kind of track remixing can actually be done “on-the-fly” live right in front of a crowd and doesn’t need to be done beforehand with specialized music editing tools.

In your panel debate, Carl Craig mentioned that music should not be free and that STEMS allows extra revenue for labels  – right? Boosting visibility?

Indeed. The Stem format provides the user with more power and creative options, so selling Stems provides artists and labels with opportunities for more revenue by increasing the value of the music they make. And while the Stem format is still new, the early adopters of the format will gain increased visibility because they’re the “only names in the game”.

You have also been able to get huge artists such as your speakers last week re-releasing their existing music through the new STEMS output, was this something you envisaged?

Of course we always hoped that artists and labels would be able to re-release old classic tracks in this new format, because reusing pieces of these noticeable vocals, hooks, and riffs from the classics would be lots of fun in a DJ set. It would be a way for a DJ to make a live remix of an old track, possibly with a newer sounding rhythm section. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what sort of creative things DJs would be able to do when having access to old tracks in Stem format.

What are the next steps for Native Instruments with STEMS?

Right now our focus is on getting the word out about the benefit of STEMS to artists, labels, producers and developers and looking ahead to when STEMS goes live in a few weeks time. We have been really pleased with the general reception from the international music community and already have hundreds of labels on board including names such as; R&S, 50 Weapons, Get Physical, Monkeytown, Toolroom Records, Mobilee, Noir Music, Black Hole, Hotfush,  Planet e, Cadenza, Madtech & Infine plus the support of global music retail brands such as Beatport, Traxsource and Juno.  It really is a very exciting time for us and the music industry in general.

More information can be found here – https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/

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