"All boats rise with the water"

Here's our first Ask Us Anything entry, where we blog answers to your questions.

The idea of this is the create a place where we can have an open disucssion about whatever. This one focuses on studio/tech stuff because we get a lot of questions about that. We're completely transparent about our studio techniques and don't hoarde any information at all. We also learn a lot from you guys, so feel free to get in on the conversation. 

We will be reading the comments below so if you have any more specific questions go ahead and ask them there!

To ask us anything, head over to the BAND page and hit the submission form.

We thought we'd answer the most common question first:

"What do you use to make music?" - Ed J, San Francisco CA

Justin:

Ableton Live is the brains of the whole operation. We have spent a lot of time using every DAW out there and settled on Live. Drink The Sea was written mostly in Cubase, as was most of the first Glitch Mob music. I used to write everything in Logic, and my side project Slidecamp still does everything in Logic. Logic is great because the plugins are so amazing right out of the box, way above and beyond any other DAW. When collaborating though, Ableton is unbeatable. It saves us insane amounts of time transferring plugin chains, track archives, and full sessions. More than anything though, the way Live is so fast and modular allows us to be more creative. We will spend less time fiddling and more time writing music.

Then there’s the plugins. We’re always on the hunt for new fun stuff. Lately we have been using mainly Universal Audio plugins. The Apollo is amazing, we're just wrapping our heads around it right now. It will probably go on tour with us too because of the ability to run effects zero latency. They are really our favorite for EQing, dynamics, coloring, and even sound design. We also use tons of stuff Native Instruments, iZotope, reFX and Arturia.

A year from now we may have a different setup. You can make good music on absolutely anything. It’s more about what feels right and makes sense. Tools are just tools.

Josh:

We each have our own home studio where we try to find time to write for our side projects, sketch for The Glitch Mob, or just mess around with new plugins and sounds for fun. In my personal studio I mainly run Ableton Live, it has been the most productive sequencer for me for years. Every now and then I will break out Cubase just to switch things up. My favorite plugins as of lately would be Native Instruments Komplete and almost every UAD plug thats made. I run all of my UAD plugs off the new UAD Satellite through a Firewire 800 switch that connects my Satellite and my Apogee Duet soundcard. I have a couple of random mics that I use to record acoustic guitar and sometimes live bass guitar. A few random drum machines and old keyboards that I sometimes sample, a turntable and an old beat up Vestax 07. I have been using a pair of Mackie HR824s but just got a pair of Genelec 8250s.

Ed:

Nowadays I am mainly using Ableton Live. We did use a combination of Ableton and Logic to write the “We Can Make The World Stop EP”. Like Justin said, Drink The Sea was written in Cubase. As for my solo albums, both Crying Over Pros For No Reason and Certified Air Raid Material were written on Pro Tools. I’m not really a DAW loyalist. I just use whatever suits my workflow at a specific point in my life. I also like to proficient in every DAW. The fact that I knew how to use Pro Tools came in handy when I worked with Wale and also when I was working with Travis Barker and Kid Cudi. Right now I’m feeling Ableton. It might not have all the bells and whistles of some of the other DAW’s right now, but I feel it allows me to be the most creative.

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Post comments below if you have feedback or related questions, or submit your own question HERE.