Interview: General Sound

When we first found out that General Sound was playing at Homegrown on the 3rd of Feb we had to have a few words with him! Having been involved in the underground Drum n Bass scene since the early 2000’s as a supporter and then contributor he has moved through the ranks with near ease.

He is no stranger to Homegrown and has over the years played alongside acts like Counterstrike, SFR, DJ Impact and Camo and Crooked. Having built up a niche following amongst those ‘in the know’ with his rolling, tech influenced dancefloor based sound. His background in Hip-Hop and Techno paired with his Sound Engineering experience he is taking the local scene to the next phase with his unique flavour of Drum n Bass music.

Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself for those who don’t know you.

Hey! I’m General Sound aka Zaheer from Cape Town South Africa. I produce and DJ Drum n Bass 🙂

So you’re a DJ and Producer, what comes first for you?

They both important and go hand in hand, it’s what you as an artist have to do these days, make the tunes and get them out there and work on a set that suites your style of dnb..

But if I had to choose it would be producing, cause nothing beats the endless hours in the studio.

You have had a couple of releases with C-Fremen for Onset Audio who are based in America, tell us more about them.

Yes, Equation and Confliction..

Confliction was myself and C-Fremen first release together. It was a fun project, it’s a very high energy neuro tune with a deep baseline, you can find it on the Onset Audio’s Mourn the Sun EP.

Equation was our 2nd tune, at that time hard Drum n Bass was moving into a new direction and we wanted to take advantage of that. It’s a hard stepper also lotsa energy and it’s one my fave tunes I’ve made and you will still see me playing it. You can find it on Colonial Collapse EP. Keep a look out for the VIP 🙂

Both tunes were re-mastered and you can find them on our label Desert Planet Recordings as well.

You have worked a lot with C-Fremen who is now based in Germany, how does that work?

Yeh, me and Carl just got a good understanding and both enjoy writing together. We both get time to work on the tune and we send it back and fourth till we both feel happy with what we have done, sometimes I’d do half a tune on my own then send it off to him to complete, it varies depending on the tune.

Do you have any new tracks in the pipeline you can share with us ?

Yeh, there are 3 tunes I’m working on, a VIP of Equation and two solo projects which I will be playing at Homegrown, hopefully I can get them mastered tonight 🙂

Tell us about the most memorable show you have played at.

Best show without a doubt Homegrown with Camo and Crooked, was such a huge turnout! To play after them was a big task and thankfully the crowd responded quite well to my set and they stuck there to the end 🙂

How long have you been producing and DJ’ing for?

I’ve been producing since 2004… Urm.. that’s now 8years and been djing for 10years jeeez I feel so old haha.

So what are your favourite tools for making and playing music then?

For producing Cubase, Kontakt and Massive and I’m also loving Ableton at the moment.

When it comes to playing definitely cdj’s.

And the first DnB song you ever liked?

Counterstrike, Questions What a tune by the mighty Countersrike still love it!!

What about your fave tunes of all time?

Ummm from the top of my head and in no particular order..

Raiden, Fallin’

Counterstrike, V

Vicious Circle, Welcome to Shanktown

Konflict, Messiah

Noisia, Block Control

Alliance, Thru My Eyes

What was the best DnB set you ever heard live, where and who was playing it?

The Mixologists at Homegrown by far the best set I’ve heard! Those guys ripped the stage with 4 decks if I remember correctly.

What advice can you share to the up-coming producers and DJ’s.

Practice, Practice and more Practice, as a producer the best advice I can give is listen to your fave producer and listen carefully what they do to make there tunes sound fat! Try imitate but don’t bite ideas, just use it as a bench mark so you can better your skills, and don’t be scared of constructive criticism when it’s given to you!

What can we expect to hear from you at Homegrown on Sat at Mercury Live?

I love to let it roll, techy basslines with one or two hard tunes and I like to put in a few classics .. I got a lot of new tunes so expect a few surprises!

Anything else you would like to tell us?

Check out Desert Planet recordings it’s a label C-Fremen has started, expect a lot of big things to come from the label this year!

And yeh I’d like to send shouts to all the peeps who been continuously supporting us and to the BK massive for being there since day one 🙂

See you guys at Homegrown!

Event details

https://www.facebook.com/events/357969557567265/

Counterstrike
Hyphen
SFR
General Sound
MC Psyke

Counterstrike
http://www.facebook.com/CounterstrikeDNB

Hyphen
http://www.facebook.com/hyphensa

SFR
http://www.facebook.com/djsfr

General Sound
http://www.facebook.com/generalsounddnb

twitter.com
@Homegrown_DnB
http://www.facebook.com/HomegrownDNB
http://www.algorythmrecordings.com/