Max Cooper: "The way I work is more like a sculptor than a musician" - Studio tour and interview

Over the past decade, Max Cooper has emerged as one of the UK's most innovative and interesting electronic producers, creating a body of work that leans heavily on natural themes and evocative soundscapes, and spans the realms of audio and visual arts. We visited Max in his studio following his recent Seme project, an EP and live performance that saw him bridging the gap between electronic music and modern classical. The piece was recently performed at both the Salzburg Easter Festival and London's Barbican.
Stay tuned for more In The Studio videos with Max in the coming weeks.
Max Cooper - Seme is out now via Mesh
maxcooper.bandcamp.com/album/...
In this video:
00:00:05 - Max Cooper's favourite synths
00:05:55 - Go-to effects pedals
00:11:04 - How Max uses software to mix drums
00:17:55 - Combining electronic and classic influences for Seme
00:22:16 - What technology or technique is exciting you?
00:25:42 - Where will music technology go in the next 10 years?
00:31:04 - Max Cooper's essential production tip

[@lennartrauhe7194]

Big props for his honesty about his knowledge gaps in compression! 👍 We all learn much faster and better if we don't pretend to know everything :) Way too many people on KZbin spread their half gained knowledge, often subjective and steered towards their own style and genre. It works for them, because they're not conscious of their whole process yet, so they teach only what they have learned, missing what they do by feeling and the fact that it is pretty much completely unique to themselves. It takes at least a decade of experience to be able to teach the principals, instead of only your own way of getting to the achieved results. A good teacher will know the goal and everything around it, so he sees unlimited amounts of ways. He's able to show a way for everyone individually, from where they stand.

[@kingklabe]

It's always nice and refreshing to see how humble and honest (some of) the greatest musicians are when showing off their studio and talking about their artistic process.

[@ArielAfk]

This man is a legends, thanks for opening your studio to us

[@Winterdagen]

One of the very best! Love having a look in his kitchen

[@PanopticMotion]

I enjoyed every minute of this video. Thank you!

[@exorhollend]

A brilliant creator!!!🙏

[@WastelandSurvival2]

Seen Max multiple times & even met him in a bar once. super inspiring guy, his work & shows just always leave you mind blown.

[@nizer7147]

Max is such an incredible artist I was excited to watch this. This interview was insightful but was hoping for a lot more. I like listening to him talk but hopefully in the future videos a little more is put in to producing an engaging interview and studio tour that goes a little deeper in to the processes and workflows and magic that Max makes beyond gear descriptions.

[@TheValueOfN]

Max and Amon are the two producers whose music excites me the most. I've been craving this kind of insight from Max for a long time. Thank you. Please do a similar thing with Amon. Both of their collaborative visual creations are often exquisite and it'd be interesting to learn about how they both communicate their ideas with those who create the visual art that seems to perfectly accompany their music and the processes that are involved.

[@luckystrke]

GREAT! Thx guys

[@goodman1127]

Appreciate your music, sonic approach and wide collaboration with videomakers

[@AngMoKio8]

Great interview. Interesting musician.

[@amado7760]

Dr. Cooper is awesome !!!!

[@ChirpoTunes]

Would have been good to hear a little more about Max's life, his trajectory, upbringing, formative youth years - always good to have a peak into the studio, but the artist is usually much more interesting than the equipment. For diy musicians that are interested in this type of content, wouldn't it be nice if there was some perspective on what's different about them as a person and their experience, rather than whats different about their gear. Really enjoyed this but as ever, i am left with the same questions - is my approach less productive and why? How do my favorite musicians afford to spend $30k on gear? If their sound is typified by their gear then what came first and how did that come about? Where did the work ethic come from? How did the artist manage to switch into doing music full time? How did the first live performances go and what was the prep work for instrumentalising parts made in the box ? How risky was it for an artist to sacrifice more conventional career progression in favour of follow the dream? Most people have no safety net and its difficult to follow a passion at great financial expense with zero guarantees of that investment ever paying itself off in actual money, not to mention the amount of time that has to be spent to make progress as an artist. I have so many more similar questions and im always begging to hear successful artists explain these more personal and difficult questions, without skipping over the hard facts (often socio-economic background stuff), or speaking of success retroactively in idioms like 'i couldnt have done anything other than this' - yeah nah you could, thats what 99% of people who engage with this content are doing. Max is an incredible artist and hes done more than three of my lifetimes 'spare time' could allow whilst being only 7 years older than me. This is all meant with love, no negativity towards successful creatives or the channel, i just hope im typing what a lot of people are thinking. Keep at it everybody! Thank you for being, thank you for doing, its not always easy, and you wouldnt bother if it was. All love,

[@jewfinigan863]

What I really want to know is what kind of salt he uses for contemporary seasoning of daily meals

[@EggZema_]

I remember seeing him DJ just a week before Covid had hit the Netherlands and the lockdown slowly came. It was the last party I went to…

[@Bimbotronic]

Thank you very much for the interview and specially features of the last two amazing guests (Tourist and Max Cooper) very inspiring. A dream to see and hear the next guest Jon Hopkins ) but I think it's almost impossible..

[@Cle44139]

Max was the soundtrack during the early days of Lockdown, I will always be forever grateful for his records. ...on a positive note, did everyone else just get like 10% smarter listening to him speak?

[@Confuzius]

why would i get smarter listening to him talk?

[@Cle44139]

@Confuzius haha...well, with a name like confuzius it might not help 😅 but to folks with gear making music he is pretty insightful talking about how he uses things like saturation & his pedal chain.

[@rcecil88]

Makes such interesting music, loved his early releases on Sasha’s label.

[@ComposerMichaelDow]

Strange he calls the juno an fm synth... And the summit an analog synth...

[@synkrotron]

I totally relate to the sculptor comment

[@djinntoneinc5492]

At last, a look into the creative space, thank you MusicRadar and thank you Max for doing this. I can't wait to get my hands on a few pieces of kit mentioned here....Not the Moog One though, way out of my league, price-wise. There is a question that is burning me up here though, Max (if you're reading this), when you go ahead and play/record stuff and then put it through your effects/dynamics chains, do you end up recording the result down to audio files, or do you save as much as is possible through MIDI routing so as to be able to play it again later during a track and re-modify it for a final mix? Or do you do a hybrid of both?

[@HonkletonDonkleton]

How many accents has this man got? He's from everywhere

[@NgaTaeOfficial]

He's from the same country as Lord Petyr Beylish

[@cornishwavesmusic]

Found this so interesting and always thought Max would love the Pro 3 which i love ,is paraphonic though but the patching is so easy

[@sturdyblock]

Pro 2 .

[@Kung_Fu_Jesus]

@@sturdyblockPro3 & Pro2 work beautifully together

[@sturdyblock]

@@Kung_Fu_Jesus I sold my Pro 3 and kept hold of my Pro 2. I found the Pro 3 a tad sterile.

[@cornishwavesmusic]

@@sturdyblock I know he has the Pro 2, just saying he would like the Pro 3

[@Kung_Fu_Jesus]

@@sturdyblock I was close to selling the Pro2 to fund the Pro3 but decided both sound amazing and kept both. The Pro3 comes alive in the distortion and feedback, I’ve had some absolutely cosmic jams with it and also made some serious cinematic sounds too. You might regret selling it down the line

[@sheeepman]

ahaha THE Max Cooper has stock Ableton limiter on the master, my mind has just expanded beyond this universe. there is truly no magic sauce except for the artists themselves :)

[@total_leftie]

or that's just to catch peaks while he's creating..? there is defo magic sauce...

[@djk-tana52]

We def have the same cable management haha

[@sandipannath9588]

any idea how(what) are the three mini screens connected to the Mac?

[@MusicRadarTech]

These are connected to a MacBook running visual software Max uses for his live shows. We'll have a video looking at this in depth in the coming weeks

[@sandipannath9588]

@@MusicRadarTech Looking forward to it. I can't figure out what brand those monitors are. Perhaps you could throw some light on it (no pun intended) already?

[@Polydarian]

What is the plugin that pops up at 23:21 ?

[@Sainttropezyeye]

It's GLM : the Genelec monitor control app for the speakers!

[@PanopticMotion]

Does anyone know the brand of the computer display monitor he's using?

[@MadelnMachines]

Top of the range Genelec

[@PanopticMotion]

@@MadelnMachines Thanks. I meant the display monitor :)

[@MadelnMachines]

😂

[@CraigCrouse]

​@@PanopticMotion I think it's probably just a good TV panel

[@user-vu6du5nx9q]

@@CraigCrouse it's an ultrawide monitor so not a TV.

[@pedrofloriani]

what is the name of this kontakt instrument at 23:00?

[@novonmusic]

it's called: FOLDS :)

[@christdolphin69]

Wait, he called the summit analog and the Juno 6 “classic fm”? Does this guy know what he’s talking about?

[@MeisseLee]

My thoughts exactly

[@NgaTaeOfficial]

@@MeisseLee we all mis-speak from time to time. He really does know what he’s talking about.

[@BaltimoreReese]

I think he misspoke maybe because he’s nervous because he also called the Minataur a Moog one

[@AngMoKio8]

Also the summit is not really 100% analog. To my knowledge only the filters are analog.

[@scotthstevenson]

Why speaker behind screen ?

[@radiowaves13]

Surrround / Atmos - he’ll have more behind the mix position

[@scotthstevenson]

@@radiowaves13for solely immersive in contrast to his stereo tracks he releases ?

[@sonicrevolutions2779]

So the Summit is analog and the Juno a FM synth? Right.

[@markorichardson5009]

😂

[@shapeshifta3431]

got a link to your music? thought not.

[@eternalsence3033]

@@shapeshifta3431 has nothing to do with anything, he just pointed out his error, having that much gear then saying fm to juno lel

[@christdolphin69]

Caught this too. Very confusing

[@AngMoKio8]

Also noticed that, but I guess he is just a real artist, more caring about the sound than the technical details.

[@Mathew-ff6xo]

“How can I set up a system that has a life of its own?”

[@FairuzOsman]

Idk why he’d use tap tempo on the microcosm lol it has midi 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@VEsound]

It’s another way, more simple in his setup maybe, to do the job.

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

@ 3:40 the “famous” space echo 😆 tried UAD’s emulation of it, sounded like a delay…. 👍🤓 heard much cooler and more capable with other companies

[@nostandingonlydancin]

The re201 is super iconic. None of the digital emulations sound quite right. Absolutely need the real thing. If I could afford one.

[@ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

Laughable. There is nothing hardware wise I could ever prefer over working in the box. Just for a good laugh, how much are fools willing to pay for this delay in hardware form?

[@christdolphin69]

@@ghfjfghjasdfasdfit’s a tape delay. It’s not just a vst in a box, unless you’re referring to the uad pedal, which I’ve heard is actually really good

[@CeruleanAscent]

​@@ghfjfghjasdfasdfI think they're about £600 nowadays. Which is a lot. 🤣 Tbh, I think a hardline is never that helpful though. I like to use both and there's particular styles and approaches that lend themselves to working in or out of the box, in my experience. A lot of what I use boils down to what i can afford in a balance of competing life priorities - in the box is quicker, but sometimes working with hardware sparks very different ideas. Switching up workflow is really useful to me in keeping creative and being productive, and working up new ideas. Horses for courses and each to their own though, right?

[@Strafuzz]

Aren’t echo’s and delays the same thing?

[@supamarx5782]

Absolutely torture to hear an electronic master talk about the wonderful sounds a synth or pedal makes without letting us hear examples. It could have been so great but it ended up being so boring. Like somebody telling you all about last night's dream.

[@sederquest]

I know right? 😅

[@RandomNoiseMusic]

Haha true. I was skipping and skipping trying to land on some sounds until i reached the end of the video disappointed..

[@Anteflop]

You guys are free to look up the endless sea of product demos for everything he pointed out here. There’s a lot to glean from this video - but maybe you’d rather him come to your house and teach you how to make a sound, because anything short of that is apparently boring 🥱

[@supamarx5782]

@@Anteflop Nice strawman try, completely missing the point. Why do you listen to Max Cooper tracks? Make your own music right?

[@Anteflop]

@@supamarx5782 What part of your comment did I miss? “The video was so boring because he didn’t make any sounds”. Is that not the point you were making?

[@Farold_Haltermeyer]

Maybe you had limited time with him but basic content illustrates what it describes...where are the sounds? Dull without, sorry

[@MusicRadarTech]

This video is just the first part of a more extensive piece coming in the coming weeks

[@ChirpoTunes]

I maybe should have read this prior to my long long post - really hoping to learn more from the upcoming content, thanks for putting this out. ​@@MusicRadarTech

[@busterbuster1641]

Public school boy