Armin van Buuren:So, 76 obviously a number that has been chasing me around. So I thought other than giving the album a title in words, I just gave it a number which hasn't been done so far, so I thought I'd try to be original and try to do something different.
DJ Ron: Very cool. You mentioned your Mac, are you a Logic guy? ProTools, Cubase? What software programs do you use?
Armin van Buuren: I use Logic and ProTools. Basically there's not a single way I work, every track has been made differently. I love Logic and its plug-ins but a lot of the sounds on the album are analog. I still use analog mixers because I think the sound is much warmer than the digital sound, and I still use a lot of old analog machines.
DJ Ron: Well, one thing which you're positively praised all the time is how clean and how tight all your mixes are. There's absolutely no midi delay of any kind, everything is perfectly on, like BT. How do you achieve this?
Armin van Buuren: Well basically I sample everything. So if I have a drum loop that I think is really nice, I try to sample it and go back into the audio and I try to mix everything in audio which is obviously a lot tighter. And your ears, I think you should use your ears. If there's any bass drum not in place then it feels out of time and it can destroy your track, and that takes a lot of time. I don't work with an engineer, I'm one of the few producers who actually produces everything himself. Everything you hear on the album went through my hands. I mastered the album together with another guy who helped me, but basically I told him what to do. Other than that, I did everything myself which I think you can really say it's my artist album.
DJ Ron: That's very, very rare, I praise you for that, because you've done an incredible job. The technology changes, lots of people have moved to software-based synthesizers and digital mixing boards, but you're saying that you stay on the more analogue side of things. Do you use any soft synths are all?
Armin van Buuren: Yes, I do. I like the Atmosphere, Stylus, Trilogy from Spectrasonics, I really love those. I love the Logic plug-ins, they're great. I'm starting to switch more to plug-ins and software-based synths, but for me tweaking the analog synth is still the real thing.
DJ Ron: I've got one more techy question for you, it's simple, what's your favorite keyboard to use?
Armin van Buuren: I'm a big fan of the Access Virus.
DJ Ron: Oh that's a wonderful one.
Armin van Buuren: Yes, and I'm a big fan of the Nord Lead because it has a certain edge to it. I still use the Yamaha TX81Z, which is a really old machine and it's out of tune with most versions, but the FM sound is just fantastic.
DJ Ron: Away from technology, let's go back to your music a little bit. How do you choose vocalists for your songs?
Armin van Buuren: Well, that's just about meeting people, and first I have to click with the person. All the people that have worked with me on the album, I've had really nice evenings with dinner and everything. It has to click you know. Ray Wilson was the guy who I did "Yet Anther Day" with, is an ex-singer of Genesis. When Phil Collins left Genesis he took over, so he's a proper artist and also a very, very nice and humble person as well as somebody who you can laugh with - that basically created the vibe for that track. I think as a person, you can hear if the vibe for a track is alright. I think his performance, the vocal performance for Yet Another Day is amazing, as is Justine's performance for "Burn with Desire" and "Never Want This". And it's just about creating the right vibe, so it has to click on a personal level as well.
DJ Ron: Did you get really interesting vibes from the rock band Krezip when you worked with them?