RS: When you're touring on the road with your laptop and working
in your home studio, what software are you working.
Chris Fortier:: My laptop is a mirror image of what I have in the
studio. I did most of the album in Ableton. I used to work in
ProTools and some of the earlier first songs I had written in ProTools
but then I started moving more towards Ableton, especially being on
the road and having the ease of not having to carry extra hardware
around like and M Box or any of that stuff. Its easier to be able to
open up the laptop rather than plugging lots of things in. Abelton
allows that sort of ease and I would do loads of sketches on the road
and then come home and easily transfer those things right in to my
home studio. Everything this the same, so I would turn it on and
could easily work on the larger screen with my synths and outboard
gear. When I'm going to be away for a few days I do travel with a
little mini keyboard as well.
RS: Are you DJing on CD, vinyl or laptop?
Chris Fortier:: I play ninety percent vinyl, maybe ninety-five. I'm
not really into CDs or mp3 as I prefer the feel of vinyl with the way
that I DJ.
RS: Do you find it difficult to find the music you want to play
in the vinyl format?
Chris Fortier:: No, not at all. I even tested this a few times,
going onto BeatPort and looking for the stuff in my record box and its
not there. If I go to CDs I have to compromise the music that I want
to play, so I don't have any justification for moving to CDs and I
don't see any reason to. Some people claim that CDs are better or
easier or whatever, I don't see it that way.
RS: You're the first person in a long time who's said all that,
that's awesome.
Chris Fortier:: There's more people that play vinyl and I see it a
lot now and people are like 'wow, that's so cool, you still play
vinyl.' Everyone still can play vinyl and it's a choice, but people
get locked into their ease of use and they think it's easier to do
this or that. That's fine and I don't have any problem with people
and however they're going to play their music as long as they play it
well. I couldn't care less what format that they use. For me as a
personal thing, I prefer records and that's the way that I DJ. It's
easier for me and I feel more comfortable with it and obviously music
that I'm playing is more readily available on vinyl. Loads of
Europeans - the Germans, Spanish, Belgians and all those guys, people
that I respect are also playing vinyl too.
RS: Are you still in charge of the Balance Record Pool?
Chris Fortier:: I am not. I stepped down from my duties about three
and a half years ago now. We didn't make any press release or
anything but that's part of why this album exists. I've lived in New
York for eight years and when I first moved here, I was so deeply
involved in all the other things that I was doing in the music
industry, the label, Balance, etc. We had a young artist on the label
called Steve Porter who is starting to grow and I was managing his
career and and all those things were distracting me from my own career
and my own music creation. Four years ago, I started to see that I
wanted to get away from all the things that took me away from the most
important thing to me which was music and that's what I did. Steve
Porter was outgrowing the help that I was providing for him which was
really just managerial help and we found him a new manager. I could
really see the light at the end of the tunnel saying well if I got rid
of all this other stuff it would be lots of weight off me and I could
really get back to concentrating on me. This is really what I wanted
to do and I'm very, very happy that I made the decision. It was a
tough decision as I started in that company and it's a tough thing to
walk away from but I'm very happy that I did.
RS: Are you still working with Neil Kolo as part of the Fade team?
Chris Fortier:: We haven't really recorded any Fade tracks since I
moved here really. We were still doing some remixes that we were
commissioned to do, as far back as 2000, but I mean since then there
really hasn't been anything else that we've done together. We're
still friends and we still talk all the time. The label is something
that I ran by myself, as he didn't really have anything to do with
that because he was more on the production side of stuff. We've kind
of gone on and doing our own things but we're still involved together
looking after our catalogue and all the old records. He's doing his
solo stuff now and I'm obviously doing mine, but we still talk all the
time.
