MosDam on his mau5trap win

MosDam on his mau5trap win

1 December, 2010 | 7.55AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: deadmau5, mau5trap, mosdam, remix contest

In what must be the fastest turnaround ever, MosDam’s winning remix of Deadmau5’ “SOFI Needs a Ladder” is up in the shop and ready to rock in your set this weekend.

We wanted to know how the Vancouver, B.C. artist known as MosDam felt about his win, so we dropped him a line. He was just as surprised at the speed with which his track got published as well, telling us, “Jamie [from AnD Press/Three Six Zero Group Rights Department, which handles mau5trap] was pretty quick on getting the track out, for sure. Got a call from him yesterday morning asking for a press kit ASAP and I only had a couple of hours to rewrite my bio. What I put together is bound to make Shakepseare proud. Or not…”

Read on to hear MosDam tell his own story—how he produced the winning remix, how he put his finalist’s DJ mix together, and what he would advise other producers who hope someday to release on a label like mau5trap.

“I first heard about the contest through a forum post on djforums.com. Since I had remixed several of Joel’s tracks and was in fact already in the middle of remixing “Cthulhu Sleeps,” I decided to give it a go. When producing my remix I tried to only borrow the critical elements from the original track. Also, being a HUGE fan of suspenseful buildups, I made sure my remix didn’t fall short on that topic. As for vocal processing, I fed the vocals through a formant filter to deliver a unique effect, and I toggled the filter on and off here and there to make it less repetitive. While many people have speculated that I used automated effectors on the original mau5 percussion riff to create those glitchy effects in the last part of the track, I actually handcrafted them. The reason was that, I knew precisely how I wanted the riff to sound like, and I thought doing some manual chops would be the way to go.

In any case, the news came in on November 9 announcing that I had made it to the final round. While I was pretty confident that I was going to make it, for some reason I was still shocked! Maybe that was because the announcement came in exactly on the day it was supposed to come? Or rather, on the day it was not supposed to come? I mean, since when announcements like that come in on time? That was surprising.

Once I found out that I was in the finals I didn’t waste a moment and immediately got back to my studio (it’s literally a studio condo, with no bedrooms and a Murphy bed) and started working on the 30-minute mix. I had nothing ready at hand for the finals and had to start off by writing down ideas. I went through my music collection, picked some of my own tracks, added a few other favourites, and wrote them down inside NotePad. I kind of knew how I wanted the mix to start off: begin with something boring, then switch to something epic with a massive buildup and a monstrous drop. That’s why I specifically wanted to include my “Master of Puppets” track in the beginning, which runs at 120 bpm. The familiar guitar riff, which then builds up to a retarded electro drop, makes for a great opening track. All these guys were edited and put together as a special edit.

The next challenge was to somehow make a smooth transition into 128 bpm (which is what the rest of my tracks ran at). To do that I slightly edited the Master of Puppets track to create a transition point and used the Jack Beats remix of Blaqstarr & Diplo’s “Get Off” to complete the transition. For the rest of the mix I threw in a bunch of my own work in there, just because I liked them! I also decided to include one of my old favourites, “Amokk” by 666 which was produced in late ‘90s. Obviously I edited it a little bit before mixing it on my Xone 3D. I particularly like to throw in an old favourite that is familiar to most people into my sets, just because it makes for a different experience. I get pretty excited when I hear something from my teenage years mixed with a brand new track!

I submitted my mix close to the deadline, because of all the manual edits. But I guess it all eventually paid off; when I got Beatport’s email on the morning of November 25 I was actually asleep! My BlackBerry made a noise and woke me up. I looked at the sender and it said Noura, so I just put down the phone and went back to sleep! Later on, when I woke up, I decided to check the email, and lo and behold I had won! Well, I guess you could say I was a little excited? Meh. I mean who cares about getting his track released on mau5trap records, and get booked for an opening spot on one of Joel’s gigs? Although, for some reason, that morning it felt like I had drunk six cups of dark coffee, even though I don’t drink coffee…

If I could give some advice to other producers, I’d say: don’t ever give up. If you know that your work is good and are confident about yourself then you WILL get noticed. What’s important is to set your bars high (even higher than the so-called “standards"), and avoid taking advice from people who have not made anything happen. You will be surprised how many of these idiots are out there who claim to know it all, yet in reality they cannot differentiate their left hand from the right one. There’s a track from the early ‘40s by Louis Jordan called “Your Run Your Mouth and I Run My Business,” which is a favourite of mine. This track is pure gold. Good luck.”

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• Get MosDam's winning "SOFI Needs a Ladder" remix on Beatport