Name: Drunken Kong
Members: Dimpy Singh aka D. Singh, Kyoko Singh aka DJ Kyoko
Nationality: Japanese
Occupation: Producers, DJs
Current release: Drunken Kong's I Want To See EP is out via Drumcode.
Recommendations: We recommend the Arturia V Collection and Korg Plug in Bundle. They are just amazing!

If you enjoyed this Drunken Kong interview and would like to stay up to date with the duo and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.



The views of society towards technology are subject to constant change. How would you describe yours?

Changes in technology are great overall. But we think that the way people use them will determine whether they are a positive or negative thing for society.

What are currently your creative goals and how are technologies helping you reach them?

Our current goal is to keep progressing in our production ideas and quality. To keep evolving is the key.

Technology definitely has a big part in this and it definitely does make things easier. But at the same time, we feel that if you rely too much on technology, you won't develop your skills.

One example would be these online automated mastering / mixdown tools. They can be good, but by using them every time, you won't be able to train your ear and learn the craft behind mixing down a track - which is very useful to have.

How and for what reasons has your music set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear and software for you?

To be very honest, our setup has not evolved so much over the years.

The main reason is that our studio mac runs an older OS since some of our favourite plugins stopped updating. So we can not use these for the newer mac systems.

It still works for us since we like to use a mix of digital and analog equipment. We use hardware synths such as Moog Sub 37, Sequential OB6, Roland Juno 106 and a few more. These are the synths we use heavily on our tracks.

[Read our feature on the Roland Juno 106]

We also use some software synths such as the Arturia series. Really great plugins.

Have there been technologies which have profoundly influenced, changed or questioned the way you make music?

With all the technology going on, we've arrived at a point where we want to keep things simple. We feel that now choices are unlimited. There are so many good plugins and hardware gear out there for production, but in the end, we only use a few.

We strongly feel that using a few good pieces of gear / plugins that you know very well and have full control over will give you so much better results than trying to use tons of different stuff that you are not so familiar with.

One more thing, we avoid using gear that have a complex interface. We prefer to use something that is simple. As a result, over the course of producing a track, we can focus more on the idea and feel of the track rather than spending a lot of time trying to figure our what's where on the gear and then loosing the feel or inspiration to the track.

For us, when producing, speed is a very important thing.

From my point of view, the three key factors which have driven music technology over the past decades are mobility, affordability, and (easy) usability. How important are these for your own work – and did I miss any?

Mobility and affordability definitely help any producer. Also the sound quality is definitely getting better, too.

Some of the Arturia plug ins sounds quite close to real hardware synths, which makes it easier for producers to shift to emulation plugins at a fraction of the cost.

Technology is usually associated with innovation and progress. Are these also important considerations for your music? What is the relation between innovative tools and "innovative music"?

We definitely agree with this. New technology leads to new ideas since it opens up a new door of possibilities.

When MIDI was first introduced, this opened up unlimited possibilities for producers at the time knowing now they can sync different gears to produce or do live sets.

Technology leads to new ideas and improves quality.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?

We agree with this. Possibilities are endless and we feel every producer should experiment and play around to create things that are really unique and original.

We are always trying to learn new ways of working with our current tools. Since we use hardware gear, we cannot update things that often. But we use this to our advantage and try new things with what we have. This leads us to working in new ways.

The choice in creative tools can be overwhelming. Are there ways to deal with- and embrace this wealth and channel it to support your creative goals?

We recommend always trying out the demo first. We don't recommend just buying a piece of gear because it looks cool or because you saw your favorite producer using it. Every tool has its objective and this should be to help your production goals.

When we buy a new synth, we always first think of the kind of sound we are looking for. If we already have a good synth that has a lot of lead and bass sounds, we would probably pick a synth that has different types of sound such as pads, strings, percussion etc.

The sound sculpting capacities of current music technology are remarkable. So is the abundance of high-quality and ready-to-use samples. Which of these do you prefer and what does your process of working with them look like?

We use everything that inspires us. We are not against using ready to use sample. Anything that gives us an idea we will use. We just want to be open minded on this.

The only thing we avoid is using ready to use melody samples. Melody we feel defines that artist so if you take that, we just feel there is no originality in the track.

Within a digital working environment, it is possible to compile huge archives of ideas for later use. Tell me a bit about your strategies of building such an archive and how you put these ideas and sketches to use.

We don't really archive much other than our project files. The only other things we archive are kick drums.

Kick drums are the heart of the track for electronic dance music. If the kick is not good, the whole track can suffer. So this is why every good kick we make or come across, we save it in a folder so we can access this easily anytime.

In many of our 15 Questions interviews, artists have emphasised the happy accidents as a result of human imperfections and unreliable machines. What's your view on this and how does an element of surprise enter your productions?

This is definitely something we love! That's why we like to use analog gear because sometimes things just happen accidentally which cannot be replicated.

A lot of times we come across this when the accidentally sync between the sequencer and some gear will go off and things just starting going out of sync. Sometimes really cool things happen so we record them asap to catch that unique moment.

So many of our tracks contain parts that accidentally happened!

Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. How much of your music is based on concepts and ideas you had before entering the studio, how much of it is triggered by equipment, software and apps?

We would say it's 50:50. Sometimes we already have an idea based on an idea we have but the other half we just get in the studio and play around and just collect ideas.

There is no right or wrong. It just depends on the feeling at that time.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. What are your hopes, fears, expectations and possible concrete plans in this regard?

This is really something new and we have mixed emotions regarding AI use for music creation. I think it will loose the art and emotion in music.

Music or art in general is coming from emotions that the artist feels at the time which can be caused by events happening in his / her life. With the use of AI, this will not happen. They can probably create something similar, but we feel real emotions and feeling cannot be replicated.

Even for mix down and mastering, using AI the results may be good - but the track will loose its character we feel.

Technology has continually taken on more steps of the compositional process and "creative" tasks. From your point of view, where does "technology" end and "creativity" begin?

Technology is there to support and help expand your possibilities. It's not there to do your job.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in tools/instruments you would like to see and hear?

Definitely would love to see an new version for Ohmforce's Ohmboys. It's our all time favorite delay.