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Name: Mark Knight
Nationality: British
Occupation: Producer, DJ, remixer
Current release: Mark Knight's "Get With You Tonight", a collaboration with Lukas Setto, is out via Love & Other.
Gear recommendations: I have to recommend the Toolroom Infinite Plugin, of course! This is something I developed along with James Reynolds that speeds up and improves your workflow with killer pre-designed transitional EFX and delays. Definitely check that out.
And have you heard of Ableton? It’s another decent one, ha.

If you enjoyed this interview with Mark Knight and would like to know more about his work, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



What was your first studio like?

It wasn’t exactly a studio, but the first time I started making music – or at least mucking around trying things – was in my friend’s bedroom with the most basic sampler you can imagine.

But the first proper studio I was super-lucky as I shared it with Dave Lee. It was incredible, so much gear, samplers, synths, 64 channel desk, samplers, you name it – most of which was way over my heads.

I wouldn’t have come close to being able to afford all the gear that was in there at the time, so it was incredible to be able to use it when I first started taking production seriously.

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

Over the years I’ve reduced the amount of gear I use so that now I am very much an in-the-box producer, mainly due to the logistics of my life. I’m on the road so much that it’s just not practical to have a load of gear, as a lot of the time I’m making music on my laptop before fleshing it out and finishing it in a studio.

What I have found more important that a load of gear is a decent room to finish things in. Great monitors, great soundcard, and a room where you can hear the nuances of what you’re making.

I think sometimes that’s something that gets overlooked in favour of huge amount of expensive kit.

Some see instruments and equipment as far less important than actual creativity, others feel they go hand in hand. What's your take on that?

I’m an ideas man first, I’m always driven by ideas. Ideas are the framework to what you’re trying to create. Instrument and equipment are the tools you used to get there. Both are important of course, but for me everything starts with having a good, developed idea.

Once you have that and you have the ability to realise your ideas properly, you can’t go far wrong.

A studio can be as minimal as a laptop with headphones and as expansive as a multi-room recording facility. Which studio situation do you personally prefer – and why?

Very much the former. But don’t get me wrong, if the project requires something of that scale, it’s beautiful working in that environment.

Like the Beverley Knight single I produced for my last album: we had a full choir, orchestra, loads of live instruments and musicians, so obviously you need the right kit and an appropriate space for that.



Everything needs to be judges on a case by case basis. Most of the tech house record I make can be done in the box, so it’s just about choosing the right tools for the job.

In the light of picking your tools, how would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

For me it’s all about trying to be original. Not enough people put the emphasis on making evergreen records. It’s more about feeling like they ‘have’ to create a bit of content.

There’s not enough craft, and I feel like there’s a trend of celebrating very mediocre records that will be here and gone in a few months, sometimes less. 20, 30 years ago there was much less music, but more time was spent on crafting them, and as a result a way higher percentage stood the test of time and are still remembered now.

How would you describe the relationship between technology and creativity for your work? Using a recent piece as an example, how do you work with your production tools to achieve specific artistic results?

I’m probably more excited about looking back than forward sonically, more so than so-called cutting-edge sounds.

I have soft synth versions of all the iconic synths – I’m not a gear head so don’t have loads of hard synths sitting around, that’s just not what interests me. It’s important to know where to go for those sounds as a lot of them represent the pillars of production, and to make good choices.

On my most recent single “Get With You Tonight” – I’d say this has more in common with an 80s soul record sonically than it does with a current house 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.

No, I really don’t do that at all. I’ll have an idea and I’ll see it through. Once a project is done it’s done.

In order to be efficient I do have a palette of sounds – kicks, snares, etc – that I return to across multiple projects. I’m not creating those from scratch every time. But every project starts with a fresh idea.

How do you retain an element of surprise for your own work – are there technologies which are particularly useful in this regard?

This comes back to the strength of your idea.

But to be honest I’m more interested in consistency and building on what I’ve done before that setting out to surprise people with every release.

I place more value on evolving your ideas rather than trying to wrongfoot people every time.

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?

100% based on ideas – the equipment is purely there for me to realise those ideas.