Prism

How did you get into producing?

When I was really young my parents got me a keyboard for my birthday, and I used to love making up pop and rock songs. Originally I always wanted to learn to play the electric guitar, but then I got into dance music and as I already knew how to play the keyboard I was able to get stuck in straight away. As soon as I heard hardcore I wanted to have a go at writing my own tracks and to start with I used to use a PC and a tape recorder before I got a second hand Roland W-30 workstation in 1997.

What got you into the Hardcore scene in particular?

When I was a kid I always liked rock, but in 1992 a friend played me some rave and I was hooked. Originally I was into the more commercial stuff (Altern-8, early Prodigy etc.) and after that I got into house rather than the darker, early jungle stuff that was coming out, but got back into hardcore in '94 when I heard some of the happier stuff and my love of the music grew from there.

Who are your influences?

Lots of different influences - firstly Ham, very under-rated in my opinion, his collaborations with Brisk are always good but some of his solo stuff is outstanding, he's got a really varied style and isn't afraid to mix up breaks, drum & bass influences with proper bouncy hardcore and trance. Billy "Daniel" Bunter has been a big influence over the years and is still knocking out some blinding tracks, and for modern bouncy hardcore you can't beat a bit of Dougal & Gammer. I also write other styles and enjoy melodic trance and electro house, so I'd count Alex Morph, Marcel Woods, Above & Beyond, Fake Blood and D Ramirez as influences among others.

What Hardware do you use?

These days, mainly just my PC running Ableton Live and my trusty Access Virus TI synth. I've also got a Korg MS2000 but tend to use that for writing trance rather than hardcore. I have a Roland JX-305 too, but haven't used it for years - software is the future for me!

What Free Software is in your studio?

Plenty - I regularly use the PolyIbilit synth and Green Oak Crystal synth. I also use the free dBlue Glitch effect rack in a lot of tracks which is fantastic for getting some unusual reverses, bit reduction effects and so on. I master my tracks in-house and used to use George Yohng's W1 Limiter on everything until I got PSP Vintage Warmer and Izotope Ozone 4 last year.

What other labels have you released your music on?

I run the Toucan Music netlabel (http://www.toucanmusic.co.uk), which is where I release most of my music - mainly trance, electro house and breaks. I had an album length DJ mix released by Sonic Walker DJ mix netlabel last year. Before the netlabel scene, I had some trance and hard house tracks released on vinyl by Rough Diamond records and Solid Choonz between 2001 and 2003 under the names Hyperterminal and Silverknight. I also had some tracks released in the US by a couple of different labels between 1998 and 2000.