SS: The beats are very solid, are you one of those people who tweaks them endlessly or gets the vibe and goes with it and what elements go to make up The Weekend drum track? The kick is particularly meaty.
MG: Thanks, I tend to concentrate on the drums first, if they're rocking then it spurs me on to produce better. I don't have a set drum kit; I tend to chop and change depending on my mood for each song. For weekend the kick was sampled from a record about a year ago, but was eq'd heavily and compressed via the Dynasone plug in compressor. I normally have to go back and re-tweak after the bass has gone down, to make sure it still cuts. The snares, hats and tambourine are also treated via the Dynasone which if set right can make them smack. A small amount of short reverb was used via a Cubase plug in.
SS: A lot of people prefer to use good old hardware drum machines rather than work only in software for beats - whats your approach?
MG: I use both methods. I used to have a Roland 909 and AKAI 2000 drum machine, but now find I can program the main Kicks, snares, claps etc with audio files and internal drums machines via midi for everything else. If I hear a good loop though, I will sample it, hence I do not have a problem with anybody sampling my drums.