Another guy who worked in Max's studio..

[Scott Martin :)]

This is a great read.. 

Question: How did you wind up working at Maratone?

well it all really started in around early 2000 during a 6 months leave from medical school in Stockholm. i was backpacking around south-east asia and happened to enter a music store in Penang, Malaysia the same day the second Britney album was released. They were playing "Oops, i did it again", which was the first single. I remember recognizing the sound and style of the song from "Hit me baby one more time" thinking that this must be the work of this swedish dude...max martin. Kind of liked the song straight away, though not my typical choice of music really. From that moment on an idea started to take place in my head...why not buy a computer and some other stuff when i get home to try start making this kind of music myself?? i had been doing music for years before, playing various instruments, writing guitar-based songs but nearly given up that part of my life since attending med school. Though somewhere in the back of my head the dream of working with music was still alive.

so when i came back to sweden i actually bought my first equipment, struggled really hard to try to learn logic audio and eventually recorded my first songs. remember having a mac G4 400 with a crappy emagic audiowerk soundcard and a roland jv-1010, an adk mic and a behringer 8-channel mixer later bought an akai2000 as well. i started spending more time making music than studying for exams and i guess i was a quite fast learner music-wise.

then about 1 year after starting out this new project, an ex-girlfriend calls me on the phone telling me she's been offered working extra at a new studio called maratone doing mostly office-stuff like answering the phone and so on. she was offered the job by a friend who was working at Zomba records, though didn't think she'd have the time for it since starting studying herself. was i interested?

and i was: wtf?? is this really happening haha, too good to be true really. though it was true indeed.

so i went there for a first interview, my ex had warned me about mentioning my musical ambitions since they were definitely NOT looking for someone hoping to make their way into the business. god knows they had enough of candidates for that practically sleeping in queue outside the studio.

so i lied! saying i was just looking for the random spare job trying to make some extra cash while studying to be a doctor, haha. around that time they had grown quite jumpy from all the attention from major hit productions with britney, backstreet and what not. and i don't blame them....they had had crowds of fans camping outside the studio for days and days at cheiron making it practically impossible to work. max was all over swedish press and constantly chased by reporters and fans. everyday in the mail there were loads of demos from wannabe-artists and so forth. so when forming maratone they were very careful with keeping it as secret as possible with surveillance-equipment and all.

for the next 6 months i was called in like about 1-2 times a week to temp for their ordinary officegirl. a lot of my time was spent just saying no to people on the phone which was constantly ringing, sending back demos and saving only the "funny ones" for the archives. and in the meantime i just took the atmosphere in, enjoying every second of it. of course also trying to find out as much as possible about how they were working. and i must say it was like heaven, being the nerd i am i truly indulged in listening to old demos and stuff like that, though trying hard not to reveal my interest quite early on they were in the middle of preparing songs for britney's third album and i remember one day i had been called in to the studio, out of the blue suddenly britney walks in through the main door in company of a massive bodyguard. she turns to my desk and says "hi there". haha, i must have looked quite pale in the face i wasn't at all aware they were starting vocalrecordings that particular day...

then the ordinary officegirl decides to quit and it took me no more than a second to offer my services as a full-time studio-slave. (though making a promise to myself that whatever happened i would finish medical school, i was about half through when this joboffer showed up). and so i started working there fulltime, not yet being able to find the right moment to reaveal my true intentions. but then after a while it became impossible to lie further about it. as it happened i soon realised i knew quite a lot more than anyone around about how to take care of the neverending computer problems and also supporting logic audio which i had grown to know quite well by then. so one day when i was asked to call to our go-to music store for support about a fairly simple logic question i instead offered to fix it myself. and the cat was out of the bag. so i started doing quite a lot of tech-stuff in the studios after that and eventually they were looking for a new demoproducer for one of their inhouse songwriters. i went home and made a demo of one of her songs for show and it was all approved by max. i ended up staying another three years, part time producing, part time working as a technician. it was a lot of fun and i learned SO MUCH about the theory of making hitsongs. they truly have developed their own way of making music, and max is the obvious whizkid of course. i think i more or less gave up my own ambitions after awhile, maybe not so strange after all since u couldn't help constantly comparing your own stuff to what max and rami was coming up with. needless to say, my stuff always seemed a bit bleek in comparison. they were just to good (and in many ways so many years in advance). so i decided to go back to medicalschool which i had promised myself from the start. looking back i'm quite satisfied, after all i was given the opportunity to produce a few songs for maratone including one for the backstreet boys.

so nowadays i'm working as a doctor, though still recording/producing music, mostly for the fun of it, but occasionally songs that end up on the radio

quite a story, ey?? (sorry, i got a bit carried away there, haha)

/johan

Question: Can you elaborate on Max's songwriting process? Any thoughts or impressions at all would be appreciated!

well, lot's of stuff really...let's see:

get rid of unnecessary details that tend to take away focus from the song. the song is always more important than the production.

a really good song doesn't need more work than a bass, one snare, one kickdrum, one hihat, one instrument presenting the harmonies and a really great vocal.

let the song speak for itself.

never be satisfied! don't leave behind bits and pieces in the production or the song itself that can be made better.

never be afraid of starting over from scratch.

"stupid" is good i.e. sometimes it's ok to make things sound stupid since it makes people a bit annoyed (which means you catch their interest). could also apply to melodies or lyrics.

it's hard to be more specific than that i'm afraid...it's more of a gut feeling sometimes. they had a lot of rules, some which i found a bit strange in the beginning, but they made sense after a while.

u're all welcome with more specific questions i u got em, productionwise. actually, when i started working there i was intrigued by how few "secrets" they had. remember thinking u would find "the magic key" to a great production by studying the arrangement track by track, like inside there u'd find hidden secrets everywhere. but was really surprised they looked a lot like my own arrangements...just so much more optimised in many ways. kind of hard to explain. an old cliché i know, but it all seemed so easy, though of course it's not. in many ways i think it's about choosing sounds. you can think a snare-sound or a pad-sound sounds wonderful on it's own....but it doesn't mean it will sound great in your production. after a while u'll get the hang of it...u start to here which sounds will blend ultimately together just by listening to them one by one.

one funny thing though...i've read numerous articles about how to correctly use auto-tune...everyone says it doesn't work properly in "auto" mode"...u need to learn how to operate it in "manual-mode" to get it right. well, that's BS

put it in auto-mode, retune speed set to fairly slow and retune-sensitivity set to quite fast (no more than 30 though). then comp the vocals with auto-tune ON. never use takes where u can actually HEAR auto-tune "working".

/j

Some of the sounds used by Cheiron on the day:

ok, here's a list of some of the signature sounds from that era:

"Manic shots" - fx sound. From Roland Dance Expansion Board SR-JV80-06.

"Vektogram" - a kind of fx-padsound used to get a certain vibe when going from vers to bridge och bridge to chorus. From Roland jv/xp soundmodule preset bank.

"JP-8 Haunting" - a highpitched synthsound usually played singlenote on top of the mainpad during the chorus. From Roland jv/xp soundmodule preset bank.

"AmbientSweep" - a filtersweeped synthsound usually placed the bar before a hit/crashcymbal. From Roland Dance Expansion Board SR-JV80-06.

"SciFi" - fxsound. From Roland Dance Expansion Board SR-JV80-06 (I think that's the one)

"StringWheel" - a padsound. This is probably the most "signature-ish" sound of them all. Feels like it's used in 75% of all the songs they made at Cheiron. From the EMU Vintage Keys sound module.

Then there was a really beautiful padsound called "PM's pad" on the TR-rack sound module. That sound was programed by Per Magnusson at Cheiron, so it's not really easy to obtain

Then they had a huge sample collection of drum and soundsamples used in the akai samplers. They sampled alot from vinyl themself.

/j

[Rebecca]

wow, that is awesome!! how exciting! and to think Johan is now a doctor, good for him.

I didn't realise that Max would be all over the press in Sweden and chased by reporters. I thought he would be well-known in Sweden but not chased by press.

I wonder if Maratone is needing any more office helpers??

[Scott Martin :)]

I wonder if Maratone is needing any more office helpers??

Lol Rebecca, just dont tell them you like music!! 

[*Sabine*]

Scott, what an impressive thing you posted here! Where did you find that, again the forum? That's really so interesting...
I'm thinking about applying as an office assistant now, lol! And yeah, you mustn't tell you like the music!

[Scott Martin :)]

Lol Sabine! Yes its the same forum Ive quoted from previously, in fact its the same thread still going about Max. Its really cool to see people come out and talk about their experiences with him.

[*Sabine*]

Ok, good! Keep pasting the new stuff of the Max convo here! 

[Scott Martin :)]

will do 

[NIKLAS"NiCkY"]

This must be Johan Broson who produced Siberia for BSB and without you for anders johansson. closer to perfection for A-teens and more???

[Rebecca]

Yeah, must be Johan Brorson. He also produced Darin's "Stand By Me"

[*Sabine*]

Yeah you're right, never really "noticed" his name in credits but that makes sense.

[Raul_esp]

very interesting!! thanks Scott martin , I wish I can meet to max anytime 

[the beatsmith]

So amazing!
Can you tell me what kind of desk they used in the days?!
And who did the mixing?

Grtz

[Scott Martin :)]

Hi, Max is using a Neve 8068 and has been for a while now. He was very digitally oriented in the beginning, until they got the producer of The Cardigans into Max's studio.

This producer apparently showed Max the benefits of some of the 'classic' gear and so legend has it - Max got rid of the digital desk (think it was a Sony) and got the Neve in.

Neve are considered one of the finest console makers in the world; SSL, Neve, API - all are top notch brands, but Neve is kind of like a Rolls Royce in terms of quality and pedigree.

[Scott Martin :)]

Here's a Neve 8068 for sale; http://vintageking.com/Used-Brands/Neve/Neve-8068-Console-Factory-Black-Issue-used - its been serviced by Fred Hill who did the fitout for Max's console.

These babies are worth roughly $250,000 second-hand - Max has two of them! 

[the beatsmith]

Wow! nice desk:) who did the mixing back in the days?!
If you got more to tell us Cheiron nerds just shoot LOL!

Thanks