Moonshine (Jonathan Gusmark and Ludvig Evers; worked on Peek-A-Boo and many other songs) recently held an
Ask Us Anything session on reddit.com. Here are some excerpts.
Top 3 hardest kpop songs you guys have produced.
1. Super M - One 2. Red Velvet - Power Up 3. NCT DREAM - Drippin'
Your favorite kpop album you guys have worked on?
I'd have to give that one to Red Velvet's Perfect Velvet for a couple of reasons; It was our first release in Korea ever, we got our entire concept through of having the creepy "Scooby-Doo" vibe in the MV & concept pics and all the songs on the album are fire!!!
Do you guys have any stories of your times working with Red Velvet? Did you get to interact with them at any point throughout the recording processes? Thank you for doing this AMA!
Don't know if this counts as "working" but we had Wendy swing by our studio one day when we were at a camp at SM. She chilled in our studio while we were finishing up a song for Red Velvet, we let her have a listen to it & showed great interest in how the song came about.
She was so sweet & it was very fun and interesting talking to her about music & her experiences as a K-pop Idol!
It's a shame we haven't been able to see Red Velvet live yet, but fingers crossed we will after the pandemic :)
What’s the big difference between producing your tracks for SM like One, Peek a Boo, Turn Back Time etc with non-SM songs like Dance the Night Away, Room Shaker, Chase You Down etc? Is the process/A&R different or similar?
I'd say the biggest difference making songs for SM is the amount of harmonies & backing vocals that the song has to contain. SM also tends to be more open-minded to more "bold" and risky songs, which gives us more freedom to go crazy with the tracks :)
Have any of the idols that you've worked with surprised you in some way?
We´re constantly blown away by how much talent so many of the idols have. But the latest time we were completely speechless was when we saw Irene&Seulgi's dance performance in Naughty.
What kind of home studio equipment would you recommend? Are there any specific PC/Macs, speakers, instruments, DAWs, etc. that have been working really well for you and you'd suggest to aspiring songwriters and producers?
I'd say the biggest mistake people make in the beginning is believing that certain DAWs, speakers, synths etc is what makes one into a good producer. With DAWs being so advanced these days almost any DAW will do the job. However, the most important thing to invest into their music-making is time! So I'd recommend beginners to pick a DAW that has a lot of tutorials available online (FL Studio, Ableton, Logic to name a few). Other than that you only need a laptop and a good pair of headphones (We use the Audio-Technica ATH-m50x's) :)
[Included this only because they use the same headphones as I do. Lots of Korean radio shows use these headphones as well. - dnb]
Have you ever leaked info about a comeback or accidentally revealed too much about an unreleased song?
I think we have a quite clean record of not spoiling anything, and we're trying to keep it that way since that ofc causes a lot of problems for the labels releasing our songs! BUT our publisher had someone secretly filming while he was paying the demo for Peek A Boo without him knowing. It's kinda fun to see the comments of people really wanting to hear the original demo! But we truly believe it's better to not know how the soup is made. Unless you have A LOT of cash, in which case, DM us! (that's a joke btw)
The Bass of RedVelvet - Naughty is amazing. What kind of register are used to make that bass patch? I think the upper bass part is really unique. Glitchy? Bass Sounds
We´re so happy that you like it. It´s kind of a secret recipe ;) But oftentimes the secret can be to process the sounds in a creative way. And to use distortion... A lot of distortion...
I was wondering how your experience was like working with Wendy from Red Velvet? I understand that she visited you guys in the studio once (along with Cazzi Opeia & Ellen Berg). She recently released her first solo album, how interested would you be to work with her on her second solo album? :)
She only swung by the studio for an hour or so on her day off so we didn't have enough time to write anything with her. However, we'd love to work with her!! We're just waiting for the memo from SM lol! :)