Life Sketches : An Interview With Mecca:83
Manchester. A city globally renowned for its rich musical history, iconic style, world-class football and industrial legacy. But most of all for its unmistakable heartbeat and unbreakable soul. Manchester’s heart lies in its neighbourhoods and its people, which is why the community spirt runs deep throughout the city.
Long time resident Evan aka Mecca:83 is not only known for his immaculate beat making skills but also his involvement with the WORKINONIT collective. Over just 3 years they’ve managed to create a welcoming, community centered music event, celebrating shared culture while involving local musicians, artists and supporting causes local and global.
Introduce yourself in your own words…
Mecca:83 I am I be. Or Evan if you know me personally. I make beats, take photos, and occasionally scrawl stories about my favourite records.
How long have you been making music?
My mum made me take piano lessons when I was 6, so I guess you could say that was the start of it.
I started messing around with making music on a computer around 2002/2003-ish, using all the free programs that you used to get on the cover of Computer Music back in the day. Got my first MPC around 2004, so it’s been a while!
What’s the best sample you’ve ever found?
I remember finding the sample that Dilla used on La La La (Track 16 on another Batch) in a charity shop just after he passed. Picked up the record because the cover looked cool and was blown away when I got it home!
Lots of personal favourites that I’ve used, but I don’t want to sample snitch on myself! Most of the ones that stick out are from unexpected sources like comedy records or 80s soft rock singles.
Your favourite sample ever used in a track.
I’ll be awkward and pick all of the samples in Pete’s Jazz by Pete Rock. I learnt tons about layering and arranging samples from the first Petestrumentals LP, it’s an absolute masterclass in ways to play with samples.
Favourite Producer and most inspiring artist
Favourite producer is such a hard question, my views changes every week on that. I don’t think anyone has had more impact on Hip Hop as a whole than Dj Premier. Plus he’s responsible for some of the greatest beats of all time.
Artists I’m most inspired by at the moment are folks who are just doing their own thing. It’s so easy to get caught up in the world of numbers and playlists, so folks like Dakim who are carving out their own paths; putting out CDrs, collaborating with jazz pianists and stuff. I love all that.
Who are you listening to at the moment?
On the beats side, I’ve been listening to Budamunk a lot lately. His atmosphere and swing is second to none. Malik Abdul Rahmaan’s Field Research Malaysia is back on rotation again too – an underrated classic if ever there was one.
Can you give us a run through of the equipment list you have in your studio?
It’s 99% in the box nowadays. I have Ableton Push as my main MIDI controller, then a couple of bits for outboard FX like my SP404 and The Dust Collector. Been playing with guitar pedals as insert effects a little recently, but most of my creation is going on inside the laptop.
What is your favourite piece of kit to use in your studio?
It’s a small list! I don’t think I could live without my Push now, it’s a core part of everything I do…though I could do with upgrading to Push 3 at some point too.
Do you enjoy the challenges of having limitations with the equipment you use ?
I really do. I went through the ‘room full of boxes’ phase a decade ago with a ton of outboard effects, a couple of MPCs and multiple synths. It was a lot of fun, but I found myself losing a ton of time just noodling with synth patches, or deciding to do repatch all of my cables on a whim.
Having a streamlined setup definitely keeps me more focused.
How and where do you get your samples from usually ?
I still dig for records, so a lot of stuff comes directly from wax. That being said, I’ll also pull a bunch of stuff from Soulseek when the need arises. I’m not going to drop £100 on a record for a single sample if I can grab the WAV file from the net.
Where do you get your drum samples from ? Sampled ? Or from sample packs?
A mix of both. If I’m just generally working on beats, I’ll pull stuff from packs and from records; whatever works best in the moment.
If I’m working on a specific project that needs a certain sound or vibe, I’ll spend some time creating my own ‘project pack’ which will include bits from vinyl, sample packs and so on, normally ran through some additional processing and organised into folders. I like to sketch quickly when I’m making beats, so taking the time to do stuff like this really helps me stay in the zone.
What is your starting point for making a track ?
70% of the time it’ll start with a sample or melodic idea, 30% with an idea for a rhythm. Depends on the day and the vibe.
Could you run through your usual signal chain ? ( do you mix straight into compressor or any hardware etc..)
My standard project file has all drums going into their own buss channel, then all the samplers, synths and so on go through their own dedicated buss. I have an EQ, compressor, and some saturation tools pre-loaded on each that I can turn on and tweak as need.
And yeah, always mix into some light compression on the master. If it’s something clean then I’ll use TDR Koletnikov, if I’m going for a dirtier sound I’ll use Good Hertz Vulf Compressor.
Do you mix straight out from hardware sampler or mix and finish your tracks in a DAW?
DAW through & through nowadays. I can up on MPCs, but I live mostly in the box right now.
If you use one what is your preferred DAW to use?
Been hooked on Ableton since 2012 and never looked back (sorry Cubase).
What are your top 5 Vst’s ?
1- Wave Tracing SP950 – probably the closest thing to the SP1200 sound I’ve heard outside of the real thing. Drop that on every channel and it’s 12bit bliss.
2- Good Hertz Vulf Compressor – an incredibly capable, flexible compressor but I mostly use it for that instant 303 Vinyl Sim hit.
3- Lifeline Expanse – which is mainly me being awkward because everyone else on the planet seems to use RC-20 as their go-to ‘add some dirt’ processor. This is great though
4- Valhalla Supermassive – could this be the best free VST of all time? So damn good as a reverb or a delay unit. I use it on most things I make
5- TAL-Dub-2 – This thing is ancient now, but I still love it. I’ve used it for so long that I can throw it on a track and get what I need in a few seconds. If you ever hear a big delay in one of my beats, it’s probably this.
What is your favourite production tip or trick ?
My main tip for anyone would be to listen to as broad a variety of music as you can. If you’re making rap beats and only listening to rap beats then you’re frame of references is massively limited. There are infinite lessons to be learned from other genres of music, whether that’s getting your head around Latin rhythms or trying to unpick the effect chains on 70s psych records.
What’s your go to reference track or album ?
A lot times that’ll be project dependant: especially if it’s a concept record based around a theme.
It’s an obvious one too, but Soulquarian-era Jay Dee is always in the back of my mind when I’m thinking about drum selection and mixing in general. It felt like Jay kind of mastered finding a different space in the frequency spectrum for every part of his beats: everything just fit together so seamlessly.
Which producer would you most like to work with ?
I’m a huge fan of the Japanese beat scene. I’d love to do something with Ill-Sugi or Budamunk one day.
Which part of the music creation process do you enjoy the most ?
Making beats is like a daily meditation thing for me. I make something literally every day: there are tapes and tapes worth of unreleased (& unfinished!) stuff on hard drives. Sometimes that’s a bit of a burden, but having a daily creative practice keeps me grounded.
A lot of people reading this will be wanting to get in to making beats. Do you have any advice for them ?
In the first instance just have fun with it. You don’t have to post anything online, there’s no pressure to be ‘good’ at anything, or to sound like anybody. Just enjoy the process and try to find the joy in it.
If you end up taking things a little more seriously, take some time to define what it is you want to get out of it. If it’s to get on a ton of playlists and rack up those numbers, then start dropping beats everywhere. If it’s to create your own magnum opus, then take your time and keep working until it lives up to the vision. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s path, or confirm to whatever the current trend is.
What do you have coming up on the future ?
I’m just finishing up a collaborative project with Moose Dawa from Greece which is sounding really nice. Some single, production credits and so on in the works….there’s always a list of stuff to finish off!
You run a regular Beat makers event call ‘WORKINONIT’ in Manchester.
Could you tell us a bit about how it came about ?
WORKINONIT was the brainchild of Kuartz and Lone Apostrophe in the first instance. They came up with the idea and brought the event into existence.
Kuartz invited me to play a set at the first event back in 2021 and I just never really left. I became part of the crew the next year and haven’t looked back. I couldn’t be more proud to be involved with it.
What inspired you to start organising beat maker nights in Manchester?
For me personally, the most important aspect of WORKINONIT is bringing people together. 99% of beat making is sitting in a room by yourself, so creating a space where people can come to play the stuff they’re working on and connect with people who are passionate about creating music is a huge deal. Seeing the connections grow from people meeting for the first time, to becoming friends and creating music together is the reward for me.
How would you describe the Manchester beat-making community? Is it growing?
The scene in Manchester is incredibly diverse. There’s folks making drill, left-field experimental stuff, 90s Boom Bap…there’s a bit of everything. You never quite know what’s coming in the next set which makes it exciting.
What makes Manchester a unique city for hosting beat maker events?
I can’t speak for other cities – this one is the only one I’ve ever really known – but there’s a definite sense of community and mutual support in Manchester.
How do you curate the lineup of beat makers for each event?
Kuartz runs the logistics on who plays and when! I look after photos and video, then some of the ‘add-on’ stuff we do like the annual photo zine and the beat compilation we recently released with NineToFive Records.
How long has it been running?
It’s our 3rd Birthday in November, so we’ve been around for a while now.
Some of the beat makers that have played there?
We’ve had so many products with so many different styles it’s hard to keep track sometimes. Pitch92, Hashfinger, Afrodeutsche, Peter Parker (Fingathing), Tommy P Nuts (IDA World DJ Champ), Alecs DeLarge…the list is huge. Oma (currently live band for Shing02 and Isaiah Rashad) played their first ever live gig at WORKINONIT too for our first DOOM special back in 2022.
The WORKINONIT crew has also opened for folks like Large Professor, Homeboy Sandman and Phat Kat too.
Do You have any events planned In the future?
We’re on every 3rd Sunday of the Month at the Hip Hop Chip Shop in Manchester until either we run out of steam, or the fabric of space-time collapses in on itself. There’s always something in the works.
Your new album 'Quiet Storm' is a different vibe to your regular style. Could you tell us a bit about the inspiration and concept behind it.
A friend from the States send me a bunch of tapes in the mail a few years back. One of them was an old WBLS Quiet Storm radio recording from the 90s. I really loved all the call ins with cheesy jokes on first listen, then I heard a track part way through the show that I thought 'I could flip that'. It all kind of emerged from there - combining these talk segments, adverts and jingles from old Quiet Storm shows, with beats that sample the kind of music they used to play.
90% of my music up to this point has been really cemented in the 60s and the 70s: lots of jazz, Brazilian and library samples/influence. It naturally feels and sounds different when you completely change the genre and era you're pulling from. I leaned into that and just enjoyed the fact that it's a bit of a stylistic detour from my usual.
Quiet Storm, the new album from Mecca:83 is available to buy on cassette.
Check out his track 'Too Deep' from the compilation Wake N' Bake Vol. 2
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