From The Ground Up

When hip-hop artist Beatox met local producer Ron Hooper, their careers and the state of the local music scene were forever changed. The duo has spent years building off their talents to bring the city a new  ‘one-stop-shop’ for artists. More than just a recording studio, Trendkill Productions is changing the way we see, hear and feel music.

We caught up with Beatox to talk about their humble beginnings, their wild and busy year and what’s in store for the new studio.

JA: What can Trendkill Productions provide?
BT: We can do multi-track recording, mixing and kind of unofficial mastering. We can go portable too. We can bring in a giant mixer multi-track somewhere else, like if you need a grand piano we can go to the grand piano, mic everyone up and bring it back to the studio.

We’ve done a lot of in-studio videos where people can come do live off the floor. I’m just there with a steady cam; throw in some colouring, maybe some special effects if their budget can afford it. I mean artists don’t have a lot of money so we’re just trying to make the best products as affordable as possible.

We do kind of end up managing some of the artists because a lot of them in general have no idea how to do anything besides their music. We’ll put their stuff up on the website. We’ll upload their stuff to Soundcloud. Some guys even give me management on their Facebook pages so I’m dealing with their social media and helping artists get their digital portfolio together.

The whole space is massive. Half of it is rehearsal space, the other is a quiet and separate studio side. Eventually, I’d like to expand the rehearsal space to become a whole digital media place so having someone like a photographer working there, or a someone in PR.

JA: Basically, you’re going to make it into one-place for artists to get everything they need.
BT: That’s kind of what we’re building towards – the one-stop-shop for artists, specifically musical but it could be anything really. Like videographers have come by. We have a pretty good computer for editing, colouring and 3D so we could create editing suites. That’s an option that we’ve thought about exploring but so far the main focus is music.

JA: You run Trendkill Productions with Ron Hooper. How did you guys meet?
BT: I met him five years ago through a mutual friend. My friend was like ‘Ron’s got a studio in his house. You should come beatbox and hang out.’ So I went. I started beatboxing and rapping and Ron was super into it. That was our first hang out.

Months later I found out he decided to take [his studio] to the next level and buy a commercial space. It was an office space. He started flipping it and doing some renovations. At that point I was also learning how to do my own recording at the University of Manitoba radio station. I recorded my own mixtape there but I didn’t really know anything about in-depth mixing and mastering so I [went to Ron], like ‘you have a whole space now. This is crazy. Do you want to mix my thing and I can make you a website or something?’ So he mixed my mixtape and I built him a website and helped with him demoing.

With the studio I could see the potential and working with him I could see his passion and drive, and so I was like ‘how can I get more involved in this? Right now I see it’s nothing, but I want to get involved.’

I was helping demo, paint, and drywall. We even took it to the next level with an acoustic ceiling, building iso booths, giant glass walls, and a drum room.

We finally finished all the renovations this past summer so we’ve been able to just produce more intensively for the past four months.

Now we’re just trying to go to the next level of getting accredited so the government can give us funding. Even if they give an artist a grant, it has to be recorded at an accredited studio so that’s what we’re trying to go for  right now.

We’ve got our stripes. We know how to record. We’ve proved what we can do and we’ve touched enough genres that we aren’t in a niche.

JA: So what’s that whole process like, just a lot of paperwork?
BT: Yeah, basically. It was cool though because as a result, when we were doing the paper work we got to look back and see like ‘holy shit we’ve done all this.’

We’ve recorded people doing Jazz Fest, we got to do live recordings of other festivals and shows, and actual recordings in the building. We’ve done a bunch of records. We’ve done jazz auditions.

We got to take a step back so now we’re like ‘okay, we’ve got our stripes. We know how to record. We’ve proved what we can do and we’ve touched enough genres that we aren’t in a niche.’

Ron comes from a bit more of a hardrock, metal area and I come from a more jazzy, hip-hop realm. We’ve done all that. We’ve done punk. We’ve done rock. We’ve done indie, so I think we can handle pretty much any type of project at this point.

JA: What’s been some of your most fun or favourite projects so far?
BT: It’s all been fun. Jazz auditions sound boring but I got to learn and listen to all of these really great talented jazz musicians. We got to do this one where we actually went to the University of Manitoba and I got to record all the jazz professors and heads of the department. So like Steve Kirby on bass – he’s this amazing bass player and Quincy on drums, who is one of the best jazz drummers. That was really cool to witness ; like ‘I’m recording this. I’m filming this.’

Joanna Majoko –  I love her voice and I got to hear it and she got into the Manhattan School of Music because of it, and just to be like ‘I was a part of that’ is really fun.

I’m a little bias but I find that what we’ve been able to do with my music has been really cool. I got to perform Jazz Fest and Ron filmed it.  We did the same thing for another group called Super Duty Tough Work.  They’re really big in the hip-hop, jazz realm and they’re doing really great.

Being on stage filming people is really fun. I get to capture someone else’s performance, edit something really cool and make it sound really great – that’s sweet.

We did a video for a band called Silence Kit. They’re more punk. They came in to do a full, so they had a singer in the booth, guitar player in the main studio and the drummer all playing live. I got to film it. That was our first time with all three rooms utilized at once. It made for a pretty cool feeling – all organic.

Stay up-to-date with all the news and releases from Trendkill Productions at Trendkill.ca. Like them on Facebook 

Get a glimpse of what Trendkill can do and catch a performance by Beatox at the Centennial Concert Hall for The HUB Opening Night: Winnipeg New Music Festival Afterparty – January 28th.