All photos, video and interview by Lux.

Artist Name, website and instagram:
Dug Infinite some people call me Dug Inf
www.duginfinite.com
@duginf on instagram

Specialty:
Producer (+)
(+) because I’ve engineered, emceed, b-boy, skateboarded, owned a skateshop, and been a dee jay. That’s why my friends started calling me Infinite

What’s one of your most memorable studio moments?
There’s many, but I was in New York meeting Peter Kang who managed the
X-Ecutioners at the time to pick up some files for a remix. Pete said
“meet me at D&D studios to get the files” I’m like word. I step up
in there and meet Pete, walk into this session X-Ecutioners with DJ
Premier. When I walked in the music stops (awkward), Premier has this
look on his face like who the hell is this guy, everyone was looking at
me. Pete says “you guys don’t know each other?” I’m shaking my head like
nope, then Pete says ” Premier this Dug Infinite, Dug Infinite meet
Premier,” Premier said oh yeah cool, what’s up of course I responded and
then the music started again. I’ll never forget that day. 

What DAW are you working on and why?
Lately I produce on the OP-1 and MPC Renaissance through Ableton Live. Live
seems to unleash my creativity, there’s a lot of what if i do this or
that with Live.  I mix in Logic. Just like engineers prefer certain rooms or speakers cause they
know them, that’s how I feel about mixing in Logic since I’ve been using
it for years, in fact since the 90’s right after I dumped my Atari
1040st for a Macintosh se.

If you could create 1-3 key features for DAW production, what would they be?
I don’t know if any of this exists already but:

1. I’d definitely rework the metronome. I’d add different feels for the metronome like clave, rumba, hiphop, etc,  not the sound, but the pattern.

2. I’d create automation within slice points in trim and live chop modes
for cross fades, silence, cut and paste ability within the chops or
slices to add other parts of the song to parts you may have silenced. 

3. I’d create a feature that analyzes your song and gives you the chord
tabs, like Em7, Cmaj5, etc. Then lets you assign those chord tabs to
a pad or key on the keyboard. Also lets you chop up notes from a score
by dragging sections to a pad.

5 Gear Essentials & Why:
    1. Good analog chain- I like Neve 1073 mic pres, Pultec Eq’s, Tube Tech Compressors. I like the sound and I like to open stuff up and seeing what’s inside, learning how it works, like buying a car.  

2. Good synthesizer- I use the Op-1 by Teenage Engineering. It looks
and feels great, it’s different, fits in my bag, it’s battery
operated like a cellphone, a midi controller, and a sampling/analog
synth/4 track tape machine.

3. Good drum machine- I use the MPC Renaissance. Just to have access to
all my old songs on the MPC 1000 and zip disks is worth the
price of admission. Live chopping, audio interface, sampling, trusted workflow are all pluses to me.

4. Good software- I use Keymap Pro. I know this is hard to find these
days, but there’s nothing that I’ve see that can live chop and
create sounds like his program, Apple please implement this into Logic.

5. Good DAW- I use Ableton. Great program and they always seem to be
adding new features, and it really sparks my creativity. They
also have a great community of users that I build with.

Top 5 Producers At This Moment in Time (Producers & Why):
   Too many! This is unfair but I like spotting talent before mass culture finds out, In no particular order:
   1. King Karnov- I’ve been watching this guy grow, His music is dope and he plays the live bass, enjoy his joints.
    2. Decap with Chris keyz- Both played me some spectacular joints, Decap’s live set blew me away.
   3. Poetiqbeetz- Sound quality was outstanding and his beats were dope to listen too.
   4. Phil Gates- Doing some great work with sound for my man Slang, dope engineer and video guy.
    5. Imakemadbeats- Saw this producer in Memphis and his live set was spectacular, with very dope beats.
*shooting star my 6th favorite: Bboy Wicket- I like his production and he’s a dope b-boy too so his styles different

Any production advice for future producers out there?    
 Learn the rules then break them and become a trend setter   
Trust your ears more than your eyes   
Open up some analog gear and learn what creates the sound   
Don’t give up and believe in yourself   
Live your life one 16th at a time   
Authors have books, Mechanics have cars, so buy some vinyl records and study them.

Where can people go to support you?    
www.duginfinite.com
Follow me on Facebook @dug infinite   
Follow me on instagram @duginf and stay tuned!