The Secret to 100 Gecs' Genius Productions
If you’re a music producer, please tell me you’re listening to the Tape Notes podcast!
Hosted by John Kennedy, this show is a fascinating source of nerdy details about the ins and outs of everything related to the process of making a track, from the early stages of composing all the way to the mixing and the mastering. Kennedy sits down with some of the world’s most visionary artists and ask them the most specific questions about their process. There’s also a fair amount of my favorite thing in the world: gear talk!
Many Tape Notes episodes have inspired me recently. Sometimes, little details really make me want to run to the studio and start working on new ideas.
Caribou might have been my favorite guest so far, and I also loved the episode deconstructing Charli XCX’s summer hit Brat. Fred Again.. has 2 very inspiring episodes as well.
For some reason, though, the episode I keep coming back to is the one with 100 Gecs. Something Laura Les says on that podcast keeps popping back in my head every time I’m sitting in front of Ableton Live, trying to make sense of a song structure, or of my arrangements.
Here’s the quote; it happens about 7 minutes into the episode.
“But I mean, you know, what we do is we have all this stuff, and with this one, especially with this album, we just tried to throw as much spaghetti at the wall as we could. Eventually, the hope is the good spaghetti sticks, and everything else melts away, and you get a picture of the Mona Lisa at the end. (...) We just throw more and more on there and then we chisel away as we’re going along too.”
Laura’s Method
First off, I’d like to say that I’m a big fan of 100 Gecs. I think they have a very interesting take on the hyperpop genre. I like their humor and the way their tracks cycle through different dynamics, going from something super busy distorted to a really pure and melodic part.
It didn’t surprise me to learn that they throw everything at the wall and keep what sticks. You can feel that cultivated naiveté in their music, that maximalist approach that sometimes borders on trolling. It’s present in their crazy DJ sets as well.
Their enthusiasm for music is palpable.
The way Les describes the duo’s approach sticks with me because I can sometimes struggle with arrangements and sound design. I make electronic music, but I come from a pop rock background. When I learned how to produce music, I often got the message that there was a right and a wrong way to do things. I thought an ideal production should be linear and streamlined. Going into electronic music made me question everything I had learned up to that point.
I love that accomplished musicians like 100 Gecs use a destructive method, and that they don’t too much reverence for the sacrosaint rules of music production as defined by a bunch of stuffy dinosaurs of the record business.
A good track doesn’t have to be all balanced and pretty. Ugly things can stick out. You can experiment, you can mangle the sounds, you can add layers upon layers of random stuff without overthinking at every turn. It’s all about how it makes you feel in the end. I don’t know about you, but great gain structure, and transparent EQs aren’t really what move me when I listen to music. Usually, I like music that really goes for it, that forces me to feel something.
Good art is like a jungle. There’s a lot of chaos and a lot of growth that needs to happen to have enough material to sustain life. It should be dirty and messy.
And then there’s a survival of the fittest kind of thing that needs to happen where some weak things are left behind, some strong things die, and after that, the cycle keeps going on continuously to create an ever-evolving entity.
Applied Science
Now, when I'm working on a track and hit a creative block, I think of Laura's method. I just start adding ideas—recording random sounds and synth parts, sampling loops that don’t necessarily fit together. I might delete most of those later, but some might spark inspiration for a new section or lead to a completely different sound.
Since hearing that podcast, I've been reminding myself that creativity should be wild, imperfect, and fun. A technique I’ve found effective is to set a constraint: no two sections in a track can be exactly the same. In Ableton, it’s easy to loop elements and copy/paste parts; the DAW’s grid layout almost begs for it.
To keep things creative, I challenge myself to never repeat the same 4 bars anywhere in the song. Sure, there will be some repetition, but I push myself to add at least one new element—or, in true 100 Gecs fashion, about ten of ‘em.
Even if those additions are buried in the mix, knowing they’re there makes the track feel more alive, more personal. And I don’t just rely on a couple of Splice loops and call it a day. I’ll pull out a mic and make weird noises, or I’ll record random sounds with the Memo app on my iPhone throughout the day, and go out of my way to step out of my comfort zone. There are countless ways to do this.
That’s the beauty of creativity—there’s no wrong way to do it!
The Takeaways
Takeaways from the 100 Gecs approach aren’t just limited to music production. This mindset of experimentation and embracing chaos can be applied to all the creative fields. Often, we get stuck in the idea that there's a 'correct' way to do things, but true innovation only comes once we have broken those boundaries, and once we have questioned the rules.
Whether you're painting, writing, or just living your life in a creative manner, don't be afraid to throw out the rulebook and try something completely unconventional. Don’t be afraid to make a mess.
Remember, the goal is to create something that resonates, something that has your unique fingerprint on it. It doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to be authentic. Make something you love first, and then find the people who will appreciate it.
Throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, and let the process be as chaotic as it needs to be.
If you make hyperpop (or you’d like to start,) check out my list of the top hyperpop VST plugins out there. If all you want is to sound like 100 Gecs, you can try Sylenth1, Waves Tune and Splice samples, 3 things the duo confirms they use during their Tape Notes episode.
COVER CREDIT: Ben Bentley
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