apob (full name Aaron Paul O’Brien) is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and Grammy-nominated producer who has worked with a wide range of popular artists, from 6lack to Deb Never, Dora Jar, Ekkstacy, Aidan Bissett, Lava La Rue, and Rachel Chinouriri.
“What are they doing that I’m not doing?”
Originally from New York, apob — a self-described “huge gear nerd” — grew up teaching himself the tips and tricks of production. “In the beginning, I was the only one that wanted to play all the instruments,” he tells DISCO of how he got into production. “When [band] practice was over and everybody was hanging out, I was like, ‘Let’s do more. Let’s keep on writing.”
“Whether I was getting home from school or I had the weekends or vacation, I was just in my room all day listening to my favorite producer’s favorite artists, and then getting really mad that my stuff didn’t sound like that. [I would try] to work backwards: How can I be better? How can I figure it out? What are they doing that I’m not doing?”
These days, apob’s schedule is increasingly hectic, with the producer shuttling across the world to work with his artists. “I was in London for three months working on Lava La Rue’s album, came back [to LA], and then flew back [to London] the next week for Rachel Chinouriri’s album. Then I had a couple of weeks before I locked in with Ekkstacy for his album.”
What Makes A Good Producer?
According to apob, an effective producer walks a fine line and aims to create a balance between building upon an artist’s initial idea and not overshadowing them. “At the end of the day, how much can you bring it to life — but also, how can you not get in the way of it?” apob tells DISCO. “How well can you adapt to whatever is being asked of you? How can you create an environment in which people are comfortable and willing to share? And once you have that, how can you push it to its limits and enhance it and help it grow? But also, you don’t turn it into something that was never meant to be.” He continues: “It essentially is just listening, and then making sure that your intention is right.”
When apob’s in the studio, his favorite time in any session is just sitting down with an artist and catching up on what’s going on in their lives. “Sometimes, they’re off tour, they’re exhausted,” he says. “You never know what’s going to come up. You start talking and there’s all these weird synchronicities that start occurring and popping up… Then, all of a sudden, someone starts formulating [an idea] and coming together.”
A Studio Maximalist At Heart
Though apob admits to having a slight gear obsession, he also understands how to pare down when necessary. “People have made hits with the bare minimum,” he says. “For me, gear has been an obsession because, again, I am a nerd and I like the tactile nature of it.”
The producer also loves the mystery and endless possibilities of running one set of vocals “through tubes, transformers, and electronics,” adding: “That’s a science in itself that I have no idea how that works. But I love the process, and I love the idea of having something that has a history to it.”
“For me, it just makes things fun,” apob continues of his specialty interest in gear. “There’s randomization, there’s effects. Something that we strive for, musically, is perfection — in pop music especially. But with certain builds, with the 1176 Blue Stripe [compressor], that was a manufacturing defect that made one model incredible, and now they’ve emulated that one defect because there was a sound that was great.”
By the same token, apob cautions against going overboard. “I think you have to catch yourself where buying gear does not make you better,” he advises. “It can make your life easier in terms of the signal quality that you’re at. But I think if you can do it with less, great. For me, it makes me happy.”
“DISCO Makes Life So Much Easier”
All artists and producers are juggling multiple files regularly. But apob’s output, high-profile client base, and travel requirements require him to stay especially organized. “There’s so much creation, and DISCO is just a great way to organize it,” apob says. “I can search by artists, by genre, whatever custom tags I put in there. I can have complete control over how things are organized.”
When apob is creating new samples, he can also use DISCO to quickly filter which samples need clearing, and which are good to go by themselves. “There are just so many aspects of [DISCO] that I really love,” he says.
Likewise, apob appreciates that DISCO makes it easy to replace audio formats on tracks using the replace format feature.
“If there are any edits, if I bounce something wrong, if I made a mistake, I can just swap out the audio,” apob says. “I’ll just go into the settings, [go to] “Files and formats”, and I can just swap the audio. I don’t have to go through re-uploading it, I don’t have to go through renaming it and reorganizing it. Wherever that song is. It’ll just repopulate with that audio. It makes life so much easier.”
