Static Revenger

Crafting Club Hits and TV/Film Music with the INTEGRA-7

Dennis White (aka Static Revenger)

Dennis White—aka Static Revenger—is a multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and composer who has scored a number of worldwide club hits, including “I Like That” and “Happy People.” He’s also produced number-one remixes for artists such as Dev, Swedish House Mafia, Madonna, and more, and has made his mark in visual media by directing music videos for himself and many other artists. More recently, he’s ventured into the world of composing music for films and TV commercials, with high-end clients that include Toyota and Victoria’s Secret.

Working a hectic creative schedule driven by incredibly tight deadlines, Dennis needs to develop and capture ideas as fast as he thinks of them. With his newly acquired Roland INTEGRA-7 SuperNATURAL Sound Module, he’s finally found a sound source that can keep pace with his rapid-fire workflow. Dennis is thrilled by the INTEGRA-7’s enormous selection of ready-to-mix sounds, which he accesses instantly via the companion INTEGRA-7 Editor app on his iPad.

Insider recently visited Dennis at his North Hollywood studio, where we discussed his career, workflow, and longtime history with Roland keyboard gear.

Tell us about some of the various projects you’ve done over the last year.

I just finished a single with an artist called Dev that I’m really excited about called “Turn the World On.” I did a remix for Havana Brown that came out great, and I did a song with Adam Sandler for his movie called Hotel Transylvania. I had two of the lead cues in there. The last cue, I wrote it with him. I went into his office and we just literally picked up a guitar and started going for some chords and wrote it there. So that was good fun. I had a good release with Stan Walker, the Australian Idol guy; in Australia that was gold record. And I’ve got a new track coming out with DJ Rap and Miss Palmer.

Don’t you do a lot of music for TV commercials as well?

Yes. I really enjoy doing work for TV commercials. In the last couple of years some of my clients have been Toyota, Scion, Smirnoff, and Victoria’s Secret.

Dennis White (aka Static Revenger)
What’s coming up for you in the future?

Honestly, the answer to that is that I never know what’s coming up for me in the future. I have [my own artist] releases—I try to keep a steady flow of those. But so much of my work is, “Hey, we need a commercial.” Sounds great. “In three days!” Ah! So I don’t really know what’s coming up for me, but I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that it’s going to be something.

But that’s the importance of having gear in your studio, where you can keep a creative workflow going between creating tracks or doing remixes or [knocking] out a commercial spot really quick, all those kinds of things. It becomes imperative to have gear in your studio that helps enhance the workflow, and that’s nimble [among] those different kinds of projects.

What were some of the things that initially excited you about the INTEGRA-7?

The quality of sounds, the power of the processor, and how easy it is to navigate. It’s got like 6,000 great sounds, and when you have 6,000 sounds, navigating that can be a task. With this iPad interface with graphics on it, it’s just so intuitive and so fast. When I’m composing, the creative process is sacred. Keeping that moving is sacred. If you get thrown off for five seconds, that can really [disrupt] your whole session, it really can. So, how quickly the INTEGRA can get through sounds, it processes at the speed of thought, which for me has been the Holy Grail of processing. It’s my idea, and I want it out—boom! For me, that was the thing that made me want this in my studio immediately.

How does the INTEGRA-7 speed up your workflow?

Ideas come and go. And if they come, you’re lucky. And to have any sound I could possibly want in a project instantly at my disposal [is great]. The creative flow and immediate access to sounds and stuff is important, because the turnaround of stuff is just so quick. I don’t have three days to realize that my last idea sucked. I’ve got to get these ideas out. I’ve got to keep them going.

Here’s what happens [when working with computer plug-ins]: this sound might be good here. Okay, open up the plug-in, find the sound, wait for it load, ah, this sound sucks! Okay, I’m going to try this other sound…it’s a different plug-in, make a new track, open that up. Imagine trying to get a thought out really quickly and being bungled down by that. I hate that! With the INTRGRA, that stuff’s gone—I pull out the iPad, zip through the sounds, boom—it’s there. Maybe a piano…no, a piano didn’t work. Let me try an acoustic bass…it usually takes 30 seconds for that other program to load. Boom, boom, boom! What I just did there was as fast as the sounds show up on [the INTEGRA-7]. So that’s why it’s a big deal for me.

You told me that when you first heard the SuperNATURAL acoustic instruments in the INTEGRA-7, you were really taken aback by their realism. Can you talk about how that helps your process?

Access to that level of quality of acoustic sounds is, first of all, really expensive in the plug-in world. And once you buy a plug-in, you’ve got to buy the packs for it. [With one program], the orchestra pack is $1200—that’s just one sound pack! I think if you had to buy the dance music/club pack and the symphonic club pack and the jazz band club pack and all these different sound sampler packs, I swear this thing would probably be worth like $20,000, honestly. I don’t think I’m making this number up. So, I feel like I just got all this stuff for free [with the INTEGRA-7]. Full orchestra—boom! Free. Want a banjo? I don’t even know if it’s in here, but I’ll bet you anything a banjo’s in here.

I like [the INTEGRA-7] not only for the sounds that I know it has; I really like it for the sounds I have no idea it has! I’m going to need them one day, and [they’re] going to be in there.

In the world of dance and electronic music, the sound palette is changing. Where are sounds going? What types of sounds are going to start being essential?
Dennis White (aka Static Revenger)

The sonic template for dance music tends to be pretty synthesized. So every couple of years, there’s a reaction sort of to the counterpoint of that, where a lot of organic sounds [start to be used]. In electronic music in the past year or so, one of the biggest tracks of the year had an accordion. Piano’s coming back. The breakdowns, rather than synthesizers, are big orchestral kinds of things.

I love it. I’m very glad to be hearing that stuff. So that also plays into the vast array of sound sets that the INTEGRA-7 has. Again, this goes right back to one of the most important things for me—ease of use and access to a large sound template.

How do new sounds inspire you?

That’s a great question. A new sound palette is very important for creation. I just think that something new inspires; if you notice something new, you’re already in the space of thinking something new. If you’re already in the space of thinking something new, then you have the palette for a new idea. I think that’s why new soundscapes are exciting for any composer. That’s one reason. A nerdy, technical reason, which is also equally true, is that in a lot of sounds the harmonic complexities do melodic things inside of them. You can play one complex sound that’s sort of swirling around—the frequencies and the harmonics are bouncing off of each other in a way that will suggest melodies. The sounds just create these opportunities.

What do you see in the INTEGRA-7 that relates to what you’ve used in the past?

Speaking as a longtime Roland user, the first synthesizer I ever bought was a JUNO-6, pre-MIDI. It’s still in my studio—it’s right here! I bought that in ’84, something like that. The first sampler I ever bought was the S-50 in maybe ’87. [I’ve owned] the JUPITER series, the JX series, and the JV-1080. Roland for me has always been the method of sound creation that I’m most comfortable with. I’ve always thought the sounds, for my personal taste, were always the best sounds.

Dennis White (aka Static Revenger)

I love that the INTEGRA-7 has got basically every Roland sound from any Roland synth ever made in this box. I know the JUPITER-8 sounds that I liked, I know the JX-8P sounds that I liked, I know the JUNO-106 sounds that I liked. And now I have access to the entire library, the entire history of Roland sound creation. It’s like the history of Roland in one small part of this box, and the rest of it’s like the future of music. I’m excited about this thing. To me personally, that’s a big deal, not only sonically, but also in terms of connecting with music emotionally, because I have such a history with the brand, and I genuinely love it. It just feels comfortable.

Obviously, you like old keyboards. What is it about hardware that you like?

What I like about hardware—gear that is not in my computer—is the opportunity to not deal with my computer. Because all day long, we’re on emails, and then there are cat videos on YouTube, that’s half the day. [Laughs.] And then there’s music—you know, programming, you’re on a computer constantly, constantly. Man, can I just get in here and do something else that isn’t in the immediate environment of a computer? It’s the fun quotient of it, which is very important for me. But then the other thing, the practical matter of it, is to take some of the processing outside of the computer and have the processing being handled by another instrument. So, it’s those two reasons.

So many times working in the studio, finding a sound is work. The INTEGRA-7 makes it feel playful and fun. For the experience of just going through sounds and creation, it kind of brings the fun back to it for me. I love it.

How do you think the INTEGRA-7 integrates with today’s computer-based music production?

People work on laptops a lot, I work on laptops a lot, and one of the great things about the INTEGRA-7 is that it will enable me to do so much more work with my laptop than it could ordinarily handle. It really ends up choking—acoustic instruments on a computer are the things that just suck processor. [The INTEGRA-7] ends up handling probably easily 70 percent of any of my sessions. This thing will take all of it, so your computer can just whip through the audio like it’s supposed to. So for laptop users and studio composers, it’s great. Really, anybody man. I think that this is going to end up being the go-to box for any style of music that you’re doing.