From A To D
In fact, Feeney appears to have completely released his attachment to analogue gear. “I am no longer an analogue purist. As I have grown and become wiser, I have realised that analogue is not necessary. It is not about analogue or digital, it is about inspiration. It is about what makes you excited to make music. I still love analogue recordings, and I still love the process. I love what it does psychologically, for example the fact that you don’t have to sit behind a computer, which feels more inspiring to me. I definitely continue to gravitate towards things that sound more analogue, but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in analogue.
“There was a time when I was like: ‘If I’m working with a band, it has to be done on analogue.’ But today I cannot imagine recording to tape anymore. I feel that digital technology and my skills have developed to the point where I don’t think anyone could tell the difference. You can work in digital and still capture that analogue spirit. There are plug‑ins now that truly make things feel and sound analogue, like the Waves J37 Tape Saturation, which is probably my favourite plug‑in.
Frank Dukes: There are plug‑ins now that truly make things feel and sound analogue, like the Waves J37 Tape Saturation, which is probably my favourite plug‑in.
“Also, the analogue synths that are coming out now are so much better than the old ones. I get that you want to buy vintage equipment from a collector’s point of view. But as a musician I’d rather buy the new version of a synthesizer, that sounds incredible, has MIDI, and you know is not going to break, and that it has all the modern functionalities to incorporate into a modern setup. New analogue is in an awesome place now.”
DAW Of A New Era
At the heart of Feeney’s digital setup is Ableton Live. “When I started I just worked on MPC and vinyl records,” he remembers. “In 2007, I discovered Ableton, and I initially used that to record beats from the MPC. Then Ableton became the ‘brain’ of my setup as opposed to the MPC, and I have used Ableton ever since.
“There were things that Ableton had not worked out yet in the past, but its functionalities are getting much closer now to those of other DAWs. In any case, I’m pretty primary in terms of exploring all the functionalities of the software. I use Ableton mostly like an extremely advanced tape machine. It’s the intention and what you’re doing that matters, not the software.
“When I make music my process is very simple and intuitive, and I just follow what excites me, and go with the flow. I can start on the piano, but when I write a song I’m usually on guitar. My engineer, Tyler Murphy, records that stuff into Ableton, and then he places it onto a grid, and we go into time‑stretching and things like that. We love time‑stretching in Ableton and how natural and intuitive it is. I may then add a beat or play drums. We have developed a really great process for stretching them by using Ableton’s ingenuity.
“I’m a firm believer in the idea that as a record producer, you do not need any technical knowledge. You just need to be good at making decisions. Tyler is like the technical wing of my brain and an extension of me. When he’s around, I don’t have to think about the technical side of things, and can just think about being creative.”
Adam King Feeney: I’m a firm believer in the idea that as a record producer, you do not need any technical knowledge. You just need to be good at making decisions.
The Prince: VST Synth
Ever searching for new things to get excited about, Feeney landed on The Prince. The idea for his brand‑new sample‑based VST synth was initially born from a need that arose when he was still regularly travelling between Toronto and Los Angeles, and it was complicated to take his analogue keyboards, amps and pedals with him.
“I was looking for a way to bring my own sounds with me in one small, portable box. So I started this exploration, working with my friend Matt Fudge who is a software programmer and developer. We realised that there are very few synths with a sample‑based architecture. We could either use Native Instruments’ Kontakt, or build something from the ground up. We chose to do the latter, so I set up a company, called Cradle Apps, and put together a team to build something substantial that could truly evolve the state of sample‑based virtual instruments.
Feeney’s newest venture is a sampled instrument based around his own analogue collection, called The Prince.
“We started on this three years ago, and it’s been an ongoing project on which we chiselled away until the release last October. It took long to get it right! We ended up with something that I’m really excited about. The Prince is based on my 20 years of collecting sounds. It takes sounds directly from all my favourite synths, and all the sounds I have used on famous records I have been involved in. They’re all in there. I have curated every sound.
“The Prince is a documentation of my sound selection throughout my career until now. We really homed in on what makes analogue synths sound great, and I think the engine we developed sounds like no other sample engine. We figured out how to capture that baseline noise that analogue synths have, making sure we don’t amplify it, but also not getting rid of it, as most other sample engines do. You can use The Prince as a preset machine, and never get tired of it. But you can also do your own sound design and make insane sounds.
“The design is very simple and very intuitive. I wanted to create a synth for which you do not need any technical knowledge. The ethos of the entire company is to make products that sound incredible and inspiring and for which you do not need a lot of technical knowledge. You load up The Prince and it sounds incredible, and it makes you want to play things and write music. That initial feeling it gives you the second you open it up was really important to me.
“Honestly, The Prince is now my favourite VST, and it has really changed my process. I essentially put all my favourite sounds in one place, and together with the [Waves] J37 it’s all I use. It’s almost comical. I get questions all the time about what I am using to get my sounds, and then they see me in a session, and notice it’s just The Prince and the J37, and they go: ‘That’s it?’ As I said, I’m a simple guy and gear is not that precious to me.”
What’s In A Name?
Finally, about that career change. At the time this interview went to print it was still under wraps, and all Feeney could say was that he’ll continue to produce, but that he’ll retire the Frank Dukes name because in 2022 he’ll be shifting his focus to a new arena.
“About three years ago I felt that I had achieved everything I wanted in terms of my dream to become a top producer, and I started wondering, ‘What’s the next thing for me to get excited about?’ As a producer you are of service to the artist. You serve their vision. I can inject pieces of myself into that, but ultimately, what makes a good producer is their ability to serve the artist’s vision.
“I’m now at a point in my life where I want to realise my own vision. The next phase of my career will be about sharing my story, and about giving people things, like The Prince. My career as a producer has often been about surprising people, and I hope my next steps will be as well.”
A Tale Of Two Singles
Camila Cabello’s ‘Havana’ (featuring Young Thug) was a career‑defining song for the singer, and became one of the best‑selling songs of the 2010s. In line with modern pop‑song conventions, it was written by a large number of people: Cabello, Jeffrey Williams, Brittany Hazzard, Pharrell Williams, Adam Feeney, Brian Lee, Ali Tamposi, Andrew Watt, Louis Bell, and Kaan Gunesberk. Unusually, it was produced by Feeney alone.
“That record is really dear to my heart,” recalls Feeney. “It started with me making a beat at my house that literally took me five m
Feeney (right) and producer Louis Bell (left) working on a track with ‘Havana’ singer Camila Cabello.inutes. I played a chord progression, put a snare on it, programmed a little 808, and that really was it. It was the first time I was working with Camila, and Ali Tamposi and Andrew Watt were also in the studio. Ali was just freestyling some of the vocal lines.
“I named the beat ‘Nights In Havana’, because Camila is born in Havana. It was right around the time that Trump was nominated into office and it felt really important for Camila as a first‑generation immigrant from Cuba to stand behind her culture and represent a group of people.
“I knew it was a record that would transcend boundaries, but nobody else saw this at the time. But I believed in it, and Camilla believed in it, so we stuck with it. The reason why there are so many writers is because we kept rewriting the verses and we kept rewriting the pre‑chorus. I really felt that we had hit on something, and over the course of six months, we kept exploring to make it better. We probably made it worse at a few points, and then turned that back and made it better again.
“It was a difficult process to finish that song. There was so much exploration. I always knew that the chorus was amazing, but it wasn’t until we were in the studio with Pharrell that we finished it. We were working on other things, and at the very end of our last day I said to Camila, ‘Let’s play him Havana.’ I told the engineer to mute out the verses and as we played the song to Pharrell, he started mumbling what you hear now. We all knew that it was right, and we were excited and recorded it. The truth is, sometimes getting a song to the finish line feels impossible, until you are there.
“When the record was finally done we brought it to the label, and they were just blank-faced saying: ‘This will never work on the radio.’ It was released as a B‑side to one of her other songs. But the Spotify analytics soon showed that people were more interested in the B‑side! I have often been watching labels fumble, because I make the stranger pop records. I don’t think that they dislike these songs, they just make them scared. If something looks risky it’s better to do the safe thing and release a record that sounds like other things that work. It’s not a philosophy I subscribe to at all.”
A similar situation arose with Post Malone’s ‘Circles’ (2019), which went two‑times platinum in the UK, five‑times platinum in the US, was one of the biggest worldwide hits of 2019, and was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards. The writing credits are Malone, Louis Bell, Kaan Gunesberk, Billy Walsh, and Feeney, and the track was produced by Malone, Bell, and Feeney.
Feeney, “This is a record that Post and I started like a band together. He played drums, I played guitar and then bass, and after that he was freestyling vocals. After this Lou added some production to it, and Billy some words. Again, this was one of those records where I knew it was incredibly special and that it would be massive song, but the label was unsure because it was a little different than what else he had done. Of course, it ended up being the biggest song on the Hollywood’s Bleeding album!”