ABOUT

Majetone is me, James Yates. 

back at the beginning I was working as an assistant and all the producers I was working for had drums with vellum heads on them. 

I had the same conversation with two producers ‘I love them, but I don’t know what I’ll do when the head breaks’ 

Years previous, someone had roughly explained the process, I ordered some vellum off eBay and made my first drum head… then all hell broke loose - every producer and drummer in London got in touch. I continued making heads until 2018.

I loved making the one off stuff, but endlessly making 14” drumheads is not what I wanted to do with my life, Brexit also kind of killed it.

I ended doing physical products making a Bass Drum out of a Whisky cask for Lagavulin whisky. 

Bass Drum made out of a whisky cask

I want to create unique and bespoke things. It struck me that software would be a better focus. I’d previously ran a sample company and thought I’d take my creations in to the Kontakt format, giving these unique instruments to everyone. 

I recorded the first kit I made heads for with Kensal Clubdate in the studio I worked in, Hoxa. I wanted it to feel like I was playing drums, use different mallets and sticks - as I would in recording. 

This has expanded out, I’m currently working on my first plugin that takes this idea much further.

I love through sampling I can record something acoustically, that can’t be played acoustically and put it in an instrument that is not only a representation of the instrument in reality, but more. Hyper real, dream like. The AC08 is a good example of this. 

I’m absolutely obsessed with recording, especially drum recording, it’s infinitely fascinating and I can’t wait to keep providing tools, instruments and samples.

I can’t stop thinking about these instruments and building this stuff its beyond a passion. 

 

Recording at Otterhead Studios, UK 2022