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MorganPageGlearing the path for creativitYBY KYLEE SWENSON

"r pRoBABLy disagree with every point ofview I had aboutten years agoi' says Los Angeles-based DJ/producerMorgan Page. "I think I've broken all of my rules."

Not that it's a bad thing to change your artistic viewsand let go of stubborn, preconceived notions: Given hisGrammy nominations, B illboard Dance,/Club Play Songs

chart honors, and his discography of zOo-plus remixes(including Coldplay, Katy Perry, and Madonna), it's servedPage well to be open-minded to transformation.

Recently, he reworked his production workflow. Page usedto look down on creating Pro Tools templates, but he's sincechanged his mind. "I thought it was cheesy to have structure,and now it's crucial; it's absolutely essential to the process," hesays. "I have markers in [my templates] for verses, choruses,turnarounds, and bridges. And you can move those arounddepending on what the song calls for, but by having a startingpoint, you can make it that much quicker, and that's the onlyway I've been able to do a draft-a-day process."

with his streamlined methodoiogl', Page flies throughcreative ideas. For In the Air,his third solo album on Nettwerk(due in February), he was able to come up r.r'ith 80 or 90 draftideas and then whittle them down to t8 full songs with lyrics'

But it wasn't Page's intention to use templates in order tocrank out tracks as ifthrough a cookie-cufter song factory.Rather, he wanted to avoid technical disrractions, so thathe could get to his best ideas. "The next stage is fmaking] a

patchbay and patching in guitar pedals into compressors andthings," he says. "I don't want to run around changing 9-voltbatteries in guitar pedals and lose that creative process. Ialways tell people: It's important that 1'ou don't go back andforth between left brain and right brain u'ith all of this stuff.You want to get in your creative mode and get into a workflow

that makes sense, not sit behind all your gear going Aw, man!What channel's this going into? Why is there this groundhum?'You can just continue to tinker around like that fordays...andyears."

Earlier this year, Page built a studio in the two-car garage of his new house, and he hired an acousticconsultant to tune the room. Other improvements includedscaling back on his gear lust. Aside from Pro Tools (hewas using a Digi 002 for years, but he's since moved to HDNative), his go-to gear and software include a Dave SmithProphet 08 keyboard, Waves Maserati and SSL Channelplug-in bundles, an M-Audio Sputnik mic, Prism SoundOrpheus interface, and Dangerous Music 2-Bus and D-Boxanalog summing units.

But there are a few Craigslist finds that he's kept, too."My favorite is the Alesis 363o, which is the Daft Punkcompressor," Page says. "It's like $60 on Craigslist, so Iwent out and got four ofthose and a power strip. The rackenclosure cost more than the compressors. So it's justfunny: For the price ofa plug-in, I have these amazing-sounding, really dirty compressors that I use for parallelcompression. The 3630 basically sends stuff out andthen sends it back in through the Pro Tools converters.It really compresses stuff hard and raises the level of thecompressed version ofbackground vocals or guitars-justadding a little bite in controlled doses."

By limiting his gear and improving his workflow, Pagewas able to concentrate on production techniques thatwould benefit the songs. For "In the Air," Page teamedup with BT, who shares his love for contrasting organicand electronic elements and added organic timpani anddulcimer parts to the pulsating synthetic sounds. Then

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