In spite of the much-feted vinyl resurgence, you might be surprised how few records dance music labels actually sell. Even large imprints with packed release schedules commonly press copies in the hundreds rather than the thousands. But English producer East End Dubs, by his own reckoning, sells around 40,000 units a year. It's a startling figure, especially given there's been little promotion or media attention around his eponymous label and offshoots like Eastenderz and Social. So how does a house music producer sell more than the bigger labels vying for our attention?

The answer is simple. East End Dubs exclusively makes music that works on a dance floor. If it doesn't work, he doesn't release it. This is unpretentious music. Tellingly, his target customers are DJs, not journalists. A critic might write off his sizeable catalogue as mere tools. But anyone who DJs regularly knows the importance of dependable, consistent, groove-focused music. It's those people who are buying his records.

Without fail, East End Dubs productions contain infectious swing, an impeccably balanced low-end, taut and clear percussion and a loopy, open-ended structure. It's not music with hooks or pyrotechnics, but the reserved character is key to its strength and wide appeal among DJs. He's also astonishingly productive, despite a packed touring schedule, a rare feat on a circuit where the busiest DJs often don't have the mental energy to make new music. This constant urge to create was one of the reasons I travelled outside of London to learn more about how he does it. It was also an excuse to check out his newly constructed studio, whose coloured mood lights and floating floor make for one of the more striking home studios I've seen.

I'm surprised that the first thing that caught my eye in here was a stack of scratched-up records.

I'm using them to make tracks, actually. I cut little pieces with a knife to create holes and lines in the run-out groove. It creates glitchy, weird textures and rhythms, but you can also get some nice low-end out of it, too. When you put it behind a normal track the results can be quite interesting.

Is this inspired by Thomas Brinkmann?

Yes, he's done this quite a few times many years ago. I saw one of his videos and thought, "Woah, this is interesting," and I've been experimenting ever since. It's part of a new project I'm working on for next year. I'll be trying to play a live performance with this kind of stuff.

How much trial and error is there with cutting the records to generate the rhythms?

A lot. But when it comes down to editing it in the computer it's pretty easy. Performing live would be a different story because you have to be very precise with the speed on the turntables. Still, it doesn't need to be synced perfectly because it's more of an ambient, textural approach.

I'll also be using field recordings for this project, but I've been using them for some years already. I always travel with an Olympus recorder to catch sounds on the plane, train stations, wherever. Most East End Dubs tracks have a field recording in the background to give things a different depth. I remember one with a recording from King's Cross Station where you can hear people in the background. I don't know if you notice it in the club when I play it, but I know it's there so it's a little special for me. I also feel like these recordings affect the mix because the noise produces a kind of warmth. It helps me stay in control in the mixdown because you have this noise level as a reference.

We're quite far outside of London here. I take it that a reasonably sized studio space in the city is just too expensive.

Yeah, to be honest with you, I couldn't afford it. So we looked outside the city and managed to find this space. But when we got here it wasn't an actual room—it was more like a garage. I went to the council, told them my plan and they gave me permission. Then I contacted studio build specialists and we decided the best approach was to construct a room within a room. This is important for acoustics and soundproofing. I work a lot at night so that last point was crucial. We ended up digging two metres down to put a gap between the foundation and the floor.

This is known as a floating floor, right?

That's right. I've seen it at fabric and a few other clubs, and the studio specialists said I should do it if I had the chance. We worked with Artnovion Acoustics for the treatment in the room itself. They made a lot of drawings so the absorbers, bass traps and everything were sized specifically for this room. The space is divided into two halves: there's DJing on one side and production on the other. Naturally, the sweet spot is in front of the desk.

The treatment is eye-catching, but I think most people would want to know about the lighting. You've made a system that can fade between different colours.

I had to get an electrician during the build because all these machines draw a lot of power. We ended up installing an additional fuse box that's separate to the mains. As we were doing all of this, the electrician told me he'd been in China where he'd seen these cool gadgets at a lighting exhibition. He showed me these multicoloured LED lights, and I thought we should definitely work with them. So I got in touch with the builders and they built this hidden gap between the walls to house the lights. It provides a different feeling every time I enter the room. You can control the colour with a remote. I know for some people it looks pretty funny. But I like having a red or a blue tint when I'm working here at night.

Red and blue are your favourite choices?

Red feels clubby somehow. I chose blue if I want to do something more adventurous or work on melodies, for instance. All the music I make is for clubs. Every track is built to improve my DJ sets. So it's important for me to have that club kind of feeling in here.

You mentioned to me earlier that you bounce out the same track with different kick drums so you have the option of picking the optimal kick style for a given soundsystem.

That's right. Normally I'll bounce out two or three versions with different kicks. Obviously not all clubs sound the same, they have different rigs and particular acoustics. Last night I played in Romania and the system was very boomy and strong in the low-end. So I had to make sure to pick tracks that fit the sound.

I'm specific when it comes to sound. I want things to sit a certain way and I want people to feel it the way I feel it. I'm lucky enough to try out all my tracks in clubs before I release them so I can be sure that they sound how I like. So I'll choose the version with the kick that I think is appropriate for the soundsystem, then I'll come back in here and adjust the low-end balance until it's ready to be released.

I guess it makes sense to focus on the kicks given they take up so much space in the mix.

The kick is the most important factor. Sure, that might sound a bit weird to some people, but for me it's the key element. I've got about 15 to 20 kicks that I've been sampling or creating with drum machines, layering them, trying different compressors. It saves time having a small, go-to folder.

When I come in here, I'll put a kick on and go straight to a bass synth to build a groove with just two elements. Then I'll try different percussion arrangements to generate a little more feeling and swing. The first 30 to 60 minutes are the most important because these fundamental parts shape everything else that has to happen down the line. Having said that, I'm still searching for the perfect kick drum.

It's a life's work, right? So when you go to the bass sound, what machines or sources do you tend to reach for?

The basslines on a lot of the early East End Dubs records were made from percussion. I've used a lot of toms or kick drums for this. Recently I've been using acid sounds with the Roland TB-03. I use patches I've made in Native Instruments Massive every now and then, too.

A lot of producers in your world are using the 303 more and more. Maybe not with an obvious, resonant acid sound, but rather with a heavily filtered square wave and a sharp filter envelope.

That's right, I think it's coming back. When you filter it like that it just sounds like a normal bassline. If you turn the decay down and don't use any accents or slides, it sounds pretty clean and very groovy. But I've actually been working on a project called Acid Cutz where I have used a more squelchy tone. It's a very sexy sound and it definitely works on the dance floor.

Apart from the kick and bass, your hats and claps are also really consistent. You don't have any tracks with a dud percussion sound.

I've used a lot of drum machines, but at the same time I don't find it very easy to process drum sounds without good outboard limiters and compressors. So most of the time I use very well-produced samples. Everyone knows the Goldbaby packs, for instance. Those 808 and 909 sounds have been run through outboard gear and tape machines. Even if I had those machines myself, I probably couldn't get as good a sound. Sometimes they do sound a bit too clean, though, so I'll use different effects to make them more quirky.

So this is where the modular rack comes in. When did you get into it?

Two or three years ago. A friend showed me what they can do, and I just fell in love with it. Mostly I've been using it for the weird percussion sounds you hear in my tracks. I'm watching a lot of videos and trying to understand what I should do next.

What's coming next then?

A lot! I'm trying not to go too crazy with it, but the more I learn, the more I want. I've got an FM synth in here but I want another VCO for creating synth sounds. I use it so much for percussion and drums, but I want to generate more melodic stuff.

This FM synth you mentioned, I take it you're referring to the Akemie's Castle from ALM?

It sounds insane. I find FM a bit weird because you touch one thing and the whole sound changes, so you have to be very careful with it. It makes interesting tones, but you can spend a few hours with it and end up nowhere. The ALM is one of the first things I bought actually. I saw this one video and though, "Woah, you can do so much with it."

This has got to be the Mylar Melodies video then.

[laughs] Yes, of course!

As an aside, for anyone who's interested in using FM for percussion but doesn't want to take up all that rack space with Akemie's Castle, the same company has a smaller module called Dinky's Taiko that is perfect for this sort of zippy, minimal percussion sound. Anyway, how is the studio synched up?

All the machines are synched to the computer. I've been trying to do it with MIDI until recently but I hate it. I think it's terrible, I hate the cable, I hate everything about it. But all these new machines, like the Pioneer samplers, the Rolands, the Korgs, my Arturia sequencer, they're linked to the computer with USB. So I've got about 40 different USB cables coming in here.

Before that, I had problems using MIDI where the machines weren't communicating well. I'd spend more time working out a synch issue than working on a track. I met the people from Pioneer and they suggested using USB because it's more accurate. Once you've got the drivers installed, there's literally not a second of delay.

Now all I need to do is press record. I jam around on the gear and once I've got something useful I get it into the computer. Before, I used to keep jamming, forget what I was doing and lose good sounds in the process. Now I record everything I can and edit it in the computer. I've been using Logic for something like 15 years, at least since version five. I'm on Logic Pro X now after being stuck on version seven for a few years. I didn't want to upgrade but the new one is just as good.

I've tried Ableton and Pro Tools but I know Logic inside out. I wanted to try Ableton because everyone is talking about it. But I felt the final export doesn't sound as good as Logic, so I'm going to stick to it.

It's an interesting debate that one. Some people are dead-set on there being an issue, even when nothing is warped. Then there are others who can convincingly show this makes no sense and that it's a psychological thing.

I've actually tried it, tested it, compared exports side-by-side. I can say myself that it's not the same. Some people say it's not possible but they should give it a try because for me the difference was obvious. Most of my friends using Ableton export all their ideas into Logic or Pro Tools to finish it off.

In a mastering session, the engineer zoomed in on the waveform of a pre-master I'd bounced from Ableton. He showed me how on big transients, say when a kick and a clap land together, that more headroom was taken up in the right channel than the left channel. He tried to explain why this was, mentioning something about DC offset and the playback engine, but I'd be lying if I said I understood it. So he said he can recognise tracks bounced from Ableton just from the waveform. Still, he said it goes away if you delay your kick drum even by a millisecond, just so that the transients don't hit simultaneously.

It's super interesting stuff all of this. The debate has been going on for years now. But you can get lost in a hall of mirrors trying to figure it all out, which is why I just stay with what I know.

Many producers find the mixdown to be the most traumatic aspect of the process. Considering your output, you must have a pretty streamlined approach at this stage.

I try not to spend too much time on it. I'm usually mixing as I arrange. For me that's the best way to do it. Still, all these tracks were made to be played out, so I have to make sure they're reaching their maximum impact within the limits of the soundsystem. All these elements, the kick, the bass, they have to work together in perfect harmony. Once I've finished a track I put a little compressor and limiter on the master myself, just for playing it out. Then I note down the mistakes when I'm playing it in the club, checking if anything sounds too high or low. I'm also lucky enough to have been using the same mastering engineer for the past seven years. He knows my sound inside out and knows exactly what I want.

So in this setup, even though the computer is the master clock, you're doing all the sequencing on external gear.

That's right. Everything apart from the Novation Peak and the Korg Minilogue, which are sequenced with clips in Logic.

Is this because you feel external sequencers have better groove? I've spoken to producers in the past who say, for instance, swing doesn't sound right when it's coming from in-the-box.

Unfortunately I don't agree with that. The swing in Logic is perfect. I use it on all these machines.

I wanted to ask you about your work rate. You've put out three solo EPs and a 5x12-inch boxset so far this year. Then there was a whopping nine 12-inches in 2017, seven the year before and so on. And you've got multiple aliases going, too.

Releasing music is what keeps me going. I'm touring every weekend but as soon as I'm back home I get in the studio. I don't stop at all because it makes me really happy to make a couple of new tracks during the week in time to test them out in clubs on the weekend.

If I'm not producing new tracks to play out it takes some of the excitement out of DJing. So the need for production is coming from DJing, actually. I mostly keep them for myself, but I share the new tunes with some friends. And honestly, it's taken off. I sell about 40,000 records a year.

It's almost suspicious how every time you go on deejay.de you see Eastenderz, Social or East End Dubs in the top-selling chart.

It's not just deejay.de, it's Juno and the others, too. I don't do digital. All my tracks are aimed for the dancefloor. DJs buy them and play them. That's the whole reason behind it.

It's funny when I'm looking for new music online and these dance music producers put out albums with 10 tracks and you can only play two of them. Why would you put out an album? You're a DJ!

Basically these people do albums because they generate more press than an EP. It's a bit of a shame really, that you have to stitch together a few 12-inches worth of tunes, chuck in some ambient, and act like it's a big artistic statement because you need press to get gigs.

I can't understand releasing tracks that you're not going to play. Everything with East End Dubs has to be playable and work on the dance floor. That's part of why it's been successful.

Were you DJing for long before you started producing?

When I was first DJing I was playing and thinking that something was missing, that I needed to add something more to my sets. I started by editing tracks before trying to make my own. This was about ten years ago. I had a lot of time back then so I was playing around with drum machines, buying synths and really trying to get to know the gear properly.

When I started making strong tracks and sending them out to people, they'd end up on the internet and in people's sets so I thought, why not release them? So I started doing it digitally but I felt like it was getting lost in this huge cloud of digital music. Around five years ago I stopped releasing digital completely. It gives me great satisfaction to spend all this time in the studio and receive a package every few weeks with a new box of my own records.

Your productions are very stripped and tracky, but there are little signifiers in there that let you know it's an East End Dubs track. You like to end breakdowns with a certain type of snare fill for example.

That's right. We were talking about kick drums earlier, and I'd say one of the signature things in my sound is the kick. Recently I was at a London club with friends and Craig Richards was playing. He was mixing in a new track, which was just a kick at this stage, and my friend said to me, "This is your track!" I said, "How did you know?" and he replied, "Well, that's your kick drum."

It all comes down to these little points. If you want to have your own sound you have to make sure that you know how to work in the studio. The way you produce gives you your identity. The way I make my bass sit with my kick, the way I arrange it, contributes to a signature. But this is not easy to reach. You have to spend so much time in the studio just to get to the point where you know the things that work. I was lucky enough to come at it as a DJ, so I knew what worked and had a clear idea of what I wanted to produce.