Ruff & Jam, otherwise known as Jean Marie Moens and Luke Mourinet, are among the most talented remixers around. The long list of artist to get the Ruff & Jam treatment include Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Scissor Sisters, The Killers, Sugarbabes, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Polyphonic Spree, among many others. Ruff & Jam’s own instantly recognizable blend of electronic pop, urban and dance can be heard not only in their work for others; their own productions, film scoring and compositional work also carry their hallmark sound. Jean Marie and Luke told us why Cubase plays an essential part in their production environment.

What was the moment which made you want to dedicate your life to music?

Luke : It all started in London, during the daytime I was spending my time in record shops and my nights in clubs … it was amazing and appeared clearly to me that music would take a great place in my life. I was surrounded by music from my very young age though, my father was a fantastic saxophonist, my mum a singer and they had a soul & jazz band so I suppose that all the rehearsals with their musicians influenced me somehow. Even though I swore that I would never be a musician. It was my father’s dream to see me as one but you know how teens like to defy their parents sometimes: ‘tell me what YOU want me to do and I’ll make sure that I won’t’ ;-).

Jean-Marie: Well, music is a universe, a getaway, a pathway leading to new doorways, it’s an undying source of inspiration... I never took any decision to dedicate my life to music, I’ve just felt into it, I enjoyed it and it felt good from the very beginning. The factor that kept me going was that, throughout the whole process of making music you need to get in touch with your inner self and share that particular part or visions with people .You constantly swap pieces of yourself, it’s really a give and take thing between different personalities. That alone is an exciting process, don’t you think? Music’s a messenger, every song has a different individual story and perception to all of us. Don't get me wrong, I am not a nutcase but I think it is fair enough to mention this as being a factor of dedication.

What is your musical background?

JM: I started singing in a band when I was 16, I poured out my heart in what I thought was the right thing to do at that time. I’ve done loads of backing vocals, wrote lots of songs and I got involved into the music industry around 1994 when I met Luke. He’s such an amazing human being and he's very talented.

L: I was DJ-ing almost every weekend as a teenager, later on I got into production and remixes for the French Market, then I got noticed and then did some work for the French Department of PWL then I moved to Belgium, where I met Jean-Marie.

Are there musicians who have influenced you a lot?

JM: Definitely, but not only musicians, I mean the whole fashion, movie and television industry had a huge impact on the sound of music. When MTV appeared, things changed, you had access to a wider platform of music, sound and image became one, several musical cultures were mixed and mashed up, underground music was suddenly air-played a lot more. Singers and bands that influenced my behavior are people like Cyndi Lauper (she's an amazing vocalist and musician in my honest opinion), and bands like INXS, Duran Duran, U2, Culture Club, Depeche Mode, Guesh Patti and Encore, Eurythmics, Madonna, Bowie.... again all very 80s. Call me old fashioned, but the 80s remain fresh, edgy and rebellish. A nice explosive cocktail for the ears and the feet.

L: Supertramp and their album Breakfast In America, which is basically the soundtrack of my childhood, I was around 9 and it’s the only album I can remember clearly from that time, Quincy Jones & Maurice White, then Herbie Hancock, Giorgio Moroder, Chic and then later on Depeche Mode and Nirvana. That’s a very eclectic cocktail.

When did you hear about Cubase for the first time?

L: During the Atari days so that’s quite long ago it was used as a glorified sequencer for our hardware units, the significant move for us was with the venue when Steinberg added the support for virtual instruments.

Why is Cubase the ideal program for you?

L: Well, our choice for Cubase was everything but an accident. Back then we felt that we wouldn’t be able to ignore software any longer so we took our time and wrote down a task list, we felt that virtual instruments and effects would be part of the future as well as rewired applications, we needed strong MIDI implementation, advanced audio editing, score editing, music to picture, pristine audio quality and all that within ONE program and the winner hands down for us was Cubase.

Of course now some competitors are catching up with these features but these were available to us for ages and in the meantime Steinberg implemented outstanding new features that kept Cubase well ahead of the competition, so we just had to learn the newest features and continue our work without having to learn a whole new program from scratch to benefit from the latest available technologies.

And last but not least it’s a very pleasant environment with a cleverly laid out interface so even though Cubase is a goldmine of high technology we don’t have to suffer from it as end users, this is probably due to Steinberg’s experience in providing professional tools for musicians and this for decades.

Which features do you particularly like in Cubase?

L: There are way too many to mention but the few ones that comes to mind are Offline processing, cross fades, the Cubase pool and automation…

Do you have any tips for our users?

L: Shortcuts! It is not needed to learn the default ones by heart but configure them to what’s more logical for you instead. You shouldn’t have to think of what to do to make Cubase do what you want it to; it should be the other way round. The less the software gets in your way during a creative process, the better. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again; Cubase is the best tip and trick by itself so use and abuse it.

Do the possibilities open to you through Cubase affect your music in any way?

No, and that’s a compliment because that’s what we’re expecting from professional applications: to not influence or dictate our ideas and/or workflow.

What would you like to see changed in Cubase?
 
We can’t think of anything as of yet without sounding like spoiled kids.

Do you use a lot of virtual Instruments?
 
When it comes to virtual instruments we make no compromise because if you don’t pay attention you’ll end up with a ton of virtual instruments but in fact you’ll be using them as presets machines without knowing much on their sonic capabilities whereas a bit of patience with one instrument will help you getting rid of about 15 of them and will also leave some room for some fortunate accidents. So quality, innovation and flexibility are our main conditions before adding anything new to our setup. You can hear VST instruments in everything we do. As these tools are very flexible they can be combined in infinite ways in order to match what we’re trying to achieve, the possibilities are endless really, it all depends on how crazy and/or unique you want to be.

What do you do when you’re not making music?

JM: I read and write a lot, I do some sports and some gardening and I am challenged enough to cook a meal for the people I like. I can't get rid of an old habit: I collect vinyls and CDs from second hand music stores.
L: I sleep (laughs), even though I’m kidding it’s not very far from the truth, I like to read some great books, watch some old movies, spend some quality time with my restricted circle of friends and quench my gaming thirst (I shouldn’t have told you about that one though, it doesn’t sound really mature, does it).
 
Future plans? New projects? Next record?

We’ll be working on a track for Ozark Henry (One of our favorite Belgian artists) and some other things that we can’t reveal at this point. But we’ll do the announcements on our website and myspace soon.
 
 
Website Informations :   www.ruffandjam.com /   www.myspace.com/ruffandjam