Rollz Radio Episode 5 | Hosted by Rollz McGuyver
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Episode Summary
In this episode, Rollz sits down with DJ Needles, the Arizona‑based turntablist, beatmaker, and creator behind Needlesworks. They break down one of his newest instrumental tracks — a lo‑fi, Tribe Called Quest inspired groove built from separated stems, filtered basslines, and live scratches. Needles shares his creative process, the gear he relies on, his history with production crews like Hydrafonik, and his mission to finally release the massive archive of music he’s been sitting on for years.
“I took everything out and just used the bass line… EQ’ed it and made it my own little sound. Everything I do, the scratches, they’re all live.”
-DJ Needles
Key Topics Covered
- Lo‑fi beat production — how Needles builds grooves from chopped stems, filtered basslines, and jazz‑influenced textures.
- Stem separation tools — Machine 3, Cubase 15, and online tools for isolating drums, vocals, and bass.
- Live scratching workflow — using Pioneer DDJ controllers and Serato for authentic cuts.
- Sampling inspiration — funk records, Tribe Called Quest, and childhood musical memories.
- Collaborations & genres — MCs, reggae artists.
- Releasing music independently — Bandcamp, DistroKid, SoundCloud, BandLab, and promoting timeless beats.
Featured Track
- Teen Dayz Lo-Fi by DJ Needles (Needlesworks)
A warm, head‑nod instrumental built from a chopped bassline, Tribe‑inspired scratches, and Needles’ signature lo‑fi swing.
“I love Tribe… I thought about back in the day, hearing funk records my brother was playing.”
-DJ Needles
Gear Mentioned
- Native Instruments Maschine Studio — primary beat‑making workstation.
- Cubase 15 – DAW with built‑in stem separation.
- Serato DJ & Rane Hardware – for live time code scratching and performance.
- Pioneer DDJ controller – Needles’ current scratch setup.
- Technics SL-1200 – Direct drive turntables (mentioned historically).
- Akai MPC – Classic sampler
Chapter Markers
- 00:00 — Intro: Rollz Radio + Needlesworks
- 00:14 — DJ Needles joins from Arizona
- 00:43 — Playing the featured track
- 03:40 — Rollz’ son discovers hip‑hop
- 04:20 — Needles on inspiration, lo‑fi, and the bassline
- 05:56 — Sampling, stems, and filtering techniques
- 06:49 — Maschine 3, Cubase 15, and AI stem tools
- 08:08 — Scratching setup: Pioneer DDJ + Serato
- 09:30 — Working with MCs, reggae artists, and collaborators
- 10:42 — Where to find Needlesworks online
- 12:16 — Goals, ambitions, and releasing timeless music
- 13:20 — Upcoming projects: Black Light EP & Michigan collab
- 14:10 — Closing out
Links & References
- Follow DJ Needles / Needlesworks
Other Episodes of Rollz Radio
Episode Transcript:
00:00:00 Speaker 1
Rollz Radio.
00:00:08 Speaker 1
I’m here with DJ Needles from Needlesworks, one of the finest turntablists I know, a tasteful beat maker and music producer.
00:00:14 Speaker 1
He crafts hip-hop, lo-fi, old school sounds, just to name a few, and he’s here to dig into his art with us.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
DJ Needles, what is up, my man?
00:00:24 Speaker 2
Hey, what’s up with them Rollz, man?
00:00:25 Speaker 2
Just chilling out here in AZ, trying to stay cool, you know?
00:00:30 Speaker 1
All right.
00:00:31 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:00:31 Speaker 1
Oh, I bet.
00:00:32 Speaker 1
I bet.
00:00:33 Speaker 1
Well, we’ve got some music from you that I want to play right now and listen to it together and then basically just break down your music and then go wherever the conversation takes us.
00:00:43 Speaker 1
So if you’re ready, I’m just going to get the tunes going and then we’ll kind of go from there.
00:00:47 Speaker 1
Sounds good.
00:00:49 Speaker 2
Sounds good, Mike.
00:00:50 Speaker 1
All right, here we go.
00:01:13 Speaker 3
Back, back, back in the days when I was a teenage Back, back, back in the days when I was a teenage Back, back, back
00:01:25 Speaker 3
Back in the days when there was a teenage Back, back, back, back in the days when there was a teenage Back, back, back
00:02:13 Speaker 3
Back, back, back, back in the G’s When I was a teenage of a fact Back, back, back in the G’s When I was a teenage of a fact
00:02:26 Speaker 3
Back in the days when there was a TDH Back, back, back, back in the days when there was a TDH
00:03:14 Speaker 3
Back in the days.
00:03:35 Speaker 1
Right.
00:03:36 Speaker 1
So, okay, before we break this down, I just got to tell you a little something.
00:03:40 Speaker 1
So my 1 1/2 year old, right, my son, I was down here with him.
00:03:45 Speaker 1
I was like queuing up the track.
00:03:47 Speaker 1
And so I had one headphone in.
00:03:49 Speaker 1
He grabbed, he grabbed the other headphone from me, put it in his ear, and he starts doing this, starts bobbing his head.
00:03:56 Speaker 1
And I go, and he’s like, what’s like, you know, asking me, what’s, and I’m like, this hip hop.
00:04:02 Speaker 1
And he’s like, hop, more hop, more.
00:04:04 Speaker 1
So I’m just like, hey, he’s getting in.
00:04:07 Speaker 1
And if it’s DJ Needles is going to bring this kid into the hip-hop scene, I wouldn’t couldn’t ask for a better man to do it.
00:04:14 Speaker 1
So tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind that track and then we can break down how you made it.
00:04:20 Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I’m into lo-fi.
00:04:23 Speaker 2
I’m into beats and instrumental jazz and all that.
00:04:28 Speaker 2
And I was just, you know, in the studio, I’m like, you know what?
00:04:32 Speaker 2
I made a beat.
00:04:32 Speaker 2
I’m like, you know what?
00:04:33 Speaker 2
I’m a.
00:04:35 Speaker 2
I said, I heard this bass line.
00:04:37 Speaker 2
Well, actually, it’s like a combination, like three or four songs.
00:04:40 Speaker 2
But the bass line, I took off this one.
00:04:44 Speaker 2
I’m like, oh, that bass line is not clean.
00:04:46 Speaker 2
I just started playing with the bass.
00:04:48 Speaker 2
I took everything out and just used the bass line.
00:04:51 Speaker 2
So I used that stem and kind of played it and switched it up a little bit.
00:04:56 Speaker 2
And then, you know, that’s mostly how I do, man.
00:05:00 Speaker 2
I started with, I’ll hear something, a song, and then I’ll be like,
00:05:04 Speaker 2
And that be clean right there, for low fire, just for something to kick back and vibe to.
00:05:11 Speaker 1
Oh yeah.
00:05:12 Speaker 2
Plus I love tribe.
00:05:14 Speaker 2
So I love tribe and scratching with natural light.
00:05:17 Speaker 2
So I thought about, hey, back in the day, you know what I’m saying?
00:05:21 Speaker 2
When I was coming over, I remember back in the day, hearing funk records, my brother playing, hearing some of my uncle and my dad or somebody’s playing.
00:05:31 Speaker 2
just give you that vibe, you know what I’m.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
Saying?
00:05:34 Speaker 1
So I’ve seen some of your videos.
00:05:36 Speaker 1
You’re on Instagram, you’re on, you know, on social media and the stuff that you’ve shared with me.
00:05:41 Speaker 1
And you’re using the, was it the MPC?
00:05:44 Speaker 1
Are you using to kind of…
00:05:46 Speaker 1
What’s that?
00:05:47 Speaker 1
The machine.
00:05:47 Speaker 2
The machine studio, yeah.
00:05:49 Speaker 1
Now, are you getting your, I’m sure you’re getting your cuts from…
00:05:54 Speaker 1
original vinyl records in some cases and then all over the place in other cases.
00:05:58 Speaker 1
In that particular track, when you’re stripping down to a baseline, if you don’t have access to the stems, are you just kind of, what are you doing?
00:06:07 Speaker 1
Are you just taking your EQ and rolling off the highs and kind of something along those lines?
00:06:13 Speaker 2
Yeah, if I don’t have to get the stems, that’s exactly what I do.
00:06:17 Speaker 2
You know, that’s the way I always did it, even back in the day when I had an SB-1200
00:06:22 Speaker 2
or MPC I was working on.
00:06:24 Speaker 2
You take the bass line, from the song and you filter, filter everything out and just use that low end for the bass.
00:06:31 Speaker 2
But that one, I actually pulled the stems out.
00:06:35 Speaker 2
Then I just tweaked it to how I wanted the sound, you know what I’m saying?
00:06:38 Speaker 2
EQ’ed it and made it my own little sound, you know.
00:06:41 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:06:42 Speaker 1
Is this, are you getting access to the stems from like a DJ pool or is it from just like some other sources?
00:06:49 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:06:51 Speaker 2
because I’ve been having machine for a while.
00:06:53 Speaker 2
So they came out with the software machine three software and it have stem separation.
00:07:00 Speaker 1
Gotcha.
00:07:02 Speaker 2
And I got Cubase 15 and it does stem separation now too.
00:07:09 Speaker 2
and I got, access to another program online that does the same thing.
00:07:15 Speaker 2
It strips it down, you know, you get the strings, the drums.
00:07:21 Speaker 2
vocals, whatever you want.
00:07:23 Speaker 1
It’ll take a track, like a stereo track, and just strip down for it.
00:07:27 Speaker 1
It’s incredible that we’re here with AI.
00:07:29 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:07:30 Speaker 1
Like in just the technology, because I remember, I think, that the Beatles did a song recent, like they took a track that John Lennon had recorded and they stripped everything but his vocal.
00:07:41 Speaker 1
because it was some weird recorded track.
00:07:43 Speaker 1
I can’t remember the name of it.
00:07:44 Speaker 1
was like a Beatles song that was released in like 2020, right?
00:07:48 Speaker 1
Obviously, George and John are long gone.
00:07:50 Speaker 1
So they stripped the parts out.
00:07:52 Speaker 1
They had a George part that they laid over and it was considered the last Beatles song.
00:07:56 Speaker 1
And it’s like, this is what, first of all, technology’s coming this way and AI’s modeling it.
00:08:01 Speaker 1
And the things that we can do that we couldn’t do in the 90s and the 80s would strip it away.
00:08:05 Speaker 1
And it’s insane.
00:08:08 Speaker 1
Let me ask you a little bit about, are you using some rain, the SL2?
00:08:13 Speaker 1
Are you putting the time code records on to do your scratches or are you actually just putting your techniques on with records and your, like in that case, that was probably just from direct from a tribe record, right?
00:08:23 Speaker 2
Well, yeah, it was a tribe acapella I have and I got, I got the Pioneer, the DDJ, whichever I want to do.
00:08:33 Speaker 2
And I, that’s what I use now.
00:08:35 Speaker 2
just do the scratches.
00:08:37 Speaker 2
I, turned to, I have to take needs, they take up all this room.
00:08:40 Speaker 2
So I basically been just using, using that with the Serato, still using the trusty Serato.
00:08:49 Speaker 1
Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:08:50 Speaker 1
Yep.
00:08:51 Speaker 2
That’s about it.
00:08:52 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:08:53 Speaker 2
You know, everything I do, the scratches, they’re all alive.
00:08:55 Speaker 2
You know what I’m saying?
00:08:57 Speaker 2
I’ll find something I like, acapella or some kind of, you know, they might have said a cool,
00:09:04 Speaker 2
look at something, chop, scratch it up, take what I want, piece it together, take two or three, things and piece it together, you know what I’m saying?
00:09:13 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:09:14 Speaker 1
So you, so that obviously track is instrumental track and, the Needlesworks collection, which we can tell people the links and everything.
00:09:24 Speaker 1
We’ll share all that information in the show notes podcast so people know where to find you.
00:09:28 Speaker 1
But you’ve worked with MCs as well, right?
00:09:30 Speaker 1
Do you do any rhyming yourself?
00:09:34 Speaker 2
They wanted me to rhyme.
00:09:35 Speaker 2
I’m like, man, I’m just making beats, man.
00:09:38 Speaker 2
All the guys are like, hey, you got to do it, man.
00:09:41 Speaker 2
You got to do it first.
00:09:42 Speaker 2
You got to be on my life.
00:09:44 Speaker 2
And I just mess around.
00:09:45 Speaker 2
I’m just freestyle messing around, but I’ll be robbing.
00:09:50 Speaker 2
Don’t get it wrong.
00:09:50 Speaker 2
Again, like I said, I’ll put some time into it.
00:09:53 Speaker 2
I’m pretty sure I can write and do some rhymes, but I’ll be more on the production side, man.
00:09:59 Speaker 1
Where your heart is.
00:09:59 Speaker 2
I love doing the beats.
00:10:00 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:10:04 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:10:05 Speaker 2
I work with a lot of MCs though, man.
00:10:08 Speaker 2
just get Hispanic guys, like, a couple of seniors, try to touch a little bit of something, Absolutely.
00:10:17 Speaker 2
Reggae guys, got a couple guys who does reggae.
00:10:21 Speaker 2
Just did him a track, actually reproduced a track that has stolen.
00:10:26 Speaker 2
I just did a remix tour of the Sonic.
00:10:29 Speaker 1
I love it, man.
00:10:30 Speaker 2
Yeah, man.
00:10:31 Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s cool.
00:10:33 Speaker 1
It is cool, and especially when the breadth of genres comes into play and all that fun stuff.
00:10:40 Speaker 1
So, you so needles works, right?
00:10:42 Speaker 1
That’s your kind of your band camp, right?
00:10:44 Speaker 1
That’s where you kind of publish your beats and basically just needle solo.
00:10:49 Speaker 1
Where else do can people go to find you?
00:10:51 Speaker 1
Or is that the spot?
00:10:54 Speaker 2
That’s the main spot, like to get the music, needleworks or band camp.
00:11:00 Speaker 2
And some of my stuff is on this little kid too.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
Okay.
00:11:04 Speaker 2
I got a couple of tracks on there.
00:11:06 Speaker 1
And it’s under Needlesworks.
00:11:08 Speaker 2
Yeah, Needleworks and everything’s under Needleworks and Spotify.
00:11:14 Speaker 2
I got another group I used to, like back in the day, back.
00:11:20 Speaker 2
Me and this guy, his name is DD Deluxe from Seattle.
00:11:23 Speaker 2
But he wanted to do, like I actually, when I started doing my thing, I met him.
00:11:28 Speaker 2
And he’s the one like kind of me and him introduced me to the QBase and how to use the QBase.
00:11:35 Speaker 2
And he was the first one who had like a computer.
00:11:38 Speaker 2
He built it himself and showed me how to build my own computer and stuff like that.
00:11:42 Speaker 2
But we had an old production group called Hydrophonic back in the day.
00:11:47 Speaker 2
And he just dropped some stuff.
00:11:49 Speaker 2
It’s on Spotify, but it’s called Hydrophonic.
00:11:52 Speaker 1
Okay.
00:11:54 Speaker 2
I’ll send you a link to that too, man.
00:11:56 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:11:56 Speaker 2
We got some stuff, man, we’ve been doing, but yeah.
00:11:58 Speaker 1
Cool, man.
00:12:00 Speaker 1
Well, I guess one more question and then, like I said, we can close out and, I’m sure we can have plenty more of these conversations in the future as well.
00:12:08 Speaker 1
But as far as what you’re trying to do with your music, what are your kind of your goals, your ambitions?
00:12:14 Speaker 1
Where are you trying to go with it?
00:12:15 Speaker 1
What are you doing?
00:12:16 Speaker 2
Just trying to get it out there, man.
00:12:18 Speaker 2
Like I said, I got so much music and so many projects.
00:12:22 Speaker 2
It don’t make no sense to just
00:12:24 Speaker 2
Have it in the hard draw, not that people here, even though I got to drop some of it like for free.
00:12:31 Speaker 2
I just put it out there free download just so people can hear and promote myself.
00:12:37 Speaker 2
You know what I’m saying?
00:12:38 Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:12:38 Speaker 2
The end result is to get out there, get to my company and my publishing up and get my sound out there.
00:12:45 Speaker 2
You know what I’m saying?
00:12:46 Speaker 1
Absolutely.
00:12:47 Speaker 2
I know it’ll fit with everything that’s going on now because everything that’s timeless.
00:12:53 Speaker 2
So what we?
00:12:55 Speaker 1
Yep, you make you make some timeless, timeless music, my man.
00:12:59 Speaker 1
That’ll that always goes.
00:13:00 Speaker 1
I really I vibe with it.
00:13:02 Speaker 1
I just bobbed my head when I told you the story about my son too.
00:13:05 Speaker 1
And it’s like it’s in the blood.
00:13:07 Speaker 1
So I appreciate you.
00:13:08 Speaker 1
I appreciate the music you make.
00:13:10 Speaker 1
So anything I can do to support you.
00:13:12 Speaker 1
But anything else before we close out, Needles?
00:13:16 Speaker 2
Yeah, just I’m working on this project I’ve been had in my hard drive.
00:13:20 Speaker 2
It’s called Black Light.
00:13:23 Speaker 2
But
00:13:23 Speaker 2
I’m going to actually do like an EP, probably like, not even an EP, probably like four songs.
00:13:28 Speaker 2
I’m going to drop that out there.
00:13:31 Speaker 2
I got another group of these guys I met, they call Michigan.
00:13:37 Speaker 2
Whenever they give me the vocals back, I’m going to try to drop that out there.
00:13:40 Speaker 2
But I got so much music.
00:13:41 Speaker 2
All I have to do is punch in DJ needles, needleworks, needleworks music.
00:13:47 Speaker 2
You can find it on Instagram, you know, Bandcamp.
00:13:53 Speaker 2
Spotify.
00:13:55 Speaker 2
Like I said, Disco Kid got a lot of stuff on there.
00:13:57 Speaker 2
And I got a little bit on this other one called BandLab.
00:14:01 Speaker 2
I got a lot on BandLab and SoundCloud.
00:14:05 Speaker 2
SoundCloud for sure.
00:14:07 Speaker 2
I got a bunch of music on SoundCloud.
00:14:10 Speaker 1
All right, I’m going to put those links.
00:14:12 Speaker 1
I’ll make sure I get all those links listed in the show notes of this episode.
00:14:15 Speaker 1
So my man, it’s been good talking to you and let’s keep in touch and do it again soon.
00:14:20 Speaker 1
For.
00:14:20 Speaker 2
Sure, man.
00:14:21 Speaker 2
All right, peace.
00:14:22 Speaker 1
Peace.