Category: 9-Odd-Questions-For-Music-Gear-Junkies

Pablo Ortega – Mellow Cello

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

The volume knob on my monitor controller. It is huge and I am constantly using it when mixing. 

Monitor controller

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

Yellow Cello very Mellow

I think my cello. But like all string instruments, there are days when it sounds better and others when it sounds worse, it is a bit moody depending on the weather. I would want it to always sound the best! But that is just the nature of the instrument.

Prophet Rev2

I also find the Prophet rev2 pretty pretty good. It would really be a dream if it would include a proper analog high pass filter and a better sounding reverb (I find its reverb sadly almost unusable).

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

I usually try not to take any piece of gear when I go on holidays because otherwise it is harder for me to really ‘disconnect’ if I know that I can make music at any time. When going on tour I always have most of my instruments with me anyway, but in most cases my laptop with Ableton Live would be enough to keep creating. When I am away I mostly do sound design or drum loops, witch I can use when back on the studio. 

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

Macbook running Phonec VSTi

I have recently discovered a very special soft synth called Phonec 2. It has lots of character and some very interesting integrated effects, like a random pitch modulator like Shallow Water. On top of that you can randomize all its parameters, which sometimes leads to unexpected patches. It think it sounds more organic than many hardware synths I have played – the problem is that I don’t love to use soft synths, I much prefer to be able to turn every knob with my fingers.
A hardware unit that I would definitely love to see in software is the Moog MuRF.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

Precisely, I kinda regret selling my Moog MIDI MuRF. It seemed to me like a lot of money for a single effect at the time, and because of that it was difficult to justify keeping it. But it has a very special and lovely sound. Now that they are not being produced anymore they have gotten even more expensive. As of regrets I honestly don’t have many, if buy some gear with which I don’t connect after a while, I sell it rather fast.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

Probably my piano or the Prophet 08 (and later the rev2).

Schimmel Upright Piano

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

A laptop with Ableton Live. Then, a polyphonic synth and a piano. Also a simple but high quality soundcard interface and a pair of Beyerdynamic 770 or 880. I would have more than enough with that for a long while.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

I kind of love all pieces of gear I currently have. I have a bit of a minimalistic mentality, so everything I don’t love or use regularly I end up selling. That allows me to get to know more gear, expand my music making approaches and then integrate the instruments and workflows that really suit me.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of gear?

I like to make my synth sounds subtly imperfect, so I love to map a slow random LFO with low amplitude to parameters like filter cutoff, amp envelope, oscillator tuning, amp decay, noise… there is no limits there. I do this all the time with the Prophet rev2.
Another one little trick I discovered a short while ago on Ableton/Mac is to create a custom key combination for freezing and flattening the tracks. That is saving me a ton of time and it allows me to not have to interrupt my workflow that much.

Artist or Band name?

Pablo Ortega

Genre?

Electrónica/Ambient/Classical

Selfie?

Pablo Ortega

Where are you from?

I was born in Spain, but I have been living in Germany for the last 10 years.

How did you get into music?

I started learning to play cello in my city’s conservatory when I was 11 years old, and piano a couple of years later.

What still drives you to make music?

I have a strong need inside to keep creating, it is something I cannot ignore for a long period of time . Maybe it is a bit like an addiction (a good one I hope?). 

How do you most often start a new track?

I usually improvise on the piano till I come across an interesting idea, which then I record and try to develop into a longer sketch. 

How do you know when a track is finished? 

I often come to a point where I feel that if I keep adding or changing things, the track is gonna get worse. I think that is when. Then, if I find it to be good enough, I wait a couple of days/weeks and then I mix it. If the track isn’t that good I just accept the fact that maybe it isn’t meant to be and move forward. I try not to seek perfection with every piece I produce because that way it is easy to get lost into a rabbit hole.

Show us your current studio

Pablo’s studio
A cellist’s pedal board

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Don’t try to make your music perfect every time, just keep creating -this is also kind of my inner mantra when trying to keep myself creative.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

My last (and also first) EP ‘Still Waters Run Deep’ which I released two months ago:

https://sptfy.com/stillwatersrundeep

Also my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PabloOrtegaMusic

[Editor: Do you have a favorite tip, trick or way of working with any of the gear from this interview?
Then throw a comment below…]

Victor Öberg – Urba Doloro

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

Right now I’m crushing hard on the faders of the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator. But in a longer perspective I’ve got to say the Octave and Waveform switches on the Vermona Perfourmer, the resistance and “click” is true perfection.

Vermona Perfourmer

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

That would be my analog noise machine, aka my cat, Frasse. He  makes all kinds of inspiring noises. But he would benefit a lot from a gain knob.

Frasse Cat

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

My laptop and, if not completely impossible, my trusty eurorack case!

Urba Doloro’s Eurorack

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

The blisko cello kit from felt instruments. I absolutely love it, but I would love it even more if I could have a small(ish) stand alone device with knob per function.

Blisko VSTi

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I once bought and later sold the Waldorf Streichfett. Then I bought it again, and sold it again. Give me another year and I’ll probably have bought it a third time..

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

My Hammond SK-1. Right now I use it as part time Hammond organ and part time midi keyboard for using the Spitfire felt piano.

Hammond SK-1

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

I would, as last time, get a piano first. Learning the piano and music theory is really the staple of how I approach writing music. I find it very enjoyable to compose on the piano and then arrange it for eurorack, strings and piano.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

My laptop. I can’t say I enjoy working on the computer when making music, but I can’t see myself managing without a computer at this moment.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

Not really a trick, but I recently was surprised by how much I love the distortion you can create with Mutable instruments Veils just by pushing it towards the exponential mode. There are like a million sweetspots there when using it with various sound sources!

Artist or Band name?

Urba Doloro

Genre?

Somewhere between electronic minimalism and classical music maybe?

Where are you from?

Sweden, currently living in Västerås. It’s basically in the middle of Sweden, close by Stockholm.

How did you get into music?

I often went to a small record store called Jay’s records to buy a bunch of Bob Dylan albums when I was like 16 or 17 years old. One day the store owner told me he had put away something special for me. It was The Brown Album from The Band. It 100% blew me away and for the first time I understood why people love both playing and listening to music. I spent all summer learning the songs on piano. To this day the track King Harvest is still one of my absolute favorite songs of all time.

The Band

What still drives you to make music?

It’s a combination of doing it for myself because I feel a need to, but also to be able to communicate views on human society that I feel is not the most focused on in music. Urban alienation being the main theme I try to work with.

How do you most often start a new track?

It’s twofold. The creative process is generally started with reading scientific articles/books within my line of work, urban planning, to find topics to composer over. The actual writing of the music is almost always starts at the piano. I tend to start out with a few rules of limitations and then improvise over them for an hour or two. Then I try to find pieces of the improvisation I like and start arranging them.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I really don’t. I’ve had serious problems finishing projects the last few years. However, I’m really trying to find some kind of middle road right now by letting friends listen to my tracks. Based on their reactions (and of course my own judgement) I decide when things are finished.

Show us your current studio

I’m waiting for a new grand piano, which will spice up my “studio”. So for now it’s just my eurorack case, my laptop, and my hammond. I tend to try to move it around a lot in my apartment to stay inspired, here is a summer-version of my studio!

Eurorack and cat

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

I’m going to go with something Todd Barton recently told me when discussing what to buy/not to buy and how to stay creative, he told me to “Follow the sound”.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

My instagram always loves some support.

[Editor: Do you have a favorite tip, trick or way of working with any of the gear from this interview?
Then throw a comment below…]

Josh Semans – Ode To The Martenot

 1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

Ondes Martenot

Maybe a cheeky/tenuous answer but – the ribbon of my ondes Martenot. It’s essentially a knob. You wear the metal ring on your right index finger, and it is attached to a string which is wrapped around a drum inside the machine. As you move the ring, the drum spins, a potentiometer is turned, and the pitch is altered. The amount of expression offered by this simple mechanism is unparalleled. My alternative answer would be another tenuous one – the touche d’intensité of my ondes. It is the volume control, and it’s name doesn’t translate exceptionally well into English. It is very tactile and very sensitive. It really is the soul of the ondes, and all your articulation comes from this wonderful key. The further you depress it, the louder the sound gets – simple! 

Empress Zoia

(Honourable mention to the silver knob/button on the ZOIA! The satisfying *clunk* of clicking that button is both mine and my wife’s favourite thing about the ZOIA!)

 2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

I’ve loved the DSI/Sequential Prophet sound for ages, and I think the Rev2 is a super workhorse that manages to avoid being the typical jack-of-all-trades that some synths aspire to be. For my purposes it is practically perfect, but I would personally want to add a few things; an analog hi-pass filter (instead of relying on the digital one in the effects), an extra effects slot, polyphonic aftertouch, and more noise types…probably other things, too. It hasn’t let me down so far, and I’ve always managed to get the sound out of it, that’s in my head.

Dave Smith Instruments Prophet

 3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

I don’t know if you’d call it a ‘setup’, but I always have my phone with me, and it is a vital tool in my music making. Most of the pieces on my new album started life as voice memos, and I think I have another two or three albums worth of material on my phone, going back years. I also like to record rivers and birds, etc. Some photographer or cinematographer said that “the best camera is the one you have with you” and I think, for me, my phone is the equivalent for music. I have recordings of a sweet little piano in a BnB in Huddersfield, a few harmoniums in a schoolhouse in Iceland, a violinist in an reverberant underpass in Berlin…but mostly the piano under my stairs or sketches of new ideas on the ondes. I also try to take a notebook with me when I go away on holiday or when I am sojourned in a studio somewhere. It helps me get ideas out of my head to make room for others. I do get twitchy and a bit miserable when I’m away from my ondes for too long but there isn’t really a remedy for that, unfortunately! 

[Editor: ‘Getting ideas out of ones head, to make room for others’ is a great way to think about a sketch pad]

 4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

I used Max/MSP a lot in college and university, and always wished there was a way to package my patches up into hardware. I haven’t used Max as much in the past few years, but the ZOIA is certainly scratching that particular itch for me, though it isn’t quite the hardware version of Max/MSP. I don’t think I would wish ‘being software’ on any piece of hardware, to be honest. I really value tactility. I don’t particularly hate software, though.

 5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I traded an ex-BBC ReVox A77 tape machine for a banjo. If you can’t sense the regret in that sentence, then trust me – I regret it. The banjo sits in my kitchen and haunts me daily.

A Banjo

 6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

The ondes Martenot. I’d be hesitant to brand it as ‘gear’ but, ultimately, it is a tool that allows us to make heard our own waves. It is an instrument, sure, but Maurice Martenot said “the instrument is first and foremost ourselves”. The ondes has taught me this lesson over and over again in many different ways so far. The ondes and has really become a part of who I am, physically and musically. All of my musical ideas revolve around the ondes Martenot now, and it has inspired me to release music moreso than any other instrument, piece of equipment/gear etc. 

Ondes Martenot

 7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

First thing I’d get is an ondes. Mine was built for me by Jean-Loup Dierstein in Paris and I wouldn’t hesitate to have him build me one if I was starting over again.

 8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

My computer. I just think computers are one of those “can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em” sort of things. I hate that it has to be there, but nothing is as convenient and practical for the music I make. A necessary evil! I don’t hate the process of making music on a computer, though, it makes sense.

 9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I have this big old Soundtracs 16 – 8 – 16 that I sometimes run things through to get some of that saturation and drive that you can only really get from older analogue preamps. I remember running a drum pattern through it, along with the prophet, a function generator, and some ondes Martenot loops. Driving the preamps hard would make the whole mix pump and breathe with the drum pattern. Lovely.

Artist or Band name?

Josh Semans

Genre?

Hard to say, maybe experimental/electronic/alternative/classical. That sort of thing, I suppose!

Selfie?

If I must! (Attached!)

Josh Semans

Where are you from?

The north of England!

How did you get into music?

I’ve always been around recorded music, and I’ve loved musical instruments for as long as I can remember. Piano and guitar were my first instruments as a child, then I really got into drums and synthesisers. The drums where my main instrument for a while, now it is the ondes Martenot. I still love synthesisers, and do play the piano a lot. 

Upright Piano

What still drives you to make music?

I can’t not do it.

How do you most often start a new track?

I come up with new ideas most days, and I usually record them onto my phone or an Ableton session to be worked on at a later date. I’m currently working on about 5 or 6 new pieces. I like having multiple pieces on the go, so I can work on something else when I’m a bit worn out from another.

How do you know when a track is finished?

When the endless tweaking becomes pointless. 

Show us your current studio

Ondes Martenot
Josh’s Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Something that James Murphy said about why he reformed LCD Soundsystem made me dig around to find this quote from David Bowie; “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

My debut album, “…And the Birds Will Sing at Sunrise” is out now.

Also here’s my website joshsemans.com

[Editor: Do you have a favorite tip, trick or way of working with any of the gear from this interview?
Then throw a comment below…]