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Linus Valdemar – Synthing & Guitaring

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

The “reverb” knob on my old Peavey PA-600 mixer. It’s big and it’s beautiful. As the name suggests it’s an old PA mixer but It sounds amazing in it’s own way, and I run a lot of stuff through it. It’s brilliant on electric/acoustic guitar, vocals and drums. The preamps in itself are great, but that spring reverb on electric guitar or a snare drum –
WOW! Only problem is that weird enough it’s mono so wouldn’t work as a real mixer in the studio. I need to find someone who can make it work as a stereo mixer! 🙂

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

As I’m a guitarist I have a lot of guitar pedals and my favourite one has to be the Strymon Deco. I recently traded my old version 1 to the v2. The v1 didn’t have a tone knob on it and no midi – it does now! To me it’s now perfect and I wouldn’t change anything as it now has the tone knob. Nice and smooth, crunchy and fat tape saturation on one channel and great wobbly tape modulation on the other. Great on guitar, but definitely also on synths, bass and even drums! It’s a Desert Island piece of gear to me! Guitar pedals in music production in general can be mind blowing!

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

I’m originally a guitarist and songwriter so I tend to always have a guitar near me,
whenever I’m away. But holiday sometimes is a weird state of mind for me as I try to relax but often end up feeling restless and guilty about not working and sometimes feeling more creative when I’m away and not able to work. Having a guitar around sometimes only makes it worse, as I’m supposed to be on holiday with my family – not working!

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

Almost all the software that I use are some kind of emulation of old outboard gear. Hmm.. Fabfilter plugins wouldn’t be that sexy as hardware would they? Maybe the good old ValhallaVintageverb would be fun to have as an outboard gear! I would love to have more reverb outboard effects in general!
Although I don’t own one myself, It would be great fun if Chase Bliss Audio made their pedals as plugins as well. On second thought… that would maybe just make you craving their guitar pedals even more…

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

I’ve had a lot of guitars in the past – and present. Two comes to mind. I sold a Gibson Melody Maker from 1965 which used to belong to Kashmir’s Kasper Eistrup. That guitar was used a lot during the recordings of their last album E.A.R. I actually didn’t buy it because of him, it just really spoke to me and I just had to get it. I used it a lot in the studio and live, but sold it in a weak moment to buy something else.. Can’t remember what really… The other guitar that comes to mind was an all original white Fender Mustang from 1966. A really great guitar, but I sold it to buy the most precious guitar that I own, my all original 1965 Fender Jazzmaster. I do miss that Mustang quite often, but I know it’s in good hands.

Regret buying.. Hmm.. I tend to buy nice things! Haha! Well.. I remember when I was a kid I had a Strat and an okay transistor amp and then I bought a Korg multi effects pedalboard. I never really learned how to use it and I kinda hated it, but I used way too much time with it. Should have stuck to pedals from the beginning. I did have some nice ones that I skipped for a long time. Had i just stuck to them I think I would have dug into the pedal world much earlier and developed my playing, musical style and songwriting much more and at a younger age.

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

About 10 years ago I bought a 1967 Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar. That guitar made me write stuff so easily. Songs in me were waiting to be written on that guitar. It was quite amazing really, and somehow I always knew that I needed to get that guitar model at some point.
These days I find my Jazzmaster through my newly acquired 70’s Vibro Champ
pretty inspiring as well! Amazing studio amp.

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

As a producer you can’t live without your computer. Sad to say.. But what I’ve
learned over the years is that it’s not the expensive preamp or the vintage
microphone you record with that’s the most important thing. Of course it helps
indeed! But in the end it comes down to the instrument and the performance. So if I was to start all over and had the money, I would skip the bad decisions of buying cheap and bad quality instruments and get some nice ones from the beginning – and then find an inspiring teacher and start a band 🙂
Also I would have loved to learn how to play the drums! I love playing drums but I never really took the time to learn it.

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

The most annoying is when something doesn’t work. I am NOT a great technician or a computer tech guy – AT ALL. I wish I had the skills to repair my own gear but I don’t, and I don’t think I’ll ever have the time or mindset to learn it. Computer problems must be the most annoying part of music production.

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

I have definitely underrated the power of hardware gear. When I first started
recording music with my own band I didn’t really think too much about outboard gear.

And when I started off producing and recording music myself, I didn’t have much more than a laptop, a cheap interface and one microphone. And that’s all I used for a long time, but at some point I found out that just because the technology is so good now that you can hardly tell the difference between vintage outboard gear and plugins, doesn’t mean that I don’t need the hardware gear. I do. Hardware is so much more inspiring. Turning knobs on a synth while playing, running guitar through my PA mixer or Space Echo with worn out tape that keeps jumping around. There’s the magic. It’s inspiring. That’s the trick. That’s the technique. Don’t underestimate the power of the outboard gear!

Artist or Band name?

Linus Valdemar

Genre?

Alternative pop, Indie, Folk, Britpop, Shoe-gaze and organic, nordic music.

Selfie?

Where are you from?

I grew up in Lynæs (Hundested), a small town in the north of Sjælland, Denmark, but have lived in Nørrebro, Copenhagen for about 18 years now.

How did you get into music?

My dad was always a singer/songwriter and played his own songs in a local band, so I picked up the guitar at a young age because of him, learning from him and the local music school.

Also I was fortunate to have a few good mates and we made our first band before we could even play really.. We were 11-12 years old.

My mom has definitely influenced me as well, while my dad was the executive musician, my mom had a nice vinyl/CD collection and the knowledge about music in general. This combination made me fall in love with music.

What still drives you to make music?

Over the years I’ve only been more and more curious about new music. Discovering new great artists and producers and how they do it really inspires me. Doesn’t have to be new upcoming artists, as long as it’s new to me it’s inspiring. When I was younger and frontman/songwriter in a rock and roll band, I was definitely more narrow-minded and thought I knew exactly what I liked and disliked – what a fault that was! You can find inspiration and drive in any genre really.

Also new gear or new ways to use gear definitely drives me. And as my studio is based in a complex with other studios and great colleagues, we’re constantly talking and exchanging experiences which helps you and drives you on to the next project with new approach and ideas.

How do you most often start a new track?

It changes from time to time. Sometimes I have an idea on the guitar or piano, and
sometimes I try to make a drum beat and play some bass on it. I like messing around with the Logic Drummer – haha! Today I entered my studio and instantly sat at my upright piano and just started writing – before having my morning coffee! So yeah I don’t have a go to way to kick things off really.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I don’t. It’s really tough. I will always find things in my mixes that I want to change and edit, but working with deadlines can be a nice way to get things done. Also working fast is a nice way to get it done. I’ve composed some scores lately that I almost started and finished the same day. I’ve learned over the years that being in a flow and working fast is nice. Get it done and move on! Don’t dwell too much. In the end you are your own biggest critic and the audience can’t tell if you think it’s done or not.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Here’s one phrase that just came to mind: “Stay curious”. That’s what I intend to do! I keep searching the internet, talking to fellow producers, trying to find new methods to record stuff, write stuff and so on. Music is universal and can still feel different to each of us and hopefully I will never get tired of finding new ways to produce it.

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

It’s been a while since I’ve released my own music but here’s a track I produced last year by Marie Fjeldsted.

Also please visit my website to see/hear my portfolio, thanks!

https://www.linus-valdemar.com

Urspring – Durch Veraltet Technik

[Editor: If you’re here for the Free Stuff in this post. There’s the Impulse Response samples from the Great British Spring Reverb tank that Urspring recorded]

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

The panning dials on the Yamaha MT-120S cassette recorder are just yummy.

I like the pan dials on my Yamaha MT-120 four track cassette recorder. Not as much for what they do, but how they feel and how they enable me to actually play the stereo field simultaneously with 4 fingers. If they were designed as knobs you could only control 2 at a time, in an easy way. But they are designed as dials almost like the 4 encoders on the OP-Z and therefore you can control all four at the same time with one finger at each dial.

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

We are always in endless search for a perfect bit of kit, aren’t we? Haha! Well I don’t think there will ever be a perfect kit – especially not a perfect kit for all times. For me an inspirational kit changes over time. 10 years ago it would have been Ableton Live and a Push. Or simply just an acoustic guitar.

These days I’m tripping over the Digitakt/Digitone combo after watching a Patreon video by Jogging House. I think these two in combination simply allows me to translate melody and sonic texture ideas very easily to tracks that I can then record straight to my 2-track Revox B77.

The Digitakt/Digitone also lets me sit down and make music without sitting in front of a laptop screen. I have a non-music related daytime job where I’m in front of a screen all the time. And music making with hardware has almost become a kind of meditative activity away from the screen. Where the perfect combo is the Digitakt/Digitone … At least it is for me.

I also really dig the Ciat Lonbarde Cocoquantus and Deerhorn in combo with the Digitone.

There are instruments that when you master them, they almost become an extension of yourself. They let the feelings you are expressing flow without friction. Like the piano or the acoustic guitar.

Then there is gear the keeps surprising you. Like a good band mate. It’s gear that you always have an interesting conversation with. The Cocoquantus is like that.

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

These days I’m bringing the Digitakt/Digitone combo. But sometimes just the OP-1. It’s sometimes really hard for me to get into the creative flow and mood when only having small islands of time, like 20 minutes, between family time. But now I’m better at telling myself “you’re not suppose to make an album now. You’re just having fun!” That inner voice is my friend.
So I often bring my OP-1 to the summer house.

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

I almost never use compressors in my composing these days, but I like the Vulf Compressor VST for it’s distinct lo-fi squeezed Madlib sound. I could definitely see a use for this as a hardware pedal in my setup. But then again I might just throw a Boss SP-303 into my setup. The Vulf Compressor is heavily inspired by the ’Vinyl Sim’ effect on the SP-303, which is a radically weird compression algorithm.
These days I’m mostly into a DAWless approach, so I don’t have any hardware that I wished was software.

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

I’m really not that much of a gear flipper. I try to have a minimal setup with only a limited set of handpicked pieces. I tend to stick with a piece of gear for way too long before letting it go. I still have a Push 1 laying around, haha. However I see this changing quickly because somehow the amount of gear on my desk has multiplied lately!
Anyways, I don’t really regret buying or selling anything, but one thing I regret NOT buying was a secondhand Juno 6 about ten years ago. The price was around 400-500 euros at that time, and at the last minute I decided that I didn’t have the space for it. Well, now the prices have rocketed out of the atmosphere, and I’m still looking at Junos. Poor me.

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

No doubt it would be the 4 track cassette recorder. When I was around 13 my dad had a 4 track Fostex, that lived in my room. Back then in the nineties I made hip-hop parodies, sad core indie and I recorded my grunge band with that piece of gear.

When listening back today I must admit that most of the music was kind of crap. But I still remember the excitement and feeling of loosing myself 100% in music making for tens of hours and the feeling of listening back and thinking “this track rocks”.
Fast forward 30 years and I was still using a Fostex 4 track (another device though) as a core device in an electronic duo Klingerhult with Martin – yes the editor of this blog.

[Editor: Hello everyone 🙂 … if you’re curios about us? Then check out Klingerhult here]

I’m also still using the 4 track cassette recorder now as a simple mixer, with tape loops, for pitch and reverse effects, resampling and for crunchy overdrive.
I just like the texture and sound of tape recorders.

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

An Op-1. Then I would sit down for tens of hours and just go with the flow.

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

At the moment it’s mildly annoying to tune the Ciat Lonbarde Deerhorn to a chromatic scale. It’s like Petter Blasser (who invented it) intentionally made it almost impossible, like a big “screw you” statement. But when it is in tune it is so liberating and relaxing to play the notes with the hands on top of an ambient bed. And here’s the thing: Tuning has become a way of clearing my mind, like an inlet for getting into the zone.
But the Deerhorn is not the easiest beast to tame.

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

I like the sound of flaws and almost broken things. Whenever I use a bit of gear that supports that, I think I’m more inspired and make more music. For example, when using tape loops or just using tape machines I often find myself deliberately exaggerate the flutter and wobble effect by holding a finger on the tape reels or shaking the dictaphone or walkman. In that way it’s possible to control the pitch flaws almost like playing an instrument. The tape machines are probably not that
happy about it. But it’s fun!

Artist or Band name?

Urspring

Genre?

Ambient I guess

Selfie?

Where are you from?

I grew up in the endless suburbs of Odense in Denmark, but currently I’m living in Copenhagen.

How did you get into music?

My parents were music teachers at elementary school and I grew up with guitars, amplifiers and synths in my home. Then I watched MTV and wanted to be like Nirvana, Beck, Beastie Boys and all the rest. It all got rolling from there…

What still drives you to make music?

Music is the art form that, by far, resonates the most with me. I make music simply because I need to. In particular making ambient music is to me an effective way of expressing abstraction.

How do you most often start a new track?

Most often I start by fumbling with a naive and cheesy melody loop and then build upon that from there. But there’s no clear recipe. I could also be a dusty pad loop or a drone done with the Lyra. I can also be really inspired by a track that has a part, a texture or sound that I like. I often wonder how they made it and suddenly I’m switching on my gear, and going exploring.

The Lyra is a really good track starter.

How do you know when a track is finished?

It’s finished when you keep adding new things and it’s making it all worse 🙂
Well, I’m not sure it’s that simple. Most often it’s a kind of feeling that is hard to explain. It’s when you somehow suddenly can see that the track has got its own personality and you can see it as a part of the family.

Show us your current studio

Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of a separate room for my music studio. My studio space is a multi functional, shared family space in my apartment: It’s a home workplace, a walk in closet, a pathway to my daughters room and a hang out
place. So there’s not much room to go crazy with blinking lights, knobs, faders and keys.

Nonetheless I’m quite happy with this little studio space in the corner.
One thing I have done is hack an IKEA storage system (BESTÅ) so it’s almost
a hidden music studio. Open the storage doors, let the ambient spirit out and rock on! (but very softly and quietly)

[Editor: You can get some Impulse Responses from this Great British Spring reverb right click and download here. If you do use’em let us know in the comments😉]

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

“Make sure you are having fun!” Quote by Jogging House on his Patreon blog. If you are into making ambient music I can highly recommend supporting Boris and joining this fantastic community over at his Discord server. It’s a really supporting and friendly place.

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

I’m still working on an actual release. But until then you can follow Urspring at:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urspring_/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwiEV85XM7cEElzmEOdfmtg