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Sofie Birch – Productive Gear Flipper

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

The cutoff fader on the JP 08. It is so small that not everyone can use it. But for me it is perfectly formed. After so many years of using that instrument almost everyday, I have practised how to make very small changes with very small knobs. The faders on JP-08 are all the same, but the cutoff is without a doubt the one I have used the most. High frequencies is not my thing, so I like to cut a lot.

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

I would love it, if the JP-08 had more tracks like for example the Analog Four. Just four tracks would make it possible to make beautiful patterns on top of each other. Or if you could play tapes on the Casio CK-500 while playing its keyboard. Then you could record pads and soundscapes and play on top of them. Would also be pure magic if my clarinet had a wireless invisible incorporated microphone 😀

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

I always bring my Octatrack mk1, Roland JP-08 and my Strymon Big Sky when I play shows. I think I could do all of my shows on just these machines, but I always feel like I have to add something. An extra element, like a mic, a clarinet or some more effect pedals. So I usually have these machines as a basic setup and then add some more on top!
When I go on holiday or travel I bring my zoom recorder and my laptop and headphones. Then I can mix and edit unfinished stuff and add new recordings on the go.

Octatrack, Strymon Bigsky and Roland synth

What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

I wish that the chorus from Ableton Live was also a hardware effect pedal. Somehow it always gives me exactly what I am looking for when I want to spread or diffuse a sound. I have used it a lot on vocals. It makes it easier to mix my own voice when it sounds differently, but I’m also starting to like the effect on vocals in general. Makes the voice kind of dubbed and takes the sweetness out of the sound. It is also very nice to use on synths.
Don’t really know about the other way round….

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

I like to have a minimalistic and managable studio setup. Instead of having too much gear that I don’t use, I buy something new, use it and record it, sample it and compose with it, and then I sell it again. For example: I used the Roland EP-30 as the main keys for half of my latest release Island Alchemy, and sold it right after the release. Recently I bought a Casio CK-500, which I have great plans with. It has two cassette players incoorporated and some really nice sounding presets. Especially the reverb and sustain function/switch adds very nice layers to the presets. Also there is a radio in it, that can be sampled directly to the cassettes. Right now, I have borrowed a MOOD pedal from Chase Bliss, that I have hooked up with the Casio – it can create some really nice pads together with the organ preset for example.

Anyways, this way of buying and selling, creates a good flowing creativity that constantly brings new ideas. AND it fits my very small studio!

[Editor: I couldn’t agree more! No more agonising over purchases or regrets of selling. Just be ok with being a gear-flipper and feel comfortable using that as an aid the creative flow. Even better than gear-flipping though, are generous friends that you can borrow gear from]

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

Roland JP-08 is the boutique version of the old Jupiter 8 synth (which is <3). It’s a very small synth. I bought it with the 25 keyboard and even though it can be hooked up with a bigger midi keyboard, it just lives in that bundle and has done so, ever since I purchased it. I love that it’s tiny. I love how it fits in everywhere. And it is no problem for me to use the transpose knob when changing octaves. I know this little machine in and out.

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

An Octatrack. Or at least I would have gotten a sampler way before I did. It makes so much sense to use a sampler for my music. I love to layer sounds and I love to record nature sounds and atmospheres. When I began to play live shows, I started out with bringing tape machines to play my recorded atmospheres.

I also use the OT as a looper now which could have saved me from using the Boss RC-30 loop pedal for years. I have always missed a MIDI input on that pedal, but on the other hand it is also very nice to create unpredictable and organic floating patterns and harmonised pads on it.

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

Before I started using my OT as a looper also, I would have said the Boss RC-30. I needed it to layer my sounds, but it is so unprecise and bad sounding. Now, I don’t have any annoying gear!

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

I remember when I learned to play with the FX track on Elektrons Analog Four from a guy who tipped me about it, after I played a concert. You can create some incredibly atmospheric and suspensefull buildups by playing around with the parameters on the FX track, especially the feedback and the filters (HPF, LPF and overdrive). And then you can send the FX track to the reverb and delay again and make it feed into beautiful suspensefull pads.

Artist or Band name?

Sofie Birch

Genre?

Experimental, minimalistic synth and ambient.

Selfie?

Where are you from?

I’m from Denmark and grew up both in the countryside, on a small island and in Copenhagen, where I currently live.

How did you get into music?

I started singing and playing guitar as young girl. But I quickly got interested in the process of recording and producing, because I felt there was more to music than composing and writing. I started out with Reason on my parents computer. This led me to study sound design many years later and that really got me into hardware and experimental music.

What still drives you to make music?

When I listen to some very beautiful music that inspires me to imprint or interpret it into my own.
The constant need in me to improve and develop ideas is what makes me want to keep on producing. But also the fact that I get peaceful and concentrated when I produce and play.

How do you most often start a new track?

I start by making loops and figures that can be replayed over and over and extended and layered with new figures and so on. And then at last, I have a big amount of work in deleting tracks again and find out what is really working together.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I know the track is finished when I’m no longer interested in working with it. There is this perfect moment when a track is not too finished and not too unfinished. When it still has the soul of a one take and the sound of careful work.

Show us your current studio

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

Go listen to Hidden Terraces which was aired on the swedish radio channel Retreat Radio.

It is a 36min long sound piece of synth figures and ambiences from my trip to Colombia this winter. It’s an audible postcard, a travel through nature and harmonies. It will be released on cassette through the german label VAAKNER later this year.

[Editor: There are affiliate links to the relevant gear throughout the articles. It helps to support this blog. In fact, should you be needing some patch cables or guitar strings. Then clicking on one of the above links and buying any product that you prefer, will help the blog… doesn’t even have to be the ones in the link. Thx]

Andreas Hald – Playful Filmic Composer

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

Ahh, that’s a tough one – there are so many! But – I like big knobs and I can not lie – so I’ll have to go with the Mode Selector on my Space Echo RE-201. It’s big and clicky, and it sits on one of my absolute favorite piece of gear. Sometimes I just turn it on so that I can hear the tape whistling around in there. So great.

[Editor: Possibly the greatest knob on the greatest fx ever]

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

I don’t think so. What comes the closest, is my old trusty Juno-60. To me, it’s the most musical sounding synth I know of. It’s perfect with all its imperfections. Warm and noisy – “brown- and round-sounding” to be cliche, it so inspiring to turn on. Instant greatness. It would be fun to add some of the features from a modern synth like the Prophet 6, but again – the limitations that this (and others) instrument has, is what I like about it and keeps my fluids going. In my line of work I need limitations, so I welcome them.

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

Well, back in the days I always towed a guitar, amp and ALL of my pedals to any vacation, but ending up not really playing it. So I don’t bring that much anymore. It’s more than often an instrument or synth of a kind that I want to check out further and haven’t had the time to do so. On my last holiday I ended up bringing my cello and a drum machine. I have this weird sickness, that I can only do proper work in my studio, so I try to avoid working elsewhere and don’t bring computer or anything. I need too much hardware to do my work.

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

In software to hardware – Xils 4, an “Analog Matrix Modular Synthesizer” from Xils Lab. Would love to have that as an enormous beast in the studio. I love that plugin, but mainly use my (hardware)modular synth now. But that plugin tickled me in all the right places. I’m really a big fan of hardware, so I wish that all software was hardware and that we from birth learned to write music on paper and record on tape ;-). That being said, I’m obviously a slave of the modern world.

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

I only think I’ve sold three pieces of gear actually, and I regret all three. A Fender Hot Rod Deville 4×10 amplifier. A Bogner Shiva head amplifier and a Custom made Fender Stratocaster. Especially selling the Fender amp is a regret. I’ve listened to some recordings from back in the days when I had that, and it sounded awesome. I sold it to buy the much more expensive Bogner, which I then also sold. So because of that, I’m never selling anything again. I still have a Bogner amp though, and I’ll post a picture of it – just because it’s so cool looking. Can’t think of any regrets in buying.

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

Pianos. There’s something incredibly satisfying in playing a real piano. Hard to beat. Instantly something sounds as proper music. I haven’t always had a piano at a studio, but I have now – and I would love to get a Grand Piano one day. But for now, I’m really digging the intimate and noisy sound from this upright. Just got it serviced, and it’s so good now.

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

Hmm. Good one. A cello or a pedal steel guitar. I want to be good at those and would (now) have loved to have played something else, that every kid on the block didn’t also play (guitar). I would also tell myself to buy the best equipment. Quality over quantity. I have a pedal steel with humbucker now and love the sound of it.

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

Maybe my Kemper Profiler. I use it all the time and love and adore it, even though I should record amps instead. I do both, but the Kemper is just so convenient. It just looks cheap – like it jumped out of the 90’s – and the menu scrolling is horrific. But sound and work-wise: Love it. I could add my computer to the list. Love/hate relationship – but I just can’t live without it.

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

Hardly a trick – but making my monophonic Korg MS-20 sound like an awesome stereo synth by using the headphone out in the external signal processor and then having two outputs from it, to plug into a mixer with panning possibilities and adding effects. Great revolution for me personally. I used that synth ALL THE TIME on a feature Netflix movie.