dansk Archives - Martin Yam Møller

CPH Mush – Hands full of Synths

[Editor: This is an updated interview. CPH Mush was one of the very early artists on this blog, and his setup and studio have evolved so much that we both thought it would be interesting to do an update with new questions. Enjoy!]

1. Has your favourite knob/fader/switch changed since last time? Why do you think it grabbed you now?

I think quite a lot has changed since the last time (it was five years ago). Back then I had some really clever answer of a very technical note. I think that goes with how I have been changing my approach to making music in the last five years. Nowadays I enjoy playing instruments and sounds a lot more than I did in the past (those 15-min a day on the piano have really paid off).
So I see my studio as a balance on approachable and direct instruments vs. more complex and deep ones. There is of course time spent on both sides, but I am enjoying the playability more and more. So to answer the question about my favourite knob/fader/switch – I would go for the Touché by Expressive E.
I didn’t do much research before buying it, so I thought it would be something like the morphee on the Arturia Polybrute – but it is not. I keep it beside my Expressive E Osmose – and I find it both intuitive and expressive in the sense that I can tap rhythmical changes or just sweep the surface and change the color of the sound I’m currently playing.

2. What’s a piece of gear you didn’t expect to love, but now you rely on constantly? 

This might be the most boring piece of equipment ever, the old Mackie Big Knob. It is just a monitor controller (I bought it as I have the idea to add some old hifi speakers as well as some other listening to the studio. But as it has both dual phone amplifiers and lots of connectivity it has made life a lot easier, especially as my new studio is much bigger than what I have had in the past. The Big Knob just makes it quick and easy to mute speakers for recording acoustic stuff simple and having the phone jacks in an accessible position, means that it is much easier moving around compared to using the soundcards jack in the rack.

3. Which piece of gear in your setup has aged the best — and which feels the most dated? 

The best – my first purchase, back in 1993 when I had just turned 13. My Korg MS10. It is a very simple synth, but it is extremely playable and has a unique character that just seems to fit with whatever I am doing. My personal move towards more playing vs. sequencing has made it shine brighter than ever.

For the most dated it leads me to drummachines as a category, and the older ones specifically. I have tons of drummachines and drum modules, and I think I like the idea of them, more than I actually use them. To be sincere I don’t use them much at all, as I prefer to build rhythms by other means. So the answer here is a tie between the old 8bit digital Korg machines and the Roland CR78. If you record these unprocessed it will sound like a time capsule to the years straight after their releases.

4. What’s the last “happy accident” that happened in your studio? 

I think my synths in general and the modular ones in particular is “happy accident” machines. When I turn on a modular synth, I usually have an idea of something I want to explore, but 10 minutes in, I am somewhere completely different. I know that there are a lot of people working their modulars into playable live instruments – I admire that patience. For me it is just a luxurious idea generator – I am operating it, but it is also operating me and we end up in interesting places all the time. For regular synths, I am taking a lot of the modular thinking with me and when I make patches I like to work with modulation busses as much as I can.

Making patches is usually something I make when I am not making music – the goal is to explore a synth and save as many interesting patches as possible on the way. (I have a video or two on youtube exploring this).

Example – Moog Muse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njJGOoCizfI 

5. If you had to banish one category of gear from your studio (pedals, drum machines, plugins, etc.), which would hurt the most? 

Well, the drummachines would hurt the least, as I mentioned before. I like to play instruments, so banishing all keyboards would be brutal. I don’t think I would spend time in the studio if I only had sequencers, guitars and touch surfaces.  

6. Has a new bit of gear changed the way you think about making music, not just how you sound?

I have just bought an old Hohner keyboard at a flee market – it is an old digital PCM thingy with internal speakers (it is likely a rebranded Casio). It does nothing unique, it lacks velocity on its keyboard, but it is immediate in a sense. Whenever I play with it, on its own or playing around with it over a tune I am working on, it just brings ideas. The internal speakers is creating a nice, soft distortion too, and the sounds have some stereo motion. The limitations makes me much faster, but it also moves my focus to the tonality instead of the sounds. To be honest, I have likely used it more already than I have used my Arturia Polybrute12… so 20 euros well spent.

*The Hohner keyboard is mid-bottom in the image*

7. If money and space weren’t an issue, what ridiculous piece of gear would you add to your studio today? 

I’d love a Fazoli F308 Grand Piano or an EMS Synthi 100 – likely the first over the second. However, my piano chops or space is inadequate for such a gem of an instrument.  

8. What’s the most “you” sound or technique that came directly from your gear choices?

Interesting question – my wife passed the studio a few days ago saying “wow, that does not sound like your usual stuff”. The day after she came in “well, now it does sound like you”… I had added some rhythm elements….

I am not great at programming beats – it has never been my thing (weird that I have so many drummachines…). It has never been the thing I listen to in music either. But rhythms are important to music – so I have found ways to make stuff that I find interesting – and apparently it is the “Rasmus” sound… (I have a video on Youtube showing how I use the Monomachine to create rhythmical textures).

Example – Monomachine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uerNSMSGGcY

9. Looking back at your answers last time — what’s the biggest shift in your relationship with gear since then? 

I had some really good answers back then (read it, if you don’t believe me) and I still don’t think the “what gear” is important. The important thing is to be creative and to use whatever is around – having a studio filled with inspiring instruments is a luxury, but being able to move from idea to recording fast is much more important to me. I don’t think there is any pivot here for me, but I thought a lot about how I would build my new studio – and what would be important… So I am going to use this question to write about something else – how to build a space to be inspired and productive in…

Three year ago I moved from a small apartment with both a basement and a livingroom filled with instruments – to a big house in the remote suburbs of Copenhagen. A semi-old house that used to be both a home and a plumbers workshop. I love DIY for various reasons, so I have been spending lots of time renovating the place and bring out all its character. The last part was the old workshop that I started working on in the beginning of the year – that was to house a dining room, a second livingroom and my music studio. As I was without a studio for like two years, I used my home office (which houses my Kawai piano) as a mini studio. With a growing collection of gear as I kept buying stuff (while most of the old stuff was still packed down).

Well. It was not an ideal space in any way, but it made it easier to focus on individual instruments, to get to know them in depth. (I also added a keyboard stand in the livingroom, so I could just make patches and stuff with one machine at a time). This lead me to think about that I might prefer having a different kind of studio than I ever have had before. I started thinking about having just a DAW in the middle of a room with a table to put one or two instruments on – and storage units around the walls, where I could store all my other instruments and boxes. The idea was to take out one at a time to not feel overwhelmed. I explored this path for a long time, until I came to the conclusion that I would likely not fit me that well. Partly because I like to look at instruments (some synths just looks sooo good) – and I remember to use different stuff if I see it…

I kept the idea of a table in the middle of the room and kind of building islands or stations for the more stationary instruments around the room. For the more portable stuff I keep the other idea – having desktop stuff, pedals and tape machines available on open shelves, that I bring down to the table and that I can connect to the DAW in a few seconds. This hybrid model seems to work quite well for me. One of the main things I have noticed is that I actually enjoy walking around the studio, moving from one island to the next while the music is playing – trying out different stuff on different instruments… For keyboards that I want to explore deeper – I do have a keyboard stand (with the Buchla Easel in the pictures attached) that I use for synths I want to play more with. At the moment it is the Easel that I haven’t gotten my head around yet. So regarding my change in relation to gear – I want a closer relationship with every unit I have. 😀

Artist or Band name (still the same? any side projects or aliases we should know about?)

I don’t really make music in a serious way, it is more something between a personal diary and creative release. But there is some old projects up on the big streaming platforms. The stuff that shows me off best is probably the songs “A Home” and “MDMA” from an album in my own name “Rasmus Nyåker” as well as the album “Illiterate Poetry” under the moniker “Fejld” . I keep thinking about reviving Fejld, but the music I am working on at the moment has vocals in Danish and a bit of a folk-electronica feel, so I need to get that out of the system first… 

Genre (has it shifted, blurred, or deepened since last time?)

I think most of my stuff fits in either neo-classic or ambient-acid-rock. But I don’t know much about genres – it is a bit like the old library sorting system, which is irrelevant if you just like to enjoy a good book every now and then. (That is my relationship to music – I just try to enjoy it) 

Selfie

Where are you based these days? (and how’s the local scene treating you?)

I moved from the city of Frederiksberg that is located inside Copenhagen, to the absolute outskirts and a sleepy suburb named Hedehusene (very close to Roskilde). I don’t think there is a local scene out here – there is a guy making a yearly “Jarre Experience” thing in a local church on a yearly basis, but I never visited. Basically I am too busy and old to have any musical ambitions and be part of a scene…  

What’s changed the most in your creative process since your last interview?

I rely much more on playing stuff, than sequencing – I don’t even use midi anymore for my synths – as I think the process is much more efficient by just recording the audio directly with all of its flaws and character.  

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve overcome as a musician recently?

I don’t see myself as a musician, so I can’t answer this. ;) 

What continues to push you forward when music gets difficult?

I never feel that music is difficult – when I was younger and had ambitions, I struggled with trying to sound better than any artist I was currently in to, and with maintaining a feeling of getting better. The last part is however one of those things I have realized is often a false observation. As humans we seem to believe that we are constantly progressing, getting more clever, improving our musical skills, etc. But when we start to analyse old recordings or reading old notes – it is quite clear, at least to me, that it is kind of a false narrative. To make an example from something completely different. I planted a Magnolia tree in my front yard like two years ago – and when both me and my wife observe it, we mention to each other that it seems like it is growing in a decent tempo. But when we look back at pictures from when I planted it in the ground – it shows that the growth has actually been tiny (a bit depressing). It seems the wish in us to see it grow in our garden is influencing us to believe it. So, what is the conclusion to this – just trust your skills and make the most of them – art is never a competition – it is a way to let yourself or the listeners come in contact with themselves in new ways. 

How do you usually spark ideas now — same methods as before, or new rituals/tools?

I have no problem getting ideas – just grabbing an instrument and play some notes always rewards me with something. 

What’s your current marker for saying “this track is finished”? (has that changed?)

I don’t think that is important to me – the joy and almost trance like state that can appear during the jam and recording sessions is what I am after. I rarely finish tracks – if I do, it is usually to have kind of a diary of the time (listening to old recordings of mine has a way of bringing back all the emotions and feelings I had at the time). 

Can we get a peek at your current studio — what’s new in the space?

Well, the space is new. It has a nice dark blue hue on the walls and the ceiling. The floor is covered by a nice wool carpet (wool carpets are great at making a basement feel less basement-like). And since last time I did an interview, I have gotten lots of stuff. My eurorack has grown, without me noticing (I made that 2 meter x 1 meter eurorack case that is hanging on the wall, and thought that it would be enough together with my DIY Buchla style folding case and the keyboard case with 4x168hp). It wasn’t enough. So I had to buy a few more cases (and I am still waiting for 2 more cases that’s going up on the wall shelves). But let’s talk about a few of the pieces I have picked up in the last couple of years.

Keybird X1 – a portable budget unacorda piano. It was designed in another suburb of Copenhagen, and I like supporting the locals. It is a different instrument to the Kawai I have in the home office – and it works very well with different effect units.

A lot of synths, either bought out of curiosity or because I had them in the past and missed them: Arturia Polybrute12 and Matrixbrute, Korg Polysix, Akai AX60, Waldorf Quantum, Kawai K5000s, Waldorf Microwave 1 and XT, DSI Prophet12, Tempest and Pro2, Moog Muse, Novation Summit, Quasimidi Polymorph, Expressive E Osmose, Buchla Easel, Kilpatrick Phenol, etc. Of these my favourites are:

Moog Muse – I just enjoy playing it, making patches with it, writing music with it. It has a very mellow and dark character and is just great.

Novation Summit – This synth does not have a unique character but makes it up by being both direct and versatile and its sounds just works in almost any musical context. It also has the best arpeggiator in the world. (A tip for some fun with it – setup the same patch on both layers, change the arpeggiator settings on one layer (rhythm for example) and press some keys down) 

Best bit of creative or life advice you’ve picked up since your last interview?

I am usually not a fan of inspiring quotes, but I recently had one stuck in my mind “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” (Supposedly a quote by the late french writer Anaïs Nin). 

And finally: what’s the latest thing we should hear from you, watch, or support? Drop a link.

If you find me interesting I would suggest you to follow both my youtube and my instagram. My last post on Youtube (at this moment) was a little nice jam with my Keybird x1 and the Machinedrum (plus some synths) and is a good pointer on what I do in my studio 90% of the time…. Link to mentioned:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euZ2Nc3quZE

My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@copenhagennoiselab

My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cphmush/

Kaspar Kaae – Cody-licious

[Editor: Okay… this interview is with someone who has got to have one of the greatest collections of vintage guitars (and music gear) in Denmark. The fact that this person is also a busy film composer and the main songwriter/singer in a very influential danish indie folk band is just perfect! Enjoy!]

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

The Delay Multiply knob on the Lexicon Primetime. There’s something tactile about it that just draws me in—it’s not just a control; it feels like a direct line to shaping the space of a sound. On the Primetime, every tweak transforms the ambience in a way that feels alive. It’s not about perfection; it’s about responding in real time to what the track needs. The character it adds, even in subtle doses, inspires me to experiment, sometimes in directions I wouldn’t have imagined. I spend hours just playing with it, seeing what weird reverbs or delays I can coax out.

Chase Bliss Gen-Loss and Hologram Electronics Microcosm

It’s a lot like the Hologram Electronics Microcosm, in that I can put nearly any type of sound into it, and it just spits music out.

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

My Flock Audio patchbay, digitally controlled analog routing, it’s incredibly practical.

Flock Audio digital patchbay and UAD Apollo soundcard

The 2 units were expensive, but they quite literally tie the whole studio together. It’s one of those bits of gear that costs a lot, but when you finally invest in it, you wonder why on earth you haven’t done so earlier!

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

I usually take a small pedalboard with an Apollo X4 interface, a UAD DSP core and a Shure Beta 58 mic. With a MacBook, it’s compact but allows me to capture ideas quickly anywhere. The Apollo lets me keep recording quality high, while still being portable, and the Beta 58 is rugged, reliable, and works with pretty much everything.

When working abroad I travel light, because I want to be able to experiment without being tied down by too much gear. It’s about having enough to inspire creativity, but not being weighed down too much.

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

Honestly, I’ve tried to build a setup where I have all hardware duplicates of favorite software. I like having the tactile, hands-on experience of hardware while also keeping the flexibility of software. For me, the ideal is not to wish one was the other—it’s to blur the lines, so that I can get the best of both worlds.

Eventide H3000 and Gyraf Audio Gyratec II

I also really learn a lot from having something in both hardware and software form. Like the PrimeTime is also emulated by SoundToys PrimalTap, and when I got the hardware it helped me understand the VST even better.

Roland Space Echo RE-201 and Lexicon Prime Time

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

I regret selling my mahogany 1953 Martin O-15 acoustic. I bought it in New Orleans when I first toured in the USA in 2008. It had a tone that was intimate, warm, and unique—it was almost like it had its own personality. I sold it in 2011, and then in the winter of 2024, I was out with a friend who wanted to check out a vintage Gibson for sale from a private collector. And I found that exact guitar again! But the guy didn’t want to sell it.
After quite a bit of wrangling, and showing him my photos of me playing the guitar on stage back in 2009, he eventually agreed to sell it to me again … at quite a good price … for him!
But I just had to have it again… over the 13 years that I didn’t own it, I often thought about it. And I took it as a sign from fate, that I was meant to play it again because of the sheer coincidence of stumbling across it again.
I wrote and recorded all the songs on my debut album on this guitar, and it’s a part of my history.

No regrets buying anything, though. Every purchase I’ve made has either shaped my sound or taught me something about what I want. Even when a piece of gear doesn’t end up being central, it informs my decisions in the future.
Like these small portable plastic keyboards, the CasioTone and the Yamaha VSS-200. They have a unique and crunchy sound, that works well in a few situations.

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

Definitely my Louis Zwicki upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Telefunken Neumann U47, and Fender Jaguar. The piano is the foundation of everything; it’s the place where melodies and harmonies emerge…. But again – all my instruments do that. This is just my immediate answer to a rather big and unfair question, cause tomorrow it might be something else 😉

The Telefunken Neumann U47 captures emotions in a way that is almost human—it’s not just recording sound; it’s recording presence. A cellist I work with said to me, that this particular U47 makes her cello sound better on recording than it does it real life.
The Juno-60 gives me warmth and unpredictability that I can’t get elsewhere, and also I’ve used the Juno so much that I feel very much at home with it. So much so that I gotta admit that I actually have 2 units, one in Copenhagen and one in Berlin!

The Fender 1964 Jazzmaster allows me to explore textures and tonalities that are immediately inspiring. Together with my pedalboards and stompbox fx, these instruments aren’t just tools anymore – they are like a part of me, since I’ve been playing Jazzmasters for more that 20 years. It’s the guitar I’ve played the most.

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

I would start simple, probably with my holiday travel board. Something portable that still allows you to explore sounds and ideas. I’d probably get bored of that simple setup and then I’d slowly bring back the vintage gear, piece by piece, layering textures and capabilities. The temptation is always to chase the “perfect setup” but I think starting small encourages creativity—you’re forced to solve problems and think musically rather than technically.

All the stuff in my studio is kind of a lifetimes worth of collecting. It’s a bit painful to imagine it all gone.

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

Rack Flock Audio, UAD Soundcard, Heyman and Heritage Preamps

I’d have to say the Flock digital p a tchbay. It’s annoying because it was manufactured with a low quality threading for the d-sub connectors on the back, so now it is broken and the connection is glitchy. But it’s so essential to my working process that I don’t have time to un-patch it, send it to repair and re-patch the whole studio.

I also have a 1965 Gibson Firebird that has a glued in neck. It’s got 3 P90 pickups and a fantastically dry sound. However it just doesn’t hold tuning and the intonation is terrible. You basically can’t play a whole song all the way through. But it records really well.

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

Enjoy the parts of the sounds that are ‘faults’. This is something I’ve realized over years of experimentation. Imperfections—whether it’s a synth that drifts out of tune, a reverb that rings out in unexpected ways, or tape hiss—can be incredibly inspiring. Instead of fighting them, I embrace them. They add character, unpredictability, and a human element to recordings that otherwise might feel sterile… or worse ordinary.

Artist or Band name?

Kaspar Kaae

Genre?

Cinematic indie folk.

Selfie

Where are you from?

Bornholm, Denmark. It’s an island in the Baltic sea and it’s quite far from the mainland of Denmark. Moved to Copenhagen when I was 19.

How did you get into music?

When I was around 10 years old, a school friend named Rolf at school started to play on the pianette (small upright piano) that we had in our classroom, and I was fascinated by it. So of course I had to start playing myself.
He then started to play acoustic guitar and we learned together for a while. He showed my Am, C, D and F. So I immediatly put those together and said to my parents “Hey, I wrote a song!”

Kaspar Kaae with his vintage 1948 Martin D-18 acoustic

Couple of years later, I was allowed to trade my mom’s acoustic for an electric guitar … and since then, it’s just been music, music, music.

What still drives you to make music?

Curiosity and not knowing the answers. Every track starts as the question: “What happens if I try this?” That uncertainty is still exciting. It’s not about finishing a product—it’s about discovering, exploring, and reacting to sounds as they evolve.

How do you most often start a new track?

Blank template in Logic. I rarely begin with a pre-conceived idea. Starting empty forces me to listen, respond, and experiment. I’ve tried making a template with a bunch of sample libraries, but it makes the whole process a bit more boring for me. Doesn’t feel creatively exciting.
I have ‘workshop’ days with my musical collaborators, where we spend a day just trying out a lot of different ideas and crazy experiments. Most don’t work, but maybe 1 out of 10 become a composition that is an idea that you would never find any other way.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I really don’t. It’s hard to be objective about your own work. I rely heavily on collaborators like directors, producers or editors —they can tell me when something feels emotionally or conceptually complete. Often, a track evolves far beyond my initial idea, and outside feedback helps me recognize when it’s “done enough” to either be useful for a film scene or as an independent musical release.

Robotron ‘70 Deluxe Distortion/Compressor Big Muff

Show us your current studio

It’s a hybrid of vintage but still practical. The Flock Audio patchbay, Lexicon Primetime, Juno-60, piano, 1953 Telefunken Neumann U47, Fender 1964 Jazzmaster—all of it is central to my workflow. The space isn’t flashy, but it’s alive. Every cable, knob, and surface has a purpose. It encourages experimentation and allows me to move quickly between ideas. It’s not just a studio—it’s a creative ecosystem.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

“Have an idea, but be open to new things.” It’s deceptively simple. An initial idea is just a starting point; the magic happens in letting the work transform itself during the process. Tracks often end up somewhere completely different from the original concept, and the best work comes from embracing that evolution rather than trying to control it.

Promote your latest thing…

My latest release is with my band Cody. Our new album is called Everything Falls Apart.

2000F – Strøm Førende

[Editor: There are gear geeks, and there are gear freaks…. AND THEN there is the artist 2000F aka. Frederik Birket-Smith, who has got to have one of the most extraordinary collection of vintage synths, drum machines and outboard gear in all of Denmark… and this is just one of several locations where he has his gear. He is also the CEO of Strøm Festival – which is pretty much the biggest yearly electronic music festival in Denmark. So enjoy!
Also, if you’re wondering about the title, it’s danish for… ‘electric conductor’]

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

My fave has got to be the Cinema Engineering Corporation Model 6517/e.

This is a low and high cut filter from Burbank, California, made in the 50’s, early 60’s. Originally made for, what you would call the telephone effect for film. It’s quite an extreme low and high cut and this unit in particular, has been modified by a local danish tech called Fairman, with a resonance control filter Q knob.

Cinema Engineering Corporation Model 6517/e front panel

So you can make it very aggressive and brittle sounding, and I use it for dub music, to get those extreme cuts. Most filter units of this type only have a low cut. Which is nice, but this one has high cut as well.

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

The Fender Rhodes 88 suitcase. Gotta be the suitcase version, not the stage. Has to be the one with the speakers. And I wouldn’t change anything about it.

Fender Rhodes 88

I have one from 1980 here in this studio and another one at home, from 1976. At one point I had both together in the living room, the kids and the wife were a little bit “Okay we need two?”. But my wife is really big fan of Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea as well, so she loved it. Still… it takes up a lot of room.

But the interesting part of having two was that, while the sound of the one I have here is really good, the other ’76 Rhodes, the body and the weight is much deeper compared to this one. The ’76 almost feels like a proper grand piano. It’s really nice.

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

Smartphone… one with Koala Sampler.

And then just the built-in Memo app on the phone, that’s the only things I would bring.

I especially like the Memo app. Actually I just use it to record stuff… Sometimes it’s ideas and melodies or basslines or rhythms. Sometimes it’s just something I need to explain to myself, like an idea that I need to remember. Sometimes it is sampling something.

Quite recently I recorded a sound while they were rebuilding Fisketovet [Editor: a shopping mall in Copenhagen]. And there was this crazy huge drilling machine that was so loud. I’ve never heard anything like it, but I had to record it. It was just banging a huge pile-driver into the ground. The reverb tail was intense.

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

I’m not sure I can answer that, to be honest. Because I like both worlds. If I HAD to say something that could be an answer, I think it would be, that in the last couple of years, the integration between outboard hardware and the digital audio workstation is getting pretty good. Life is getting so much easier with the new analog patch bays that can be digitally controlled.

I mean, it’s so easy to intermix it now. And I actually like both analog and digital because they’re both very different, so it is great that they can now be integrated.

They’re merging and I think that’s really interesting. I come from an old school hardware kind of workflow, but the funny thing is, a few years ago, I tried to force myself to use only stock Ableton plugins, just to to see what I can do… and boy, it sounded pretty, I still prefer hardware and all that, but I did two 12-inch releases that way.

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

Regrets selling? Nah… but there’s some stuff I regret NOT buying.

There was an Arp 2600 that was for sale in a shop near where I used to live. I think the shop was called ELSound. It was just in the display winder. Still haunts me that I couldn’t buy it at the time.

I’ve had quite a lot of gear, as you can tell, so I haven’t sold that much, actually. I’ve sold a Jupiter-4 and a Polysix and I don’t miss them. I also had the very, very big Yamaha SK50D. Which is the huge poly synth they made, just a big as the CS-80 and just about as heavy, but a cheaper version. Even though it certainly wasn’t cheap. But I don’t miss that either.

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

Samplers. And the Emu Emax.

That’s the one I grew up with. It opened up the world of music production for me. Actually, I can tell you a funny story. Particularly that unit over there, which my father bought in ’86. I remember so clearly, because when I was young, my mom used to be a DJ and my dad collected records and all that studio stuff. So I listened to a lot of music.

I listened to stuff like Kraftwerk and especially Art Of Noise. Early Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel… you know, with all those Synclavier sounds. But I never really understood how they did it. I understood the music and I loved it, but especially the Music Nonstop album, Electric Cafe album from Kraftwerk, where they used samples heavily, people don’t rate it. But I loved it because it was so digital.

When my father bought home the Emax. I can tell you where exactly in the living room I was standing and where my mom stood, when my dad used it for the first time. He set it up and plugged in a microphone, and my mom came into the living room and said, “Dinner’s ready!”.
And it was recorded. When my Dad started to mess with that sample… Then suddenly I was like, ‘That’s how they do it!’ … My whole mind was just blown away.

So I was like… ‘Gimme that!’ and I borrowed an Atari ST2 computer, the Emax and Pro-One and the PPG and made lot of music. From then on I started buying stuff, so since I was 14 years old, I was just hooked. Spent all my money, I bought my 303 and right after that the 909 and all that.

But the sampler, that was the start.

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

The computer.

The thing is that nowadays you’ll be able to go online and find answers to absolutely everything. And at that time around ’86 you couldn’t find any answers to anything except if you knew somebody. So a computer would, whether it was an ’86 or 2023, open your world in any direction you wanted to go.

So then I think inspiration comes from other stuff. I mean, gear can inspire me and anybody else, but I’m not sure that’s the main thing, to be honest. I think the computer will just be the door that opens the world.

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

Oh, that’s everything. Everything! Just keeping and maintaining a synth mausoleum like this one. That’s grief…. and a lot of money. I would say being a collector, it’s just a major headache.

Cabling and setting up wires is a huge headache, but refurbishments and service on this stuff, that’s just a downwards spiral of agony and pain. And money out the window.

The most expensive restoration I have, which is still ongoing, is the EMT-250 reverb, which is at a repair workshop in Germany right now, and has been for the past five years. Kinda crazy.

The EMT250 is the only thing my father never got to hear or see working, before he passed away. He was an avid gear collector and once even managed to find a Fairchild 670 on Den Blå Avis [danish version of Craigslist], but the 250 we found at Sweet Silence Studios, and it’s super rare. Gotta be less than 200 in the world.

It even came in the original flight crate from Germany. So this wooden box came through Kastrup Airport, and then through the distributor up in the north of Copenhagen, then finally to Sweet Silence Studio, where we discovered that it had some water damage.
So it was sent to the US to repair at Studio Electronics and they said “we can’t fix it”. It had some humidity things that happened to it.

But eventually I found this guy Stefan Hübner in Hamburg. Who I was recommended by an old PPG factory tech. Who said, I have this young apprentice called Stefan, who is willing to take a look at repairing your EMT.

But the problem with the EMT was that, they never and still haven’t ever released any schematics or diagrams for it. At the time of production, they were so afraid that the Japanese would copy it, so they even sandblasted the tops of all the chips. So it doesn’t say anything on them.
There’s no traces, or anything. It’s all point-to-point soldered in the back. It’s just one huge board of chips, which no one knows what is. So Stefan has two EMT250’s on his workshop table, and he is trying to trace and test the electronics, and build up his own diagrams to figure out what happens inside of it and what each component is.

It’s just a never ending story.

So that’s the longest and possibly the most expensive restoration that I’ve ever attempted. I have never even heard it working. I just bought it and shipped it around.

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

I spent a lot of time listening to and trying to figure out all the old mysteries of dub music. I like Prince Jammy and King Tubby, but I especially like The Scientist, who was the apprentice of King Tubby.

I loved his way of mixing dub and I always liked that sharp filter cuts he had. And that was the knob that King Tubby built from a unit like the one I told you about before. [Editor: Cinema Engineering Corporation Model 6517/e]

Those filters, I mean, you don’t find them. You have to build them… And I’m sure that King Tubby’s version was also modified, because he just needed it to be more aggressive.

Artist or Band name?

2000F

Genre?

Bass music

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, Denmark.

How did you get into music?

Mom was a DJ. Father was musician and studio owner. Guess it’s in the blood.

What still drives you to make music?

Exploration of bass and sounds, I think.

How do you most often start a new track?

A beat or some sort of rhythm.

I’m not sure I’ve got a methodology or something. I least I can’t explain it. I don’t think about it really, but I just bang it out real fast. The rhythm.
I think the rhythm shows for me where the track goes. Also, I build a lot of my songs as a DJ. Which is a bit like putting music together like how I would build with Lego bricks. And I actually like it when it’s almost mechanically switching from one part to the other.

Even though I mix dub stuff, I grew up listening to a lot of jungle drum-and-bass, especially grime music from the UK, and most of that is so cheaply made and is so swiftly made, that you get, a part A and a part B, and they just switch. Just so rough and so simple.

Before grime was called grime, it was called 8-bar, because the rappers just had 8 bars to rap on top of, before the song just switched sound, and I love that very, very simple almost mechanical way of building music. So I always tend to think of this as a DJ.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I test it out quite a lot… DJ’ing. I feel that it’s essential.

In bass music, people make dub plates. I used to cut a lot of plates. But I test tracks and I play them out a lot of times and then I listen. I’m listening to gauge audience reaction.

It’s actually mainly the response of people, if they appreciate or not. And what I do is even though it’s bass music, and it’s really aggressive, really dark. I like to make people almost implode.

2000F vinyl collection and decks on the back wall

I do BassUnderBuen, which is huge rave with 10,000 people here in Copenhagen under a motorway. I’ll play two or three new tracks and I can just tell… ‘okay, this track really works, this one needs work’.

I gotta test it out on a proper dance club sound system. And then I come back to the studio and rework it a little bit.

Show us your current studio

Unknown Prototype Valve Microphone from the ’50s

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

This is for producers working specifically on computers, try to close your eyes as often as possible. You’ll listen differently.

Like when I have my analog mixer setup here in front of me, after I have built up the basic structure, all the stems, patterns, parts of the rhythm and the bass and so on…
Then I switch off the screen. Because I came to realize when I was in the studios, that the more I look while I mix, the more I know what is going to drop and what is going to happen. So I don’t listen as a person on the dance floor would.

The other thing I haven’t quite learned yet, but I’m trying to tell me myself all the time… is that if you’re doing edits or changes during the song structure that people need to notice in a club or in a rave situation.
It has to be very, very particular. I mean, keep it simple and obvious.

Another thing, don’t do social media. Do music.

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

2000F on Spotify