Shounen Yuki – Dragon Shaped Clouds

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

Strymon Nightsky

It would be the modulation controls/knobs on either a reverb or delay. Most reverbs sound really good in my opinion, but modulation can set them apart and how they implement it. Even different algorithms on the same reverb will often have different modulation characteristics. Take the Cloud algorithm on the Big Sky for example. You start to push the modulation and it goes from huge reverb to something magical.
Same goes with the mechanics knob on the Volante, it goes from great tape delay into a way back machine that sounds like it’s about to start eating your tape loop and spit it on the floor in an act of rebellion of not getting it fixed. And if the effect is super cool you get both depth and speed for modulation like on the Night Sky.

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

Korg Minilogue XD

The Korg Minilogue XD comes to mind. While it is a nice improvement over the original, it removes a full secondary ADSR envelope. If it had that second full ADSR envelope and a mod matrix with assignable parameters and sources past the few “hard wired” sources and destinations, it would be perfect.

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

Novation Circuit Rhythm

Usually a really easy to use groove box. I used the original Circuit from Novation for years and then switched just recently into the Circuit Rhythm, that I load up with ambient and video game samples. It helps me come up with the basic structure of a song that I will translate later using my more at home/not mobile equipment. I tried to use an iPad for a while, but I just open the web browser and get distracted. 

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

I can’t really think of any. I spent a good 2 hours on this question. I hate making music ‘inside the box’ as they say. I’m an IT professional by day and do not want to sit at my computer when making music. I only use Logic to do some simple post production, like compression and the like, of my music work.

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

I can answer both with this, I sold my Novation Circuit Monostation to help buy a Digitone after the prices went insane for a little while on the Monostation. I got the Digitone and hated it. The sounds of the Digitone were not all that hot for what I wanted to do. Which is odd since I love FM. Luckily the opsix came along and it had the FM I liked. I did get maybe 2 good songs out of the Digitone, before I decided to sell it.
I also did not like the way presets were saved and recalled. The Monostation however I used for making faux NES/Master System 8bit style soundtracks and loved it. It really did some cool stuff when you used it in paraphonic mode.

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

The Korg Minilogue XD for sure. It was the OG Minilogue before that but the XD really expanded what I could do quickly. Having a super easy to use sequencer to get the base melody going to play over is so inspiring. That and it is so easy to make patches on, since it has very little menu diving, unless you want to use the 3rd oscillator. You just get something good easily with it without much effort. 

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

A Minilogue XD! I could honestly have that as my only synth if I really needed that to happen.

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

MacBook

It would have to be my desktop/laptop computer. I hate working on the computer when I get home from work, but I like to do my final mastering inside a DAW. This is also the only way I have found to do any sort of decent video editing for my music based Youtube stuff. 

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

The Minilogue XD and OG Minilogue have very limited routing and modulation options, but you can get around some of that by using the sequencer. You can motion sequence almost any knob and have that running as a sequence with or without note data as a pretty neat way to evolve your sound. 


Artist or Band name? 

I have 2 projects at the moment. My ambient project is called “Dragon Shaped Clouds” and my video game style stuff is called “At The Mana Tree”. 

Genre? 

I mostly do ambient and Japanese RPG style game music

Selfie? 

Shounen Yuki

Where are you from? 

Bremerhaven, Germany but I currently reside in Mesa, Arizona.

How did you get into music? 

I think I have been into music since I was at least 10 or so. Mostly coming from game soundtracks from Japanese RPG’s, especially the Final Fantasy soundtracks from the SNES and Chrono Trigger at that time and oddly enough Enya…
But I do remember going to the World Expo in Hannover Germany in 2000 and hitting up some music shops. I found an album by Tangerine Dream called “Underwater Sunlight ” and it changed me forever. I chased the retro (at the time) but foreign (to me) sounds of that album. It was not even the sounds, it was the overall sequences and progressions. Simplistic but captivating, like a game soundtrack. By that point I started trying to figure out how to make game and electronic music myself. 

What still drives you to make music? 

As odd as it might sound, the fact that I can make something that can be enjoyed by others makes me less depressed. 

How do you most often start a new track? 

I will grab a synth from my collection, some effects pedals, and a looper. Then I will come up with a signal chain based on what I feel like I want to sound like at that moment. At that point I will work on a patch on whatever synth I chose and change the parameters of the effects to get my desired sound. I will then start messing around with different scales to see what works best with the sound I made, lay down a melody or a drone on the looper and start layering sounds. 

How do you know when a track is finished? 

I guess I just go on until I feel the song starts to get repetitive or boring.

Show us your current studio

I use the living room as my studio, so I have a shot of my studio space/computer and my collection in a separate room. I will take stuff from my storage area into the living room to record videos and songs as needed. 

Gear storage
Home studio setup

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard? 

Back in high school I would use a piano at my school after hours and a minidisc recorder with an external microphone to record quite a few tracks of stuff I was working on as my parents could not afford an acoustic piano nor did we have the space. I would then delete them thinking they were garbage. One day the head of the music department noticed I was recording my work and wanted a copy because they thought it was really good. I said I never kept them because I thought they sucked and were just stupid and no one would ever want to listen to them. In shock the teacher assured me the music I was producing was not garbage and I should believe in my ability and I should really hold onto what I make even if I think it’s garbage. This has helped me actually release music past that point and I was shocked to find out people actually like it. Anyway the takeaway on that is: don’t be too overly critical about your music and don’t assume it sucks. 

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

My latest track I’m super proud of …

My youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/YukiTheSynthDragon

My IG: https://www.instagram.com/shounen.yuki/


Jérémy Hernandez – StuffLandSounds

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

Moog Mother-32

I guess Vcf mod amount from Mother 32. They allow you to make some good movement with this juicy Moog filter.

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

The combo DFAM and mother 32. The only think I would change it’s maybe put them all in eurorack case with some effect and output mixer.

Moog DFAM and Mother 32

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

My three tier rack Moog with Mother 32, DFAM, Malekko voltage block and the Lyra 8 !

Moog and cables

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

I learned how use tracker with Renoise two years ago, it was really fun and now Polyend or Nerdseq is here as hardware. I really hope to integrate this kind of sequencer in my set up one day, but actually I don’t really need them now.

Meris Polymin, Zvex Instant Loop Junky and Earthquaker Devices Afterneath


For software I don’t really use a lot, except plugins for effect and mixing. I recently bought a Polymoon by Meris, very fun. Maybe having Polymoon or Mercury 7 as a plug would be very cool, for use as send effect or something like this.

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

I miss my Moog Minitaur and my Digitakt, but sometimes you have to make choices…

Elektron Digitakt

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

Always DFAM and Mother 32. But Soma Lyra 8 can offer you lot of weird and limitless possibilities, and I really like to use it’s external input for other gear, it’s very exiting.

Soma Lyra 8

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

I bought the Arturia Beatstep Pro a few days ago, and I guess if I have to start over I go directly to my Beatstep Pro and control everything in a eurorack system with it. Two voice synth with complex oscillators for example, drums and lot of cool stuff.

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

Maybe my Minilogue, because I don’t really use a lot actually, but sometimes I just plug it into an effect pedal, play with my own hand and I can trip out for a long time. So I keep it…

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

Yeah, I have a some good patches, I used this for my video BuGzZ. It’s on the Mother 32:

noise out in vco lin fm.

Lfo tri out in mix 2

Pitch out (DFAM) in mix 1

KB out in vc mix ctrl

And vc mix out in vcf cut off.

Recently I also used pitch output of DFAM to control Lyra 8 hold gate input. It’s mad! 


Artist or Band name?

Stufflandsounds

Genre?

Electronic, experimental, happymess.

Selfie?

Jeremy Hernandez

Where are you from?

From France, in a little countryside town around Tarbes and Lourdes. I live in Bordeaux now.

How did you get into music?

I guess it was when I was child, I took headphones of my uncle to listen some CDs, and I found in his room the album Bjork Homogenic, Massive Attack Mezzanine, MTV Unplugged Nirvana. My mind blow up !

What still drives you to make music?

She always opens my mind to a new infinite world and it’s about shared creativity with other people. I can’t do without, even just listening music.

How do you most often start a new track?

Most of time, I’m thinking in my room, I see my gear, and I feel when it’s a good moment to have fun with it.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I never know… haha. 

Filming can help me to say « it’s done », and next I keep my project to have some post production, edit, mixing, etc.

Show us your current studio

jeremy Hernandez’s Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Stay yourself, stay daydreamer.

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

IG: Stufflandsounds

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQwEHYMzHlKQy6yw1l1zAEQ


Mike Berndt – Pedal Of the Day

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

Feedback knobs

I tend to lean towards the Feedback areas of pedals that can perform that function, so Feedback knobs, on Delays especially, and Gain knobs on dirt pedals would probably be tops. If you can mix the two and get an overdriven or distorted signal to feedback into self-oscillation, with the possibility to get completely out of control, that’s my happy place.

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

For years now, all of the demos I record have run through a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo, and I recently upgraded to the Twin X Duo. The preamps are so nice, and the plugins you can get replicate so much vintage gear right at your fingertips…it’s pretty incredible. The functionality / ease of use is perfect, it’s almost a plug-and-play type of situation, with as big or small of a learning curve as you want.

Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo

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

Well, we haven’t really left or gone out or done anything over the last year, but usually when I travel for a vacation, I just bring along an acoustic guitar. I’m surrounded by electronics and hardware and pedals the majority of the day, and vacation is a time to get away and take a break from all of that. The acoustic lets me get back to why I started playing guitar in the first place, lets me focus on the raw energy that those instruments bring, and opens up or reinvigorates a passion for stripped-down music that can sometimes get lost in the world of effects. Been using an Alvarez AD60SC for about 16 years now, and still love it, but really want a nice Martin or Taylor or something along those lines at some point.

Alvarez AD60SC

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

I use some plugins with my UA Apollo Twin X Duo to clean up and finalize the audio for Pedal of the Day’s demos, but there’s something about having an actual rack of gear right in front of you that just can’t be replaced by a computer screen. Having a Teletronix LA-2A, Studer A800 and an actual vintage Tape Echo unit here in the studio would be rad. As for the opposite, they’re making pretty much everything you can think of into some form of plugin or patch these days, and there are many devices which let you run your analog effects straight into your recording, so the sky’s the limit there.

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

TONS of gear. I wish I could keep every single pedal or guitar or keyboard that I have ever owned, but I don’t have the space, and I wouldn’t make any money!

During the last Covid-infused year, I have had to get rid of some long-time favorites, but I think the ones that really hurt were my Moogerfooger Delay, Phaser,

Mooger Foogers LowPass, Murf and 12-stage Phaser

Low-Pass Filter and MuRF. I’d like to say I’ll have them all back again someday, but even since I sold them last year, the prices have skyrocketed, so those might just be gone for good.

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

I think all gear can be inspiring, even a piece that you may find boring or dull at first. With pedals especially, you need to sit down and really get to know them, how they act/react, what their key functions are, any hidden features or treasures they hide, waiting to be discovered, etc… Part of the fun of this line of work is the constant exploration and uncertainty about each effect, and since we all use them differently, there’s really no wrong way to go about that.

I think the demo community provides a lot of different perspectives on how each pedal can be utilized and exploited – the companies themselves seem to enjoy how different all the demos sound, as we each are giving an individualized interpretation of the effects, and come up with sounds the original designers might not have even thought of.

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

A vintage Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb, a cheap-ish guitar (maybe a Strat or Tele) that I could mod and customize, and a Delay pedal. I have enjoyed swapping pickups and wiring out of guitars over the years, but haven’t had the time or focus to do so recently, and think that would be fun to jump back into.

Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb

The Deluxe Reverb is a perfect pedal platform, plus you already have the Reverb and Vibrato built in. Delays are by far my favorite effects, so it wouldn’t even really matter how wild or crazy it was, just something simple to get started, like a Boss DM-3 or a Way Huge Supa-Puss, something along those lines.

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

Years ago I bought a couple of old Ibanez rack delays from the ’80s, a DM1100 and a DM2000. They each have this Hold function that can be controlled by and external switch, and the DM2000 has one for its Modulation settings as well. The DM1100, when it’s set the way I have it and you play a note or chord and hit that Hold, it takes the audio and continually ramps it up and down, with a thick, seemingly uncontrollable modulation sound that is different every time. It can get super annoying, but also adds a certain layer of chaos into the mix that is just lovely to experience.

Ibanez rack delays DM1100 & DM2000

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

There isn’t one specifically, but I love to dive into the more complex pedals (Microcosm, H9, ZOIA, etc) and see what hidden treasures await. The designing and execution of musical ideas over the last couple of years has been astounding, and I’m glad to be a part of bringing these sounds to people everywhere.


Artist or Band name?

I haven’t released anything new in a number of years, unfortunately. I had a number of little side jam projects starting to happen right before Covid hit, so those are all obviously on the back burner for right now. Years ago, I was in a bar band called Alcoholocaust, and we just played bars around Boone, North Carolina, where I was living at the time. I also released some tracks under the name DJ Big Berndt a couple years ago, mostly chill, ambient kind of background music, and that was a lot of fun.

Genre?

I love ALL genres of music, except for pop country. REAL country I can listen to all day, but the pop garbage I can’t do. Classical, metal, rap, jam bands, disco, yacht rock, classic rock, techno, you name it….I love it all.

Selfie?

Mike Berndt

Where are you from?

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, currently reside in Weaverville, North Carolina (USA)

How did you get into music?

My dad bought a drum set when I was 8, and he taught me a little bit about it before my folks split up. The drum set stayed, though, and I learned to play down in the basement with headphones, playing along to Zeppelin and Guns n Roses and the like. I got a cheap neon yellow guitar and a little Gorilla amp when I was 12, but didn’t stick with it for whatever reason. I finally got an acoustic when I was 19 or 20, started taking some lessons from a friend of mine, who ended up selling me his Epiphone Sheraton, and it was all over from there.

What still drives you to make music?

Music is everything! Constantly looking for inspiration in not only the music I create but from all kinds of outside sources is just the greatest. The way that different tracks, genres, artists and sound can influence you at any given time of day, or with anything that’s going on in your life, at any moment, is a pretty spectacular thing to be a witness to. The fact that music has and continues to evolve constantly, around the world, on a daily basis, is just a spectacular phenomenon, one I hope that never goes away.

How do you most often start a new track?

As a drummer, the rhythm parts are the keys, so getting a simple beat and maybe a little bass line down is always a great place to start. However, sitting around jamming on your acoustic can open up a can of musical worms as well, and when inspiration strikes, you gotta capture it. I have a lot of handwritten notes scattered around the office that have been building over the years, as well as a bunch of quick ideas I’ve recorded into Amplitube on my phone. Whether any of them will ever turn into something more or get recorded remains to be seen, hopefully I can revisit them soon and start working more on finishing some of them up.

How do you know when a track is finished?

You don’t. You can sit and overthink and tweak over and over and over, and still never truly be satisfied with the result. The first mix that sounds the best, stick with that. It’s kinda like recording a number of different guitar solos and then trying to decide which is the best – chances are, the first one was the best, because you were just playing, rather than comparing it and second-guessing yourself, you know?

Show us your current studio

Amp wall
Amps and friends
Mike’s Pedalboard
Studio desk

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

My grandpa used to say, “As you go through life, let this be your goal: keep your eye on the donut, and not the donut hole.” I think that you need to focus on all aspects of whatever you do, not just on one particular thing, whether it’s how you approach a new recording session, or how you cook a meal, or how you interact with your family and other humans in general on a daily basis. Focusing on the little things can be key, of course, but seeing the bigger picture, breathing and taking it all in is how I try to live and create.

Instagramming with Mike

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

Pedal of the Day – https://www.pedal-of-the-day.com/
Pedal of the Day on YouTube – https://youtube.com/c/pedaloftheday208
DJ Big Berndt on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/DJBigBerndt