[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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I’d have to say the Flock digital patchbay. 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!”
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.
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.
