1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?
Redson EC25 Repetition knob
I’m in love with the “repetition” knob (in French on the device) of my Redson EC25. It turns most chord progressions into space travel. The result can be extremely soft, with ethereal echoes, or very violent with destructive feedback. I use this (very lofi and cheap by the way) echo chamber as an instrument in its own right.
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
I don’t have ONE perfect kit, I like to navigate between my different devices. I will consider a perfect kit for one week before using another exclusive for the next. That’s what I like and that makes me never get bored.
3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.
Travel setup
I like to travel with the Arturia Microfreak because it is small, light and runs on usb battery. And when my children give me permission, I use their Nintendo 3DS with the Korg DSN12 program, which is a surprising emulation of the Korg MS10. I also bring a Sony TCM200 tape recorder to play with the different playback speeds. And of course on my Zoom H5 to record.
Nintendo 3DS with the Korg DSN12 program and a Sony TCM200 tape recorder
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
I would love to have the equivalent of Arturia’s “Fragments” plugin in pedal format. It’s a very inspiring granular processor, which can totally change a drum beat or a synth pad. I don’t use it as much as I would like because the computer is almost completely absent from my creative process now.
Arturia’s Fragments vst plugin
On the other hand, I haven’t found an echo plugin as dirty as my Redson EC25, all the space echo emulations that I have tested sound much too clean, even with an old tape simulation. So I would say a cheap tape echo plugin.
Redson EC25 Tape Echo
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
I have a love-hate relationship with the Arturia Minibrute (MKI), which I’ve bought, sold and repurchased several times. So I would say it is perfect to answer the 2 questions haha.
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
It’s hard to choose between my Fostex X14, which introduced me to the world of tape looping, and between the Arturia microfreak which allows me to compose outdoors, whether in the forest or on the top of a mountain.
Fostex X14
I have the Fostex for 18 years, and the Microfreak for 2 months. This makes me happy because I think there are always new things to discover and explore.
Microfreak
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
I think I would take a Mac and a UAD interface directly. I lost too much time with the computer, with my current system I almost forget it.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
Except my computer, nothing bothers me yet !
9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
I recently discovered that with a tape multitrack recorder like my Fostex I could play tapes recorded on normal devices in reverse mode. Combined with the different tape speeds, it’s pure happiness !
Artist or Band name?
Stegonaute
Genre?
Euuuh… Lofi, Trip Hop, Ambient ?
Selfie?
Stegonaute
Where are you from?
I live in a small village in the south east of France
How did you get into music?
I started at the age of 12 with the bass, then with the guitar.
What still drives you to make music?
I like exploring new sounds, traveling and letting myself be carried away. It’s my main way of expressing myself.
How do you most often start a new track?
Stegonaute’s piano covered in FX
I start most of the time on my acoustic piano, even if I don’t know how to play it. I like the fact that there’s no need to turn it on, it’s even faster than plug and play!
How do you know when a track is finished?
NEVER ! I stop working on it at some point in order to move on. Releasing EPs on the platforms allows me to say to myself “it’s over, I’m not touching it anymore!”. Otherwise I’ll still be working on it…
Show us your current studio
Stegonaute’s studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Put your phone in airplane mode.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
[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]
1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?
Roland Space Echo 201
I really like the feel of twisting the gain knob on my 1073 vintage design preamp! It has fixed gain so the little “clicks” when twisting is so satisfying. It could also be my Roland Space Echo 201. Nice big buttons.
Neve 1073 Mic Preamp
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
It could be many things… but i really truely love the Boss RV5 reverb unit. (I own 5 units right now…) The mod setting sounds just perfect for anything… but it would be even better with a preset button… The newer Boss reverbs doesn’t sound quite as good. In general i think the opportunity to store presets in stompboxes would be great.
Boss RV5
3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?
My jazzmaster and my pedalboard are always with me. Maybe my laptop and a midi keyboard for sketches. Sometimes I bring something like the microkorg just for fooling around.
Pedalboard and Jazzmaster
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
I wish that Sugarbytes Effectrix would find its way into a stompbox. That would be awesome. And the Boss RV5 should be a available as a plugin as well. It would be great if Soundtoys did a multieffect unit as hardware! The Zvex lofi junky looper would be great as a plugin as well.
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
I only keep gear that really makes me happy, I’m not into collecting stuff any more, so a lot of things have been in and out of the studio. I recently sold my Juno 6. I might end up regretting this… But it is about chasing sounds, and sometimes selling something, leads to buying something else.
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
My Gebr. Neumeyer piano or my Fender jazzmaster are my go to inspiration stations. Combined with a lot of stompboxes, they keep amazing me with fresh inspiration and sounds.
Gebr. Neumeyer piano
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
A jazzmaster, 10-12 stompboxes, a good microphone, laptop and interface and a midi keyboard and some speakers too.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
My pedalboard. Everything runs through it, but its a never ending story, It changes from week to week and sometimes its a mess and keeps me up at night in pure frustration. But on the other hand it just keeps on giving me inspiration and the feel of twisting stompbox knobs never gets old!
Guitar Pedalboard
9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
The Roland MX1 is a brilliant mixer for adding fun stuff to any sound source. It has some really unique master FXs, that can do things i haven’t found anywhere else. I use it as an effects unit just before the DAW. Its a bit noisy with hiss, but to my ears it means even more grit for the source. Seriously, try it!!!
Artist or Band name?
S.Vestergaard
Genre?
Crossover / Electronic / Indie / Score music
Selfie?
Søren Vestergaard
Where are you from?
Denmark / Vordingborg
How did you get into music?
My dad and brother are musicians as well, so I grew up in a house filled with music. But I found my true call back in the 90’s listening to stuff like Portishead, Massive Attack and the entire grunge movement. Actually I discovered quite early that music production was more interesting than just playing the guitar, so I have always been a huge fan of great producers, which may be my overall lifelong inspiration.
What still drives you to make music?
Finding new sounds is what my life is all about. I love producing all kinds of music and everyday is a gift being blessed with the opportunity to work with music as a living. And of course new gear…
How do you most often start a new track?
It mostly starts as an iphone recording of me singing or trying to explain an idea. Maybe with a small piano/guitar part that supports the overall idea. Then it comes to life in the studio.
How do you know when a track is finished?
I’ve trained this thing a lot. Let it go when you are tuely proud of it. If not, keep going untill it feels right!
Show us your current studio
Sørens Studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Stop overthinking! Its the number one creative killer. Never go down that road. Stay open, positive and focused and leave all the stupid concerns away from the studio. I have never once experienced bad energy leading to good music. Always positive!
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
[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?
Elektron Digitakt and Digitone
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.
Ciat Lonbarde Cocoquantus and Deerhorn
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.
Teenage Engineering OP-1
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.
Vulf Compressor
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]
Yamaha 4-track cassette recorder MT120
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.
Ciat Lonbarde Deerhorn
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?
Rasmus Rune Larsen aka. Urspring
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.
Revox B77 Reel to reel and Lyra-8
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.
Urspring coming out of the closet
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)
“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.
