1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?
The Cut-Off knob on my Dave Smith – Prophet 6. I use this a lot when I play around with arpeggiators.
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
No, I’m always looking for new things/stuff, although I’m really happy with my Prophet 6 and Korg Poly 61 synthesizers.
3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?
My MacBook, a microphone and a guitar to write the basic of a new song/idea.
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
I don’t really have a wish like that at the moment.
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
Yeah maybe the Roland MC-303, it’s really difficult to program it, so I don’t use it a lot.
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
I started playing guitar and I still do, so I guess guitar is the most important instrument for me. Ableton Live made me develop my production and beatmaking skills.
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
Still a guitar, a computer with Ableton and a microphone. And I would still want to learn how to play guitar first, it’s great to learn an instrument so you can play and sing your own songs.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?v
I guess microphones, it is a constant search to find the right one that completely suits your voice.
9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
Use Guitar Rig on other instruments than just guitar. You can get crazy sounds when you put a Guitar Rig on synths, vocals etc. and tweak them to a cool sound. And of course the reverse knob in Ableton, who can live without that these days 😉
Artist name
PYN
Genre
Pop/Disco
Selfie
Where are you from?
Bloemendaal, The Netherlands
How did you get into music?
Playing guitar since I was 10, writing and singing since I was 15 I guess 🙂 When I was 21 I started my study at the conservatory.
What still drives you to make music?
Listening to new and old music of other artists drives me to be create, and ideas that pop up in my head drive me to stay creative.
How do you most often start a new track?
It can start by an instrumental idea I have, or a melody or line that pops up in my head.
How do you know when a track is finished?
This is the most difficult part of music. It is never really done, so at some point when I am happy and my team is happy, I send it to mixing and mastering engineers and they finish it.
Show us your current studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Make room for playing while you’re creating. The fun of creating must never disappear.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
My latest releases are the song ‘Spring Fever‘ an up disco track and ‘Night Drive‘ an 80’s duet with MATTEO.
[Editor: Do you have a favorite tip, trick or way of working with any of the gear from this interview? Then throw a comment below…]
[Editor: It’s with great pleasure that I present this interview. In case you didn’t know, Jonas is the lead singer in Mew; a very influential danish alternative rock band. A bonafide rock-star and a music gear junkie to boot]
1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?
The frequency knob on my Analogue Systems RS-240 Bode Type Frequency Shifter is pretty tasty. It’s huge! And I love turning it slowly to find the sweet spot I want to create a sort of strangely widened stereo image from a mono signal.
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
A few years back I bought a slightly expanded Make Noise Black and Gold Shared System, which I love dearly. I use it almost every day. I have a lot of other modules as well, but could probably get by with just the Black and Gold system – except I absolutely needed to be able to send clock from my DAW, which is why I opted for adding the Polyend Poly as one of my first additional purchases. I appreciate that Make Noise wants it to be separate from computers, and I think it would be strange if they made a midi to cv module, but that was the one thing that I absolutely needed.
3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?
Usually just my notebook, my laptop, and a little usb keyboard. But I rarely work on music during vacations. I tend to take pictures instead.
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
Oh, I don’t know. They both got their own thing going on. I can’t think of anything.
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
There are some modules in my modular system that I don’t use very often. Maybe because they don’t feel as intuitive as I would like them to. I mainly don’t like modules with sub menus and whatnot, as it tends to disrupt my creative flow. But I have no regrets, I will get into using them when the time is right, or I will sell them. Quite a few years ago I bought a Paca, to run Kyma X, and I have still only touched the surface of that. It’s a bit like Max, but it runs on its own hardware. I really got into it at one point, and it’s an exciting system, you can do boundless things with it, but I am a little unhappy that it still only runs on soundcards with firewire (and a few oldish usb ones). And it’s not just about the connection, and getting an adapter, it really has to be specific soundcards. They really need to upgrade that soon, to usb-c, or I don’t think I’m going to be using it again, as I no longer have a firewire based soundcard, and it seems kind of foolish to have to buy one. I regret that Mew sold our Juno-6 many years ago. [Editor: Ouch!]
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
My very sweet parents gifted me a Tascam Portastudio 424 (mk1) 4-track casette recorder when I was about 14 (thanks mom and dad!). The fact that I could make overdubs opened up a whole universe to me, and we recorded the first demos for Mew on it. Of course this seems like ancient history today, with DAWs. Over time it’s probably been my Fender Jaguar and my Hornung & Möller piano. These days I am using my modular synths for almost every project, as well as my cello.
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
At present day, probably a laptop, soundcard, DAW, and mics. To me, the studio is the most important instrument. But then of course you’d need something to make sounds, and I don’t really like the feeling of using software synths. So I would get a nice analogue polyphonic synth, and a guitar. And a piano. And some drums. I’d definitely get into modular synths much sooner than I did.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
Most problems I experience are with the software part of my DAW, corrupted preferences files, etc. Can’t do much recording without it, but sometimes I wish I had some simpler way of recording. In the last 5 years I’ve been using my Oberheim Matrix-1000 a lot, and that unit has caused me some headaches occasionally. I don’t really mind though. I don’t mind that things take time, and effort. To me, that’s part of the process of finding the happy accidents, and appreciating the results.
9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
Making feedback loops through reverbs and delays. You can design whole worlds of sonic texture, mixing an output back into an input. The Make Noise Erbe-Verb has this brilliant thing where the volume of the main output is translated into a control voltage, which you can patch and use to control the decay, so that it never completely distorts. Put a sound through it, and let it just reverberate for hours, cv-ing all the variables, it goes through an odyssey of sonic changes.
Artist or Band name?
Mew, Tachys, and Apparatjik
Genre
Oh man.
Selfie?
Where are you from?
I’m from Copenhagen, Denmark.
How did you get into music?
I think I got into creativity as a whole, not necessarily music at first. I think, when I first watched Yellow Submarine with my dad as a kid, that’s when I first thought “oh of course, you can go wherever your imagination takes you”. So today I’m really into music and animation. It was the friendships with people at my school that formed the band, not so much wanting to be in a band necessarily.
What still drives you to make music?
More than anything, curiousity. And then of course this underlying need to create things, I am not sure where it comes from. I don’t want to believe it’s all escapism, but it’s probably all escapism.
How do you most often start a new track?
It really depends. I try to rid myself of methods. I just go with what happens. I always get the best results when I work without having a specific goal as to what the piece is going to be used for. Once I get too goal-oriented, it becomes less of a pleasure, and I think my best work comes from a process that I can take some kind of pleasure in. But I suppose a lot of the time, I start at the piano, or patching up something unexpected with my modular.
How do you know when a track is finished?
Sometimes it’s difficult. The really big ideas usually come about in an instant, and then I (or we) spend months trying to finish it in a way that doesn’t go against the flow of the initial idea. And towards the end, it’s often hard to let go and say it’s done.
Show us your current studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Let the song be what it wants to be, don’t force it. I think Michael Beinhorn told me that.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
I did the soundtrack for a documentary series about Scandinavian Star, a cruise ship which caught fire in 1990 and killed 160 people. The music is pretty dark, for obvious reasons. I did most of it using my modular system, cello, and violin. It is out as a soundtrack album. Currently I’m working on first Tachys music, my new project with Tobias Wilner of Blue Foundation, I’m really excited about that project!
[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/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?
The OP-1 crank. It’s just so loveable!
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
For me, it’s the OP-1. It’s a minimalist’s dream because it can do everything – drums, melody, bass, all the layers – in such an intuitive way. I’d make it fully MIDI compatible so I could integrate it into my Ableton workflow somehow; I’d make the keys touch sensitive; I’d give it 2.5 octaves instead of 1.5; and I’d give it a sustain pedal. Dream machine.
3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?
On a trip, I try to keep it light:
Nuraphones
OP-Z
OP-1
SP-404 (sometimes / for longer trips)
To play a show, it’s more complicated! I add to that:
Yamaha Reface DX
TC- Helicon Perform VK
Shure Super 55
Zoom H6 as a mixer
I don’t have a commute, but if I did, I’d consider just bringing my OP-Z.
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
Arpeggios are my favorite musical tool. I really wish you could get the superfine arpeggio controls you have in Ableton on a hardware synth. And as a non-drummer, I would love to find a software drum loop maker as intuitive to me as the OP-1’s finger mode.
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
I bought the Midi Fighter Twister in the hopes of using it to make layered live loops with my iPad the way @KelbyKryshak does, which is totally awesome🤘. I soon realized that I don’t like using apps in my workflow – I think it somehow takes me out of the moment. I’m hanging onto it because I haven’t ruled out making a custom setup for it in Ableton, but that might prove to be more of a challenge than I’m willing to take on. Also, I have the Push 2, so I’m not yet sure what function or value the twister would add to that setup.
I’m kind of an aspiring minimalist, so it’s very possible that at some point soon I’ll say goodbye to it.
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
The obvious answer is my OP-1 – it gave me an explosion of creativity around learning basic music production techniques with drums and basslines and everything. However! My Reface DX has been my constant companion and workhorse in songwriting. First of all, it’s a joy to play. The touch sensitive keys feel great, with smooth action. And as I am working through the hardest parts of identifying and defining melodies and chord progressions, it is the perfect companion for me because its keyboard is small and manageable, while being big enough to play bass notes and chords at once. And the voices are so evocative and inspiring.
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
It’s between the OP-1 and the Reface DX. The OP-1 for its all-in-oneness, and the DX for its beautiful sounds, relative portability, and space-pianoness.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
My SP-404. The sticky buttons kill me (the phat pads I want are on backorder!), and sampling loops into it is such a pain. I love it to death, but at some point I wouldn’t rule out upgrading to a more robust modern sampler like the Octatrack.
9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
The sequencer on the Casio-PT 30 is amazing. You can program it with a melody, and then push one of two “One Key Play” buttons to activate the notes one by one. So when you play it, it’s like you’re playing a solo, but it’s almost impossible to fuck up. You can see me do this in my cover of White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes, around the 1 minute mark: https://www.instagram.com/tv/Bs3KEAyH3k8/. I wish so hard that the OP-1 could do this.
Artist or Band name?
Selsey
Genre?
Bedroom Synthpop
Selfie?
Where are you from?
Northern California, but I currently live in Hong Kong.
How did you get into music?
Folk singer songwriters in high school got me inspired to pick up a guitar – Iron and Wine, Feist, Regina Spektor, Bright Eyes, Ray Lamontagne, that type of artist. I also learned classical and a bit of jazz piano in high school. Recently, I got really into making dawless synthpop after falling in love with the OP-1 at the MoMA Design Store in New York. I started making videos for Instagram and, well, here I am!
What drives you to make music?
I relish the challenge of learning songwriting and producing music. Sometimes it’s torture but the payoff is addictive.
The community on Instagram has been really warm and kind. People have created a place you really like to hang around.
I just love singing and making music, so I can’t help but want to do it.
How do you most often start a new track?
I am only now learning how to use Ableton (my first DAW), so I’ll talk about my songwriting process instead. I sit down with my Reface DX, my typewriter or a notebook, and my phone to record snippets. I play chords randomly and vocalize until I hear something I like. Record it. Wash, rinse, repeat. Along the way, I try to get a sense of which snippets are more verselike or more chorus-like. Eventually I will have enough snippets to form a song. Then, I write the words, which is the hardest part.
[Editor: Yeah, lyrics are alwyas a huge pain]
How do you know when a track is finished?
When the words don’t make me cringe too hard; when every section feels like it’s part of the whole; and when the transitions between parts are not too awkward.
Show us your current studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
You’ll suck at first. Keep going.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
I have a few things in the works. But for now, head to my Instagram to see some of the stuff I’ve done!