My process for making music is pretty hands-on

Yes, I’m a hardware guy

Ever since I started making music in the mid 80s, real tangible hardware synthesizers, effects and other such things have been a very important and vital part of it. In the beginning it was completely out of necessity. As I moved on from making music on my Commodore 64 and Amiga computers, software synths wasn’t a thing yet. If you wanted to get serious, you had to buy the real stuff.

Me being in my early 20s and without a job meant I couldn’t afford the things that my synth heroes back then would use. My first piece of hardware was a simple FM synthesizer from Yamaha called FB-01. I made some songs on it but soon came to the conclusion that I wanted something more, preferably something that had drum sounds as well. That turned out the be the Roland D-110. This very 80s sounding module became the major instrument on my first album 64, which I relased myself on CD in 1996.

My studio has grown in size since then and a lot of gear has come and gone over the years. The D-110 was soon upgraded to a Kurzweil K2000. It had a much more powerful sound engine which opened up a whole new world and made my music sound more pro. My second album Karooshi Porn, released in 1999 was mainly created on the Kurzweil, with some help from a Roland System-100, SH-09 and a TR-606 drum machine.

Today I have a pretty large palette of tools to choose from. One of the most recent things added to the studio is a small Eurorack modular system. I used it extensively on my latest album Focus. I really like its limitations. For me limitation equals creativity. The hours disappear fast when you work on it and it has been a source of many ‘happy accidents’. Really inspiring stuff.

Below you find a more or less complete list of all the tools I use to make music these days.

Synths & Drum Machines

Access Virus b

Elektron Sidstation

Korg Volca Sample

Korg Wavedrum Mini

Mode Machines X0xb0x

Roland SH-09

Roland System 100 Model 101, 102, 104

Sonic Potions LXR Drum Machine

TTSH v3 (Arp 2600 Clone)

Waldorf Blofeld

Eurorack

4MS Rotating Clock Divider

Bastl Cinnamon

Bastl Propust

Bastl Skis

Doepfer A138 Mixer

Doepfer A160 Clock Divider

Doepfer A151 Sequential Switch

Doepfer 2 x 180-2 Multiple

Dreadbox Lil Erebus

Erica Synths Pico Drums

Erica Synths Pico Mod

Hexinverter Make Noise Function

Manhattan Analog 2 x CP3

Music Thing Modular Chord Organ

Music Thing Modular Turing Machine

Mutable Instruments Braids

Mutable Instruments CVpal

Pittsburgh Synthesizer Box

Rebel Technology Στοιχεῖα

Sonic Potions Penrose Quantiser

Thonk AT-AT-AT

Tiptop Audio Hats909

Software

Ableton Live Suite 10

Audacity

Expose

Plugins

Eventide Blackhole 3.3.1

FabFilter Pro Q2

Izotope Neutron Elements

IZotope Ozone 7

SLOR – Shed Loads of Resonators

Trackspacer 2.5.2

Valhalla VintageVerb

Valhalla Shimmer

Zynaptic Intensity

Effects

Strymon El Capistan Dual EQP (2 channel Pultec EQ Clone)

Prime 4000E Mixbus Compressor (SSL 4000e Clone)

Other Hardware

Adam A7X studio monitors

AKAI LPK25 keyboard

Behringer MiniMON

BeyerDynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones

Doepfer Pocket Control

iRig Keys

HYVE Synthesizer

Kenton Pro 2 Dual Channel MIDI to CV Converter

Novation Launchpad

Midi Røde NT 2 Microphone

Pro Korg NanoPAD

Speak & Math (Circuit Bended)

SubPac S1

Traktor Audio 6 External Sound Card

Traktor Audio 10 External Sound Card

Yamaha UX 256