18- Night Bus

Author

Giannis Kampiotis
October 21, 2022

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Night Bus

Coming from New Zealand, he is a hardware guy. He loves interacting with instruments but does not care what is most preferred.

He knows why he is making music 🎶

Read Time: 8 minutes 📰

The Setup

Gear List

Nord - Electro 2

Korg - Electribe R ER-1

Boss - RC-1 Loop Station

Omnichord - OM-27

Casiotone - MT-35

Casiotone - MT-46

Casio - SK-10

Yamaha - HandySound HS500

Hammond - XB-2

Focusrite - Scarlett 6i6

Kurzweil - KS-40A

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

I'm a music-maker based in Wellington, New Zealand at the bottom of the South Pacific.

Music has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up in home with a piano teaching Mum and vinyl junkie Dad where learning music theory and listening to records was a normalized part of childhood.

I went through a few different instruments (mainly trumpet) before settling on keyboards - even though I've only ever had a handful of formal piano lessons. From high school onwards it was bands, bands, bands. There really haven't been many times when I haven't been in a band. My main current group is indie outfit Anxiety Club (debut album out now-ish!) and I have an ongoing singer-songwriter project with my brother (Meech Brothers).

Over the last few years I have become increasingly interested in electronic music which is where the Night Bus project comes in. I really enjoy the freedom of working alone and not having to conform to the structure and format of lyric-focused pop music.

I like to eat food and have a roof over my head so I have a day job. Monetizing my music in any real way hasn't happened yet (although one of my instrumentals *almost* ended up in a Nokia TVC). I am however driven to finish a lot of work in progress pieces and build up a catalogue of tunes that I am proud of (that also hopefully have sync licensing potential). As my band involvement has begun to reduce I will increasingly have more time to focus on this.

What's the one thing in your studio you can't live without?

That is an evil question!

But I guess it's hard to imagine my setup without my trusty old Nord - Electro 2. It is the center of my gear and usually the first place my hands fall when I sit down to play and write.

If I could add one more it would probably be the EHX Oceans 11 reverb/delay pedal (it's so good).

What's your process?

Some of the best seeds of ideas come out of a moment between other activities when I just fire the work station up and start improvising.

It's amazing where one weird chord can take you! In these cases I quickly record the idea (maybe using my Loop pedal to help sketch some parts) before coming back to it to work it up. That next stage usually starts with tracking a drum machine beat and then working out a rough structure. Once that structure is clear I will then just track parts from the bass up.

I'm currently using Reaper as my DAW and will often Master in SoundCloud or BandLab

How would you explain your style?

With my Night Bus project I definitely have landed on a sound synonymous with that whole 90s Chill Out genre. You know those Cafe Del Mar compilations, Air, Groove Armada, etc.

So I've got all those hallmarks in my music too - drum machines and Moogy basses, Rhodes electric pianos and analog-sounding synth leads. And lots of delay. Always lots of delay.

I like a lot of lo-fi stuff too like 'Casiotone for the Painfully Alone' and I can hear lots of that coming through as well.

Has this journey of building a hardware setup changed the way you think about music or life in general?

As my little studio has grown over the years, what has become clear to me is that I'm a hardware guy.

I've learnt that despite a love tech I'm actually a retro-futurist at heart and that my Tech love stops right on the doorstep of VSTs. For me, music-making is tactile and I need to be able to directly interact with the instruments in front of me. Some will point out that a lot of my gear is Virtual Analog (VA) and therefore just "VSTs in boxes" but to those people I'd say a couple of things:

  1. Yes, but they all do have tailored hardware interfaces designed specifically for the engines inside and - I believe - they have there own unique musicality.

  2. Just stop caring about what brings others happiness or how they choose to create. There is a lot of snobbery and gear fetishists in this this corner of the internet! Making something good (or at least something that brings the maker joy) should be the point. It doesn't really matter if it was made with a Moog or a Casio.

What’s your ONE tip on music-production or creativity?

There isn't a right or wrong and there is no rule book.

If you think YOUR song needs a kazoo solo then THAT IS WHAT IT NEEDS.

A book/movie/article that fueled your creativity?

The "I am trying to break your heart" documentary about Wilco making Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is pretty inspiring/fascinating/traumatic.

Anything else you'd like to say?

I've really enjoyed the opportunity to talk gear and music! Thanks!

How can people find you?

In Case You Missed It

For jams, knob-twists and pad hitting videos go to G.A.S. Instagram

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