26 - Ōkubi

Giannis Kampiotis
November 18, 2022

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Ōkubi

A former bass player in a death metal band, he has now found a passion in sound design and electronic music.

He talks about creative limitations and hybrid setups 🎶

Read Time: 4 minutes 📰

The Setup

Gear List

Studio:

Revox - A77 Reel-to-Reel
Marantz - PMD 222
Tascam - 424 MKI
Polyend - Medusa
Arturia - Polybrute
Behringer - RD-9
Hologram - Microcosm
Walrus - Audio M1
Markbass - Distortion (I use this on the RD-9 Kick!)
Beyerdynamic - DT 900 Pro X
Kali Audio - LP6's
Ableton - Push 2

Travel/Dawless:

Polyend - Tracker
1010music Nanobox Fireball
ATH-m50X

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

I'm Ōkubi.

I've been making music for many years, for the longest time playing bass guitar in a death metal band. After a break from bass playing and gigging, I decided to give electronic music a go and never looked back.

Synthesis and sound design are now my main passions and I love creating experimental, emotive, melancholic electronic music.

I don't make a living from music unfortunately. I have a full time job. I would love to be a full time sound designer and music producer, running lots of things through tape.

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

This is going to sound a bit dull, but the Jaspers synth rack I got actually made a huge difference. Having everything at arms length and not taking up lots of desk space is a game changer!

Also my little plants.

What's your process?

My process usually begins with sound design, mainly with hardware synths.

This tends to lead towards creating harmonies - I really enjoy creating interesting chord progressions and building a track around that. I'll use Ableton's session mode to have different sections and jam these out to come up with some rough ideas for an arrangement, adding sections to a full arrangement (if the idea makes it that far), adding A/B sections and supporting parts.

I'll also run parts through tape at this point - either cassette for gritty vibes or the reel-to-reel to add a bit of warmth or tape compression to synth parts.

How would you explain your style?

I'm definitely all about analogue synths and tape technique tool-wise.

I'd say my musical style is experimental, melancholic, nostalgic & rhythmic.

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

I think hardware has added creative limitations which I really think has made a huge difference to my workflow.

Being really familiar with my tools allows me to make the most of them and have them be part of my sound. Being able to adjust and change the sounds outside of the DAW makes the process a lot more enjoyable and tactile.

While I still use Ableton and a computer as the brain, I find the hybrid setup allows me to make the most of both worlds, getting the enjoyment of creating in a hands on way but quickly making it into a track and the advantages of plugins, with Ableton's session mode for speeding up idea creation.

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

Finishing music is the best way to get better at finishing music - even if you're not sure you'll like the track. It might end up being your best because you're not worrying about it being perfect.