27 - Montorgueil Records

Author

Giannis Kampiotis
November 22, 2022

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Montorgueil Records

Coming from Paris, he is a programmer with a passion for music. He taught himself to make music using hardware instruments and later on, DAWs.

He started making music when very young but work got in the way and for years almost stopped. He tells us how he got back to making more music than ever while also running a label 🎶

Read Time: 9 minutes 📰

The Setup

Gear List

Software

  • Reason 12

  • Cubase 10.5

  • Native Instruments - Komplete 13

  • DaVinci - Resolve

Hardware Brains 

Synths & Drum-Machines

Microphones

Other

  • Fender - Squier Stratocaster

  • Fender - Squier JBass

  • Jupiter - JRS700G Saxonett

  • Nuvo - jSAX Saxophone

  • Stagg - Melodica

  • Yamaha - APX Acous­tic Gui­tar

  • pBone - Trombone Blue

  • Antoine Sonnet - Electric Violin EV2

  • Alesis - SamplePad Pro

Interfaces & Misc

Effect Pedals

A lot like as can see on the pictures :)

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

Hi, I'm Emmanuel, from Paris, France.

I was born in the suburbs of Paris, in Argenteuil. I started making music when I was 15 years old.

My first passion that time was video games, then computers and programming. My father was still making music, alongside his work, so I have the chance to gradually recover instruments that he no longer uses: bongos, a Korg MS-20, an old electric guitar, a Roland Juno-6, a Roland TR-808, an Alesis MMT-8 sequencer, and various old studio effects.

I teach myself how to use them step by step, but I want to record my "compositions" and I can't. So I start to buy my own gear with the pay from my first summer job. I buy a Roland D-5 keyboard and a Tascam Porta-05 4 tracks cassette recorder-mixer.

I must admit, it is not as good as expected, especially when the artists you admire are Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Marvin Gaye, and you can't sound like them at all :)

So little by little I'm making less and less music.

At university, I meet some new friends who also make music, and that motivates me a bit, so I produce a few new songs. But the sound still does not satisfy me, and at the end of my studies of nuclear physics, I do not make music at all.

I start working in IT as a programmer which was my first passion and maybe 2 years later, almost by chance, I discover Propellehead Reason and Steinberg CuBase.

Reason is like a dream, I can produce so many incredible sounds, so realistic, and that's what I was missing, so I dive back into the music!

I start to produce one track per weekend. Sometimes I also work with other musicians and rappers, and produce sounds with or for them.

At the time, I think I can create an independent music label, to produce and distribute that music... Montorgueil Records is born!

In 2006, I create first my IT company and start working as a freelancer, in Web development.

I think I will manage my time, and have a lot of to make music, but it is the exact opposite!

I do 1 or 2 tracks per year, not more!

15 years have passed, and last year I slow down the pace, a friend of mine starts a YouTube music channel and it motivates me to do the same.

But in order to produce interesting videos I tell myself that I'll have to play a minimum of instruments live. Unfortunately I did not keep my TR-808, my Korg MS-20, and my Juno-6, because at the time I needed money. So I buy a few Behringer gear cause they're cheap and sound good.

After one year I now have a lot of gear, and no place for it all, as you can see on my pictures.

My next step is to move seaside, buy a house and setup my dedicated music studio there. Work half-time and produce music!

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

The minimum gear I need is any MIDI keyboard and either a computer with a DAW (I like Reason and Native Instruments Kontakt) or a Hardware Groovebox (Korg Electribe 2 or AKAI MPC One).

What's your process?

I now have three separate initial processes:

1) If I'm in the mood, I can choose among my 350 unfinished tracks, and work on one of them.

2) Most of the time I search nice chords with a keyboard and sing over it or play keyboard or guitar to find a melody.

3) Sometimes I start with programming a rhythm, search for a bass, and add layers of sounds, until an idea comes.

Then it depends if I want to make a YouTube video, or progress in the production of a track.

1) For YouTube, like those examples I show on the pictures above, according to my desire, I choose a setup, and start programming/recording my track with it. And when it's ready, I hang my iPhone over, and I record a half-live music session :)

2) For pure music production, I start Reason and once I have a track structure, I program some instruments patterns, and then, one by one I record all the "analog instruments", guitar, bass, voices, violins, etc.

And finally, at some point you have to decide that your track is finished.

1) For any live recording, it's simple, when the recording is finished, it's over!

2) For pure music production, it's something that isn't always obvious, but it becomes clearer with experience.

To put it simply, you shouldn't keep anything unnecessary on a track.

How would you explain your style?

For the moment, the tracks that I have shared on YouTube and Instagram are in different styles, House, Electro, Acid, Funk, etc...

But I have not shown my favorite personal musical style yet, which I would call Electro-Soul. I like to see it as an electronic mix of Stevie Wonder, Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, Erikah Badu, Al Jarreau, George Benson and Earth, Wind and Fire. :)

I have a few tracks almost ready, that I will release only when the are perfectly finished.

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

I won't go that far.

I would just say that physical contact with hardware allows you to express things differently than what you would do with just a computer. It may give you other ideas, and it's a much bigger pleasure than just moving a mouse!

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

I don't even know how to explain how I find my own creativity, so I can't give too much advice :)

However, I would still say that before embroidering to infinity, it is important to find an idea. An abundance of sounds will never replace an absence of notes.

But this is only my opinion, not a universal rule.

A book/movie/article that fueled your creativity?

Each time I watch the movie Limitless, I am motivated to do everything in the world, including composing music.

Do you have a question in mind that you think I should have asked?

I have deep questioning, what will be the future of music?

As much as I am delighted that the practice of music has become popular and that everyone can make it, as much it is difficult to discover interesting novelties, there are so many productions every year all over the world. There are millions, it's just impossible to listen to everything.

Anyway, have fun, make music!

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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