30 - BOODAMAN

Giannis Kampiotis
December 03, 2022

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, BOODAMAN

He has been making music since he was 6 years old. He bought his first synth when he was a teenager and haven't stopped since.

He loves constrains and sequencers. Between a family and a full time job his on to his 5th album release. Let’s see how he does it 🎶

Read Time: 6 minutes 📰

Studio

Gear List

LoooooOOOOooooooooooots of modular Eurorack modules
Full Sputnik Modular System
Cequentix - Cirklon 1 (soon 2)
Vermona - Perfourmer
Vermona - DRM1 MKII
Roland - JV-1080
Roland - JU06a
Berhinger - Deepmind6
DSI - Rev2
GS Music - E7
Majella - Implexus
Moog - Voyager
TTSH - Rev3
Drawmer - 1976
Drawmer - 197 8
Ferrofish - Pulse16
RME - UFXII
Strymon - BlueSky
...

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Interview

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

"Without music, life would be a mistake" said Nietzsche. I think so!

I've been making music since I was 6 years old, I started with classical (piano, vocals, music theory) but not at a high level.

I fell in love with electronic music around the age of 10-12, in the 80s when Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis were at the top and almost all the POP produced at the time was made from synths and drum machines. I bought my first used synth and sequencer, a Roland D-50 and an MC-500, when I was a teenager and haven't stopped since . I'm 46 now.

I have been living in Geneva since 1987. I have a family and a full time job. It takes a lot of my time but also allows me to have a consistent and reassuring financial and emotional balance.

So I produce in the evening when the children are in bed (which becomes more and more difficult with advancing age).

Sure, it's not dreamy but it's a constraint and I love constraints. They increase my creativity tenfold.

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

Without hesitation a sequencer! I compose everything on a hardware sequencer, in my opinion, PCs are formidable weapons for mixing but shit for composing music, moreover I love the repetitive side of musical patterns and I focus on the musical intention rather than complexity.

In short, I could not do without my Cirklon and my Nerdseq.

What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?

The Mio XL MIDI interface has made my entire studio even more modular and I love it! For a little over 300 euro, frankly it's a very acceptable price.

What's your process?

As said before, I create all my music on hardware sequencers. It is therefore a kind of additional constraint which for me is a source of creativity.

Honestly, I don't know how I do it, what my creative process is. But I like to stack the layers of harmonic melodies (quite nice) and bring the intensity and emotion up and down using the filter, the envelope and waveshaping for example.

When I'm happy with what I have, I record track by track in my DAW sometimes directly with effects and sometimes dry but always evolving each sound by hand.

After it's long hours of mixing and editing in FLStudio, that I use since the 90s.

How would you explain your style?

I don't have a style and I don't like labels. When people ask me, I say that I make dreamlike electronic music.

What’s your biggest struggle?

I produce 98% (approximately) with hardware and modular synthesizers the remaining 2% are samples of FX or sometimes drums or voices. It is still a constraint, a luxury and an infinite pleasure!

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

Ahahah, funny question. I think so eventually.

I like the physical control of things. A button = a function/action and everything must be modular in order to make it evolve permanently, even perhaps my system of thought... which is perhaps still too rigid ^ ^

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

Assume yourself and go ahead!

A book/movie/article that fueled your creativity?

"Les fous du son" de Laurent de Wilde.

I don't know if this book, which wonderfully retraces the entire history of electronic violin making, has been translated into English.

Αnything else you'd like to say?

I would like to say that at my little level of more or less local artist I gave myself the means to please myself and that I was ashamed of it for a very long time of the opulence of material.

Now I assume because I work a lot and I reinvest all the money gains (royalties, concert fees and record sales) related to the music in the studio and the production of my albums. The 5th is coming !