41 - Robinson's Village

Author

Giannis Kampiotis
January 10, 2023

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Robinson's Village

Coming from England, at 23 he's already being doing music for 15 years. While keeping it real, a lot of creativity and production gems in this one 🎶

Read Time: 7 minutes 📰

Studio

Gear List

Synths, samplers, drum machines:

Effects and Pedals:

  • Alesis - Quadraverb

  • Alesis - 3630

  • Death By Audio - Fuzz War

  • Digitech - Whammy

  • Digitech - Digiverb

  • Digitech - Death Metal

  • Line 6 - DL4

  • Ibanez - DE7

Interface:

  • RME - Babyface Pro

  • Focusrite - OctoPre MKII Dynamic

  • Tascam - DR40

Tape Machine:

  • Tascam - Portastudio 414 MKII

  • Uher - 4000 Report L

  • Sanyo - Dictaphone (Circuit Bent)

  • Sony - Cassette Recorder (Circuit Bent)

Mic:

  • Warm Audio - WA87

  • Electrovoice - 635a

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Interview

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

I'm Robinson's Village, but my real name is James. I'm located in North London at the moment but originally from Nottingham.

I've been dabbling with music since I was around 8, I think? I played the cornet in a couple of orchestras, then moved on to playing guitar in my bedroom for like 8 hours a day when I was 14. After a long obsession with Shoegaze, I went a bit crazy with effects pedals and strange sounds. Then when I was 20 I fell in love with hardware synths (starting with some Korg Volcas) and I've kind of been obsessing with that since then. I'm 23 at the moment, so I've been making weird noises for around 15 years now.

I've just recently finished my masters in music production, my income is like 60% my full time job (I work at a music merch company called terrible*), and then 40% random freelance bits. This includes live sound engineering, playing gigs, composing, and making patches for synth companies.

Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?

I've got a little circuit-bent Sanyo Dictaphone that I cut open with a breadknife. I can't think of a track where I haven't used it. It has a little tone pot that allows me to drop the playback speed, and the little speaker on it is awful which makes it perfect for re-amping synths

What is the most budget-friendly piece of studio gear that gave you the most results?

Definately a Dictaphone but I don't want to use that for two answers so instead I'm going to say Casiotone keyboards. They're all over eBay for £10-£30 and they sound horrible in the best kind of ways! Once again, using their little speaker and re-recording it on the OP1 can create some really cozy tones when pitched down or pitched up

Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.

I love making short clips for Instagram, so normally I'll just kind of grab two items and see how I can make them work, such as the tried and tested OP1 + Portastudio combo, like everyone else on Instagram. Or instead a Xylophone + dodgy speaker + Reel-to-Reel. From there I'll mess around until I find a sound I'll like, and then just treat it like a sample (pitching it up, chopping it, etc). From there I'll keep adding instruments until it sounds like too much, then I'll dial it back just a little.

I try to finish a song in an evening as I know I'm bad for revisiting tracks. I'll often just bounce the track to tape or as a .wav and then delete the session file as I think it's important to not hoard tracks.

Favourite way to finish a track at the moment is to just pitch everything down with the little altar boy when I start to get bored of the track. Works like a charm every time.

How would you describe your personal style as an artist?

A reoccurring thing in my music is definitely lots of sampling/resampling, a big amount of distortion but in a kinda chill way, and I try to channel a lot of nostalgic vibes.

Also I always go too heavy with the reverb.

What’s your biggest struggle?

The amount of time in a day is a struggle.

I try to cram as much music in each day but it always feels like it's too short. I'm not really a night-owl either so I can't stay up until 2am working on tracks.

Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?

Hardware gear has helped me get better at committing to stuff in music.

Trusting instinct and doing a lot of destructive editing has created so many happy accidents in my music, prior to getting into hardware gear I'd spend forever tweaking plugins and it would suck the fun out of the music. Now I enjoy when something's slightly wonky in the track, it brings a lot of character to the music.

One tip on how to spark creativity?

I've said it a few times, but get comfortable with destructive editing.

Painters can't go back and press undo when something goes wrong, they make it work. It leads to a lot of happy accidents in music, and is good for creativity.

A book, movie, article, or album that has inspired you?

Uncut Gems. The synth sounds are nuts and the stress of the film is brilliant

Anything else you'd like to say?

Got some new music out! Put out a track called Drenched and Doused last month which is kinda slushwavey and ambient.

Also put out an EP called Position Chrome last week which has a bunch of tape loops and is really moody.

Where can people find more of your music and connect with you online?

In Case You Missed It

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

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