Artist Interviews 🎶 Studio Tours 🎛

Hello music people 👋

I’m (still) on vacation ⛵☀️🏖 so for the next few issues I’ve curated compilations that feature a specific attribute or type of gear.

On this issue we’ll take a look at G.A.S. Newsletter featured artists that favor portability.

Studios

25 - HANJŌ

What's your process?

Generally, I spend the whole week at work listening to music. I like focusing on 1 album and deconstructing its structures, drums patterns, basslines, production choices… I often spend months and months with 2 or 3 albums on rotation.

After the whole week I am generally really inspired to make something. I choose a set of tools and sit on my tatami to produce a full song from scratch and document the process with some videos. Sometimes I start with the drums or the bassline, it could be a chord progression with the guitar… when I have a solid base, I build it up from there. I like to have a finished product on that same day, so to finalize my process I make a recording of a performance regardless of the development stage of the track and with that I can either develop it more or move to the next one.

Most of my weekly jams are just sketches and stay that way. But sometimes when a show is approaching I will recover and finalize ideas that match the set or try to write a whole new track based on some previous sketch.

32 - Ghost In The Loop

What’s your biggest struggle?

My biggest struggles in music production are the technical issues during outdoor performances.

It is very difficult to find a solution and to face the unexpected when you are in the middle of nowhere, sometimes in uncomfortable conditions (cold, humidity, high altitude, strong solar radiation etc...).

Definitely my number one enemy. Ιt takes a different form every time, it is very difficult to anticipate. Sometimes you have to be creative, or make concessions so that the session can succeed.

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66 - catbeats

What is a production technique that you always come back to?

If I keep on coming back to stuff and having habits I usually switch the piece of gear I am making music on for a bit or switch the input method.

Recently, it is using Beat Scholar to create a beat and recording the loop into my OP-1 Field.

As Da Real Dibia$e once said "Never fall in love with one workflow.".

71 - Teder

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

The latest incarnation of my live rig is purposely built to be highly portable and space efficient. These restrictions and the results I’ve had with them have given me a new perspective on music creation. Y

ou do not really need 50 layers to build a track, and especially when working together with other artists “less is more” and there are only so many parameters you can control while performing live. These controlled, expressive sounds are the ones that stand out in a track and are the ones worth focusing on.

To see all the issues that feature portability click here.

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Giannis @giannis.kampiotis