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144 - Phi Wolgast
Giannis Kampiotis
January 05, 2024
Artist Interviews 🎶 Studio Tours 🎛
Hello music people đź‘‹
Today in the spotlight, Phi Wolgast
Currently in the United States, he has immersed himself into music in all possible ways. From creating sounds, making videos about gear, to working in music shops 🎶
Interview & Studio Tour
Who are you and what is your relationship with music?
I’m Phi, I’m a 21-year-old multi-instrumentalist and music producer from Tucson, Arizona.
I’ve always gravitated towards music since I was able to comprehend it and physically hold an instrument. Growing up, my dad had lots of instruments around the house for me to mess with. Even though I didn’t have a formal music education, I was sort of figuring out how music worked at the same time that I was learning English, so music became pretty much a second language for me.
I was lucky to have family, friends, and teachers growing up who supported my creativity. When it came time to think about my education after high school, I began at community college and hoped to take some music courses, but found that I wasn’t learning what I thought I needed to. I dropped out after a semester and spent months scouring the internet for every music resource I could find.
Since then, I’ve started working at a local music shop in Tucson (Metro Gnome Music) and spent every day doing as much as I can to learn about music. In a way, I guess music is kind of my whole job? I don’t make music for a living because I haven’t found a large enough audience, but I do spend my time at my job surrounded by it. I’m really grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to craft my life around music like that. I also teach drum lessons, which is still a little weird to me but I’m getting used to it.
Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?
Oh man. Honestly, if I had to pick something, I would say my phone.
I don’t even make music on my phone at all, I only really record or produce stuff on my iPad or my computer. But whenever I’m trying to fall asleep at 12:30 at night and a melody pops into my head, I hum it out into my phone and get back to it in the morning. Or when I have a new mix of a song freshly rendered and I need to give it the ol’ car test, I load it onto my phone and listen to it on the way to work. Or when I come up with a random idea for a song concept or a name throughout my day, I open up my notes app and write down as much as possible. I even have a whole note that’s like 15 pages long that’s just a list of ideas or song names or random lyric fragments or whatever.
It’s weirdly the most priceless music tool for me, even though it doesn’t do any of the recording or sound-designing.
What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?
A couple months ago I sold it to make room for some new and different gear, but I had this Behringer Crave synth that I got used for like $175.
That thing was the most ferocious little bass machine, and it even did stuff like arpeggios and sound effects really well too. I’ve never heard a single-oscillator monosynth that sounds so huge and thick. It’s in more songs of mine than I can accurately count. It beat out any of my other more expensive synths when it came to basslines.
Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.
Usually it goes something like:
spend four hours making an 8-bar chord progression, be happy with it in the moment, come back the next day and hate it, forget it for three years, come back to it and be inspired, and finish it using the production techniques I’ve learned since then.
Either that or somehow randomly come up with a super catchy melody and bang out a song in three days. No in-between.
What is a production technique that you always come back to?
Get a hardware synth (doesn’t have to be analog, just has to be relatively knob-per-function, no menu diving) and mess with it.
I can’t believe how many songs I’ve started just by turning on my synth and messing with it. It doesn’t have to be playing a melody or chords or anything either, just press a key and move some knobs.
Easiest way to get inspired, guaranteed.
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How would you describe your style?
Vaguely electronic?
I find it hard to define, I take inspiration from lots of places. The typical electronic artists like deadmau5, Ronald Jenkees, The Algorithm, Battle Tapes, but also a lot of rock and metal bands like Nine Inch Nails, Gojira, Mastodon, Karnivool, so many others.
I think I’ve always had a soft spot for electronic music that can get super heavy. Lots of dynamics, not just like full blast all the time. So I try to mimic that with my own music, but put my own spin on it.
And I also get bored with one subgenre of electronic music from one week to the next, so it varies a lot.
What is a big challenge you have as an artist?
I’d say two biggest challenges are self-criticism and promotion.
As far as the criticism, I feel like I can work on something for months and scrap it because I don’t think it’s worthy of being released, even though other people would probably love it.
I’m probably much too hard on myself as an artist.
And on the promotion side of things, I just feel like I don’t want to shove my music in other people’s faces, I want people to casually happen upon it when their journey in life requires it, but I guess that’s probably not how you go about getting your music heard these days.
Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?
Absolutely.
I don’t think it’s a necessity, but it certainly helps with inspiring you. You can just get to your sound faster if you’re using a physical instrument. Lets me get the ideas floating around in my head to a concrete product faster.
Also does not help my G.A.S. - that’s one “downside,” if you could call it that.
One tip on how to spark creativity?
Make music with other people.
Shoutout to my friend Aaron Trinh who I do studio sessions with every week, we bounce ideas off each other that would probably never see the light of day otherwise. It’s crazy how fast we can get from an 8-bar loop to an 11-minute house banger when we put our heads together. True story.
A book, movie, article, or album that has inspired you?
There’s this video documentary made by Ahoy on YouTube about a (spoiler: non-existent) fabled video game called Polybius that is creepy and thrilling and dark and delicious in all the right ways. I even ended up writing a song called Polybius after being inspired by the video.
Anything else you'd like to say?
Keep making music even when discouraged.
I have thought about quitting too many times when I hate what I’m doing in the moment or I feel like I’m not making anything good enough. Keep doing it if it makes you happy, shelf a project and come back if you don’t like it yet.
Don’t be afraid to say no to projects or say yes to a project that’s out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to create the music that makes you happy - you create for yourself, not for your audience.
Your listeners will find your music naturally, don’t force it.
Where can people find more of your music and connect with you online?
Find me everywhere at @pulsarglitch or search up Pulsar Glitch on any streaming platform!
@pulsarglitchmusic on YouTube for reviews, demos, and other fun stuff. Feel free to DM me on Instagram to chat!
Gear List
Korg - Prologue 16
Roland - Juno-106
Peavey - 6505MH & Mesa Boogie 1x12 cabinet
Way too many Ibanez guitars and basses
Motu - M4 audio interface
AKG - C214 condenser mic
Shure - SM57 dynamic mics
Dynaydio - BM5A studio monitors
Beyerdynamic - DT990 250-ohm headphones
Canon - EOS M50 mirrorless camera (for videos)
An overly-powerful PC I built
Razer - Blade 15 & M1 iPad Pro for on-the-go music production and recording
An honestly impressive collection of plugins I only use about 1/10th of regularly
In Case You Missed It
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Giannis @giannis.kampiotis
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