In this not-to-be-missed episode, we're joined by electronic music veteran and polymath instrument developer, BT. The Grammy-nominated composer/producer is widely credited with pioneering trance and IDM and is also the creative mind behind iZotope BreakTweaker, StutterEdit and Spitfire's Phobos convolution synth. With a career spanning 30 years, he's also amassed an incredible array of instruments in his Aladdin's cave-like studio. But, how will he react to being allowed only six items in this fantasy Forever Studio? Stick around for stories about geeking out over synth patches with Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt, how Stewart Copeland saved his bacon, and why he uses $300 monitors for mixing.
Chris Barker:
I'm Chris Barker.
Will Betts:
And I'm Will Betts, and this is the MusicTech My Forever Studio Podcast.
Chris Barker:
In this podcast, we speak with producers, DJs, audio engineers, and industry figureheads about their fantasy forever studio.
Will Betts:
This will be a studio built within the confines of our semi-strict rules, and one that they will have to live with forever.
Chris Barker:
But what are these rules? Well, our guest can select a computer, a DAW, and an audio interface first, then they can only choose six other bits of studio kit, plus one luxury item.
Will Betts:
But Chris, what if they think they found a loophole in our system, and they are trying to get a bundle, say a bundle of plugins?
Chris Barker:
No, no, no bundles.
Will Betts:
No bundles.
Chris Barker:
No bundles.
Will Betts:
Joining us today is BT, a Grammy nominated musician, DJ, singer, songwriter, composer, and audio engineer.
Chris Barker:
That's right. BT's passion for music and technology has also led him founding Sonic Architects, and developing the Stutter Edit plugin, BreakTweaker plugin, and Spitfire's vocal synth. With his new album, The Lost Art of Longing, we're ready to discover even more as we help him build his forever studio.
Will Betts:
Let's get to it. This is my forever studio with BT.
Chris Barker:
BT, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
BT:
Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.
Chris Barker:
No worries. So, you heard the rules there. I mean, I don't know if you've heard the podcast before. But it's a little strict set of rules for building your dream studio.
BT:
It was jarring. I have to admit the ... I mean, when we got to no bundles, and then there were air horns, I had a little bit of a freakout. I think I may have spit out a bit of my coffee.
Chris Barker:
Perfect. That's exactly what we were after. So, that's the vibe.
BT:
Okay, it worked. I love it. What a cool concept. So, it's kind of like, if I have this right. It's sort of like dream ... Not, dream studio, it's your island studio, right? Is that kind of what-
Chris Barker:
That's exactly what we did.
Will Betts:
That's the deal.
Chris Barker:
So we've got some rules, and we'll guide you through it. I mean, first of all, tell us where you are right now. Are you at home? Are you at studio? Where are you now?
BT:
So, I'm on the east coast of America. And I'm about an hour by plane from New York. So, we're out in the country. And a good analogy for my English friends is I think Cornwall, that's the sort of place that we're in. It's a very, very beautiful countryside. And of course, right now, we're really happy that we're out here because it's nice. We can walk around and stuff. And yeah, I'm at the studio.
BT:
I'm currently in the kitchen as I told you guys off air because it's raining here. And our internet is an actual antenna 150 foot up in a tree. So, we were struck by lightning last week. By the way, I didn't tell you what happened when we were struck by lightning. So, I'm in the middle of scoring a video game actually right now, and I can't say which one, but it's a really, really big game. A really exciting project as well, too.
Chris Barker:
Come on, tell us.
BT:
I can't yet.
Chris Barker:
Just some initial.
Will Betts:
Come on.
BT:
You'll definitely hear about this. It's a three year project. So, it's one of those ... It's kind of like animation video games. They last for a long time. Big orchestral thing. We're going to allegedly lock down willing, we'll be recording in Prague and in Nashville an orchestra this fall. But at any rate, I have a half hour do. So, it's a three hour score. And I have, of course, 30 minutes do, and the studio quite literally about 20 foot from our front door was struck by lightning last week.
BT:
And in one lightning strike, it killed a Lynx Aurora(n), my dangerous music monitor bridge, and completely blew up actually physically exploded the internet router. So, thankfully, none of my synths were on. It blew up a UPC as well, too. So, none of my synths were on at the time, thankfully. So, it was really dicey. But it happens being out in the country of these bad summer thunderstorms. So Lynx guys are so great.
BT:
They Fedexed us a new one. So thankful for them. And then we had to buy actually a new monitor bridge, which was a nightmare. But anyway, I got my 30 minutes of music in, so there we go.
Chris Barker:
So, I mean, this leads us straight into the first part of the podcast, which is where we talk about where you would build your fantasy forever studio. I mean, would you still choose a similar location? You've obviously chosen there for a reason. Or if you could put it anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Will Betts:
Somewhere with fewer thunderstorms, maybe.
BT:
Yeah, you know what, if we're going to do fantasy studio thing, I'm going to go ... Well, this is kind of a yank expression, whole hog. I don't know what the equivalent English expression would be.
Chris Barker:
All in whole hog.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
BT:
There you go, all in. Okay, so the most beautiful place I have ever been in my entire life ever or anywhere, and this is years of travelling setting foot on probably every continent that there is with the exception weirdly of Africa. I've never been to Africa, and I'd love to go. So, I am going to pick where I would build my dream studio would be in the Maldives. And it gets even more specific than that. Our whole family is diver. So, it's like one of my favourite things in the world. I'm more comfortable with sharks under 100 feet of water than I am with most people.
BT:
So, we're divers. We love being underwater. In the Maldives, when we were there, they have built actual rooms under the water. So, you have to walk down stairs, and of course, it's all sealed off and stuff and then they built these glass rooms under the water, and there's actually they built a small club in one of these rooms, and we didn't actually see that one, but yeah. That and I'm sure we can find this, the internet finds everything. So, that's where I'd build my studio, is underwater in the Maldives. If we're going all the way, that's my dream studio.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, we're loving this.
BT:
There you go.
Will Betts:
Wow, that is whole hog.
BT:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Will can probably demo it for you, but we have a little jingle. Because usually we have to upsell people's dreams because they hold back, and just not holding back is going to be brilliant stuff.
BT:
Yeah. Full yank. I'm going whole hog. We're doing this. Maldives underwater, yeah, go, let's do it.
Chris Barker:
Moving on from that amazing location, we got to start filling it up with some stuff. Now, you get a few items for free before we go to your limited six choices. So, first, obviously, you're going to need a computer of some sort. I mean, it's an easy question, usually, but Mac or PC for your computer and why?
BT:
All right. Gosh, you guys already we're stumped because I use both kind of in equal measure. I'm a bit computer agnostic. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'll tell you the why too. This will be interesting for some listeners is, I'm also a bit door agnostic. I used three doors regularly. But I compose in Cubase. So anything that is orchestral in nature, I do all my orchestra mock ups in Cubase because it works so well with VE Pro, which I run on a satellite rig, which is a completely separate computer.
BT:
And I do audio over IP to connect the two machines I've gotten close to a 4000 contact instrument auto load. It's like my Synclavier and I've been working on it for years and stuff and I can literally with a single button render out 48 stem wide orchestral, electronic masters, incredible setup. So it's a hard question, but what I'm going to say my answer for computer is going to be a brand new Mac. A Mac, because this is actually what I'm getting.
BT:
I've been waiting Intel they did something clever like rack mount it. So, I'm going to go with a brand new Mac Pro rack mounted because of course you can run Windows on it and they're so powerful. You can put a terabyte and a half of RAM in it. My PC right now has a half a terabyte of RAM and it's completely full for my auto load, packed. I'm serious dudes. Packed.
BT:
So, I'm going to go with a brand new Mac Pro with a terabyte and a half of RAM. I think you can fit up close to 50 terabytes of hard drive of SSDs in that thing. I just want it packed. So, that's going to be my computers. So, new Mac Pro packed in the Maldives underwater. This is amazing. I want to do this interview every day. This is great already.
Chris Barker:
You're saying that, but us just judging by what you just said about running multiple doors and all of this, I think you're going to start struggling once we start condensing the rules down. But okay, so-
BT:
I can do it. I can do it.
Chris Barker:
The next thing then, you're going to have to choose one of these DAWs.
BT:
Okay. It is hard.
Chris Barker:
You can have multiple DAWs, but the other DAWs will come out of your six items. So this is a free item, a DAW for free.
BT:
So okay, well, let's-
Chris Barker:
Can you commit to one?
BT:
I can. I can. It's a bit like therapy meets your dream studio. It's kind of like a mixture of things, isn't it?
Will Betts:
It's a Marie Kondoing.
BT:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Marie Kondoing. That's very good.
Chris Barker:
Which door sparks joy? Which door is the one that sparks the most joy?
BT:
Okay, so, my oldest door, okay, and we're talking quite literally goes back to Atari days. Okay. Is Logic Audio. Now it used to be called Notater when it was on the Atari. So I've been working with Logic Audio since the Notater days. And in fact, it was the second sequencer ever I used. I used Voyetra sequencer plus gold on IBM 5150. And eventually a PST model P70 when I was a teenager. So those are my original sequencers, I still actually use them to this day. They're incredible.
BT:
I have such insane muscle memory on them. I've done this on Instagram, where I'll operate Voyetra with my eyes shut, and the just the keys, no mouse input whatsoever. It's pretty crazy. So I'm going to go with logic because it's my oldest and most familiar door, although it's going to be very sad not having access to live in Cubase because I use all three of them daily. But I'm going to pick logic because I'm sticking to the rules.
Chris Barker:
Okay, well, you can have live logic later on. But you'll lose other items as part of it. So and then the next one then, the next free one is the audience interface. What are you going for?
BT:
That's super easy. So I'll just a little anecdotal story. When we were doing the my studio build here, I've never had a sound treated room ever in my life. I've always worked in attics or quite literally closets, basements.
Chris Barker:
Under the ocean.
BT:
Under the ocean. Exactly. It's going to be hard. But how are we going to sound treat this room? Have we thought about this, glass?
Will Betts:
Have you?
BT:
I don't know you guys. It's still a bit sketch. We're going to have to talk about that. But here's the deal. When we were doing the build in this room, we had put in my first pair of soffit mounted speakers, the British, you would be happy to know completely bespoke handmade speakers ATCs. And I'd never had anything like that, never had a sound treated room. And we actually had three audio interfaces in at once, and we could switch between the audio interfaces and listen to them on these, what are to my ears, the greatest speakers in the world.
BT:
And just to drill down on that a little bit. The first time I heard a soffit mounted pair of ATCs, I was listening to a song of mine from a record they've been nominated for a Grammy and I immediately heard errors. Immediately. We're talking about like a finished mastered released Grammy nominated record, I immediately heard errors listening on the speakers, like glaring errors too. Like, wow, there's a huge node at 650-
Will Betts:
That would definitely make me not want to buy them. I'd be like, "Oh, no."
BT:
But they're absolutely-
Will Betts:
But the anxiety.
BT:
They are absolutely unforgiving. And I'll tell you what, though, it's up my game so much. I can mix so much faster on the speakers without having to headphone reference and without having to go print a USB key listen in the car. So anyway, my loquacious story here is, we had three audio interfaces in that room, and we could switch between them. And the other two are the best audio interfaces. They are. Wanting to try out all these ones that everybody talks about. So I'm not going to mention the names of the other two.
Will Betts:
Cliffhanger.
Chris Barker:
The results, we want the results.
BT:
It's really easy. Like, it's the three best audio interfaces, okay. So, you know what they are, right? One of them is an animal, okay, and the other one is like a drummer. You know what these are. Okay. So, I was able to listen to all three of these at once, and the Lynx Aurora, audio interfaces have so much more sheen, and presence, and clarity. Everything above seven kilohertz, is ridiculous, the bass is so much more focused.
BT:
This is the audio interface. This is not like clocked or anything like that with all these fancy clocks people use and stuff. The stereo imaging is so much wider than it sounds literally like it's going beyond the range of where the speakers are. The Lynx Aurora(ns) are hands down to my ears, so it's my subjective opinion, the best audio interfaces I have ever heard in my entire life by like a country mile. They're insane.
BT:
So I won't use other audio interfaces after finding these things. And the crazy thing is, too, I'd never heard of these guys. The company Lynx, I'd never heard of an Aurora and I just wanted to try the three best audio interface. I'd use the different audio interface for years, a very well known one. And these just absolutely just decimate them. I'm serious, dude, it's insane the difference.
Will Betts:
So, I'm interested hear, like, do you find that the imaging translates to other systems? Because you're saying that it sounds super wide.
BT:
What a great question. Yes, absolutely. I absolutely do. So there's some kind of, I don't know, weird phase cancellation thing that is happening on some of these audio interfaces. And also two, most of the audio interfaces, even the ones under those three, like your kind of armies and the UADs and these ones, they're so hyped sounding compared to when I say hyped, I mean, literal hype curve.
BT:
So like a huge bump around 200 pushed up and you look at the charts, and they don't reflect that. But when you hear it against the flat audio interface, the imaging, and the kind of the sort of evenness of the spectrum is just it's jarring. It's actually jarring. It's undeniable when you hear it in a treated room on a nice pair of speakers and you're able to AV back and forth. But you're like surely that we plug this in wrong. Like that can't sound that different. And I could pick them out blindfolded. I really could too, they're that good.
Will Betts:
We're going to have to put that to the test BT.
BT:
You know what I tell. I'll tell you what, I've been testing. This is kind of like a fun one for my friends. Because I'm always just on and on about how blah, blah through whole synth and what would you call it? Surface mount of chips sound terrible, and that's terrible compared to soft synth. So my friends try to stump me all the time. I can pick out a vintage subtractive analogue synthesiser 100 times out of 100. Raw recording, plenty of saw wave, I'm serious, I can tell you if it's a vintage synth or not. Yeah. So I'm that weirdo.
Chris Barker:
That's like an alternate version of perfect pitch, isn't it, for like the new generation? It's like a futuristic version of him.
Will Betts:
He's so deep into it.
Chris Barker:
I have no idea what the note is. I have no idea what the note is. But I can tell you that model and serial number of that synthesiser. That's a good skill. I like it.
BT:
That's amazing.
Chris Barker:
That's good.
BT:
Yeah, it is kind of a crap superpower I suppose. But-
Chris Barker:
No. In our world, it is great superpower. I love it.
Will Betts:
We're now onto our first of your six items. So we've got all of the freebies out of the way. What's your first from the six BT? Do you prefer BT or something else?
BT:
Yeah, BT is great. Yeah, my mom even calls me BT. It's like longstanding nickname. I know it's weird for you guys, because it's like symbolises phones and stuff. In fact, we regularly get things on Twitter. This is the funniest one. Forget about Twitter. Like we regularly get my mom is in Farnham and her line is out. How could you ever do this? My mom has a pensioner like these crazy Twitter messages.
BT:
But sometimes these are way better, sometimes we'll post something on Facebook and it will clearly be ... it will be like a music video. Okay, so it's clearly nothing to do with British Telecom whatsoever. Like there's a music video. There's people singing and playing instruments. And then three quarters of the way down the thread, somebody starts in about they're drilling in a phone box around the corner for me.
BT:
And you're like, "Did you even look at any of this, what's happening here?" So yeah, you're welcome to call me either, but yeah, BT's longstanding nickname since I was a kid. Okay, so I'm diving in the next thing. I'm assuming that you're going to dock me here for software. Am I right?
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
BT:
Like, I know you're going to get like software counts as an item.
Chris Barker:
I would say that don't forget you don't have any headphones or speakers as well. That's why it's six and not five. Because you know.
BT:
This is brutal.
Chris Barker:
Well, unless you've got a gift of being able to hear the music that you're just seeing it. That would be a good gift – just seeing the wave.
BT:
Synthetic. All right. I'm going to jump to speakers then. So, I'm going to go with a pair and actually don't have these speakers. I have the huge ATC speakers, I'm going to go with a pair of ATC near fields. So, that's what I'm going to pick. I use BX5s for my near fields, which everyone laughs at. They're kind of my NS-10s. But I would if I'm beholden to one speaker, I would pick an ATC speaker.
BT:
And even though it's not one I have and the only reason I wouldn't pick mine is because I couldn't monitor on these huge speakers all the time, because you do have to listen it at a decent volume and you're fatigued and all that.
Will Betts:
It would be very cruel for all the fish as well, wouldn't it?
BT:
Yeah, who knows? Yeah. I pick ATC, probably ATC midfields If I was going to pick one speaker.
Chris Barker:
Do you have a specific model in mind?
BT:
Yeah. I'd have to look it up. They're the ones that are they sit vertically, so they have kind of two diaphragms. I could find it.
Will Betts:
The ACM 25A, something like that.
BT:
That's the ones. The next thing I'm going to go to is going to surprise you guys. And I'll kind of preface it with why it's so significant to me is because some people listening to this will know that I'm audio developer as well. So I do a lot of my prototyping in this environment. And I also do a lot of sound design in this environment. So something I can't live without in a studio is Csound.
BT:
So I studied Csound under a gentleman named Dr. Richard Boulanger, Csounds free to by the way, but I have to have it because I build a lot of my prototypes in there. And I also do sound design for film scores and records in there constantly, especially a granular type operation. So I have to have it and there's a couple others that are really close that I'd like to have. But I'm going to allocate one thing for like heavy lifting sound design, it's going to be Csound. So that's going to be my next item.
Will Betts:
Okay, and for those people who maybe don't know what Csound is, what is it?
BT:
So Csound is a language for building anything from synthesis to digital signal processing algorithms. It's a text based language. And you basically can code an instrument, you can code a reverb or delay or a granular operation. And then you have something that's called your orchestra. And then you have also a score and a score is how that thing works.
BT:
So what's so remarkable about Csound is not only do you build the instrument, but you can send 10,000 parameters to the instrument at once. So imagine having infinity amounts of lines of door automation. Now it does these things, a lot of these sort of operations it does offline, the really heavy ones, like some of my favourite opcodes. And what an opcode is, is it's basically a digital signal processing algorithm.
BT:
So there's one called SoundWarp, and it's abbreviated S-N-D-W-R-P. So anybody that literally three people just freaked out and punch their computer, they're so excited, the three Csound users that will listen to this.
Chris Barker:
So is it kind of like something like reactor but sort of deeper than reactor? So reactor is the friendly face of that kind of idea, is it?
BT:
Yeah, so reactor, I would compare it to Max. And I use Max a lot too. And Max is an object oriented language. So you patch things together with pretty cables. This is not that, it's all text. It's 100% text. And so over the last 20 years, I've built up all kinds of these massive, massive scripts of code, and I can open them and repurpose them by throwing a new sound file through it. So I call a new sound file.
BT:
And I've prototyped just about every application I've ever designed from Stutter Edit, to Phobos, to you name it. And now what's so wonderful about having used Csounds so long is do, I sit down and code and Csound anymore? Every now and again, I do when I'm prototyping something, but I've built up such a massive repository of working orchestras and scores that I can pull them up, change some parameters, put a new audio file in it, and repurpose it.
BT:
And it's this incredible thing, because I already spent eight hours on it some years ago.
Chris Barker:
So, that takes us to item number three.
BT:
All right, we're going straight for a subtractive analogue synthesiser. This is a hard one, okay, because I love synthesisers, right, like, love, love synthesisers. Like, aesthetically, I love the sound of them. I love the feeling of them and kind of tactile thing about them. And whenever I hear someone say, "Oh, we can make these sounds in soft synth." I have a kind of mini sort of internal bordering on epileptic freak out.
BT:
Because although that may be true that we're getting close to some of these sounds, the experience of using these instruments is so different and it makes different music. Absolutely. There's no question being able to put your hands on them.
Will Betts:
To be clear, you're a person who can tell the difference between a surface mount and through hole component in the synthesiser.
BT:
Quite literally 100 times out of 100. Yeah, I'm not joking either. It's like a weird ... we were talking about this before. It's probably a pathetic superpower, but it is nonetheless like yeah, it's a thing that I'm ... it's crazy too. Part of it is in these old synth I do a lot of talking with bunch of synth nerd friends about this, like what happened in this golden age of synthesis to make these instruments sound so remarkable?
BT:
And there's a guy, a Scottish guy called Ken Macbeth, that guy is the only, okay, and I'm going to say only like, I'm going to use an absolute here. He's the only person now making synth that sound vintage to my ears. Like his could trick me. And guess what? They're through hole. Yeah, they're hand soldered, they're through hole synth. So there's this thing to be said about and don't get me wrong. I love some of the Behringer stuff. I got a little four tracks setup or I've got a Behringer 808 and the SH1 and those things, and they sound very good.
BT:
But there's a magic that happens in these old subtractive synth that is unparalleled to this day part of it I'm going to give you the cliff notes. Part of it is the thermal signature of these instruments, they run fricking hot and it actually affects the support circuitry. So that's a big part of why these sounds sound so warm and warbly and organic and they're moody too, the substance.
BT:
I'll sometimes turn on my ARP 26 soft synth hardware synth. I'll sometimes turn on my ARP 2600 and it will be in a crap mood, quite literally. And you'll go to it the next day and it's like just singing, it's incredible. They're different than other instruments. So at any rate, if I had to pick one, and it's really hard to do, because there's so many that I love so much and I use kind of daily, I'm going to pick the Jupiter 8.
BT:
And specifically, I'm going to pick a Rev 2, which is a 12 bit, Jupiter 8 because the companion in that makes them sound a bit different. So yeah, I'm going to pick a Rev 2 Jupiter 8 is probably the most versatile and elegant sounding instrument as subtractive analogue synthesiser I've ever touched. So, that's my pick.
Chris Barker:
Item number four next. More about things like I mean, we're not pushing you down any road.
BT:
No, please. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
No microphones yet?
BT:
I am going to pick a mic. Yeah, I have to because we're going to need to record vocals and we're going to need record instruments. So I'm going to pick something really versatile. I'm going to pick a blue Bottle with interchangeable heads. Can that count as one mic?
Chris Barker:
Does the microphone come with all the heads?
BT:
It does.
Chris Barker:
Or do you buy the head separately?
BT:
Yeah, no, it does. Yeah, it does.
Chris Barker:
Is that abundle, Will? It feels some like ... is it a bundle? I think it might be a bundle.
Will Betts:
It does feel a lot like-
Chris Barker:
No bundles.
Will Betts:
No bundles.
Chris Barker:
No. Bundles.
BT:
That's terrible you guys. I'm still going to pick it. Even if I can't have all the heads for it, it's such a versatile microphone with the head that it ships with. It's great for recording acoustic small instruments, recording acoustic guitar, and then it's brilliant on vocals, both men and women. So it's not one of those that is like really kind of gender specific like 67 is such a something like that. So, I'm going to go with that. I love those microphones. Is one of my favourite mics. So there we go. There's another thing.
Will Betts:
Is this the big tube condenser $4,000 job where it's got the interchangeable-
BT:
That's the one.
Will Betts:
Okay. Very nice.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
BT:
Yeah, that's a brilliant, brilliant sound mic.
Will Betts:
If you can only pick one the heads to have with it, what pattern are you going with?
BT:
I'm going to pick the one that it ships with, because it's the one that I leave on there most. It's unidirectional, I believe. But it's the characteristics of the capsule that make the sound of it. So I can't remember the name of the one that it ships with. But it's the one that I frequently ... I have one that and I know them by colour. So that's not going to help much because they have little colour rings on them.
BT:
But there's one that I frequently use for backgrounds and one that I use sometimes for acoustic guitar and stuff. So I'm going to go with that. That's such a fantastic microphone. So that's my pick.
Will Betts:
I believe it's the B6, the large diaphragm-
BT:
That's it.
Will Betts:
... dual backplate.
BT:
Yep, that's it. You got it. Yeah, that is-
Will Betts:
Remotely present vocal sound. Okay.
BT:
That's a great mic.
Will Betts:
Cool. That was item number four. So we have two left, two studio items left.
Chris Barker:
Two on the studio items left.
BT:
Okay. So, now are you guys going to ding me? Or is something modular going to be a bundle? I could never say some Eurorack stuff. Could I? That would be just like, I would explode.
Will Betts:
I think it's a hiding to nothing that one. Eurorack that's, you could have one power supply and then a module.
Chris Barker:
That's a harsh ... Will locks down the law.
BT:
Oh my god!
Will Betts:
You've got two pieces left, can have a module and a power supply.
BT:
I got it. All right, I got it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pick something a semi modular, because that's a nice compromise and something that's vintage. So I know my last two pieces. I'll start with the semi modular piece first. So I'm going to pick a vintage ARP 2600.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
BT:
Yeah, and the reason why is you can get pretty crazy on it. As you guys know, the ARP 2600 is not just adept as a synthesiser, but guys like Flood and Daniel Miller have notoriously used it. I've used it a million times this way as well inspired by those guys as a signal path. So using the ring modulator in it and the spring reverbs in it and the filters in it kind of patching into it. It's one of the most vibey sounding boxes. There is period.
Chris Barker:
Does the 2600 have pitch, CV to pitch like on the MS20s?
BT:
It does. It does, but it's BFI actually and there's, oh my God, I want to tell you guys something so bad right now. How can I tell this story and not get into trouble? Because I actually made ... this isn't like an even an NDA thing. I made like an actual promise, almost like a blood pack sort of promise. Okay. So one of my favourite living sound designers that designed some of the most incredible sounds for films since we were kids and before, has used that instrument famously.
BT:
It related to a way that we're talking about to design the sounds of RTD2, and I actually got to watch him using it and do it, and he said it was amazing. So we were at Sky Walker Ranch, and His name's Ben Burt's, I can say that. He's an absolute superhero to me.
Will Betts:
Legend.
BT:
He doesn't even I mean, like the footsteps in Jurassic Park. I mean, come on, and laser sounds in Star Wars.
Will Betts:
Inventing the lightsaber sound. I mean, unreal.
BT:
The lightsaber. Exactly.
Will Betts:
The guy's a total hero.
BT:
Yeah, absolute super ... I have is such a cool story about Ben too. I'll tell it sort of after this one. So Ben brought me up into his room. He came down into our room, and he was listening to the project I was working on at the time, which was electronic opus, and he was like, he's getting up there now. But man, this guy, he like gets around. He's inspired. He's out in the hallways setting up microphones at work every single day.
BT:
And he was wandering around during lunch and came into our room downstairs. We're doing some orchestral overdubs. And he was listening to the music as I was mixing with an amazing mix engineer, Leslie and Jones. And he said, "What are all these crazy? How are you doing these sort of like micro edits?" And I said, "Oh, it's a plugin that I actually made called Stutter Edit." And he was like, "Is it out? Can I get a copy of this?"
BT:
So I'm kind of telling my other story first, so Curt too left and went home. We connected the isotope folks with him and got him a copy. And then the next Star Wars, the asteroid flybys are all Stutter Edits. So that was like, probably that's kind of like my Oscar, literally, like my 13 year old to, like, I don't know what to do with myself that he used the plugin that I made, it's just too much.
BT:
Anyway, back to this other story I was telling about Ben. He invited me up to his room. And he said, I was like, "And then how did you make the sound in Aliens where blah, blah, and how did you do this thing in Star Wars where blah, blah?" And he was telling me absolutely everything. And of course, I vowed not to share these secrets. And he's talked about some of these things publicly.
BT:
But he was showing me how he made the sound of RTD2, like, actually physically doing the sound with me three feet away from him. And then he looked at me and he said, he looked me dead in the eyes and he goes, "You understand what I'm doing here, don't you?" And I was like, "Yeah, I do." And he's like, okay, don't ... He's like, "This is a secret. You can't tell people it." And so I was like, okay, and so I'm not, I haven't, but I'm telling you the story.
Chris Barker:
But we know ARP 2600 and it's something to do with the pitch TV jacking, right?
BT:
That's all public knowledge, all that's public knowledge. And he's talked about those things. So yeah, the ARP 2600 is just as both a kind of a processor and is a synth. The fricking bass on it ... Here's the thing about the ARP 2600 people think of it as like leads and kind of plucky type sounds. That thing for bass, it's the bass on Borderline by Madonna.
BT:
That thing is like appeared on some really famous tracks in holding down the bass. So it's just an amazing, amazing synthesisers, obviously all over everything from Smashing Pumpkins as a ring modulator through all the Depeche records. Vince Clarke used it to double up the KR55. Be on all the early Depeche speaking spells. For mono since kind of it's it. So, I'm going to pick that because it's semi modular. And it's one of my favourites since ever.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
Will Betts:
Amazing.
Chris Barker:
It's killer. Yeah. So now it gets tough.
Will Betts:
Before we get to the last one, I kind of want to know what was going through your mind when you said Eurorack? You can't have it. But I'm just intrigued to know what you could have wanted.
BT:
Well, here's the thing about the Eurorack. It's a warm homey. If we went down that path, we'd be talking about it for ages, but I'll just say this. That what really I think is exciting about the Eurorack is different to everything else that is in my studio or anything else that I use. I've got a bunch of more vintage modular things like I mentioned the 2600. I've got a system 100A, not a Hans Zimmer one, don't worry, but like a single one.
BT:
Eurorack is just this mental kind of wild west mentality. And I remember when the shift happened from like dope flir in those days, and they were making like a kind of okay sounding oscillators and filters and stuff. And then all the sudden, like, all the circuit bending people, all the folks doing logic circuits and wild sequencers, and then DSP people jumped into that format, and then it just went mental and in the best way possible. So what I love about the Eurorack is it's kind of like reactor, or C sound, or Max just threw up into a physical location. It's like-
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yes. That's exactly right. Yeah.
BT:
You can touch all of it, which is so different to working with a mouse on a computer with these things. And I just find myself, I don't smoke, so Eurorack is like my smoke break. If I'm bashing my head on the wall working on a score queue or something, I'll go make myself a coffee, and then give myself a half hour and kind of decompress at the Eurorack and I just find myself coming up with things that I would never do anywhere else ever and that are actually useful.
BT:
More sound designing kind of things, more ambient or like vaguely rhythmic things, then just not sort of friends of mine, like Richard Devine, you watch what these guys did. It's crazy. But more things that work in a kind of ambient context but that are really intricate and interesting and beautiful. And so I love that area. There you go. So I know I don't get it. But yeah.
Chris Barker:
Hey, we are cruising into the final item, right?
Will Betts:
Number six.
BT:
I got it. I already know what it's going to be. So, I'm going to pick a sampler, a hardware sampler.
Chris Barker:
A hardware sampler? Okay.
BT:
Yes, I'm a huge sampler fan. And what I like about them is similar, same, same, but different. They would say entirely similar, but different to what I like about analogue synthesisers, which is you're forced to think differently when you're engaging your brain by using your hands. So the kind of tactile feedback that you get from these instruments is not to be and also to having limited memory, and having things sound different when you transpose them to different ranges, depending on the sampler you're working on.
BT:
I grew up on samplers. My first sampler was an S900. I mowed lawns for two whole years to get my S900. I still have it, I used it on all my early records on EMA and ESEM, all my remixes in the '90s. And I still use it today. It has such a lovely sound. It's not the sample I'm going to pick though, but I have a lot of samplers in my room. E2 mirages, I've got an E3, a bunch of Akai stuff.
Chris Barker:
So, you've got a project and you know what the sound of that project is in your head? Does the type of sampler you choose, does that matter at that point? Or is it the way? So you really go like, "Oh, this is for drums, I'm going to use the MU. This is for vocal chops, I'm going to use the Akai or whatever." It is that specific?
BT:
So, that's a great question. And it's a bit different actually, my answer. So with all of these instruments, I've had each of them for so long that I've built up kind of a library for them of my own sounds. And so it's more when I'm thinking of using a sampler, I'm less sampling on them if I'm being totally honest, and more using sounds that I created during a specific time for that instrument, if that makes sense.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah.
Will Betts:
So they're like time capsules, basically. I think.
BT:
That's exactly right. That's right. And sometimes I will sample on them because it's so vibrant and so much fun to do it and inspires a different kind of thought bread, but it's a lot less about saying like something like the Mirage. I'm not going to say, I mean, it is such a pain to sample in an instrument like that, or even E2. But I know I've got these really crunchy kind of eight bit string sounds that I've made for that, that if I want that kind of sound, I'm not going to go try to recreate it in the box or with ...
BT:
I'm going to put one of them up. I'm going to pull up this patches, I'll EQ them a bit different and stuff and obviously it'll be different notes. But I'm going to use some sounds that I created for them back in the time that I was aggressively using that instrument. So the instrument I'm going to pick for my last instrument is sort of the mother of all samplers.
BT:
And it's one of those ones that growing up as a kid in the '80s, I would have quite literally given an extremity to even been in a room with one. And it costs what my parents house cost when I was growing up. And I've always wanted one literally my whole life, there's only about 30 of them left that work. And most of the people that have them are collectors or they're in museums.
Will Betts:
So I love how you're narrowing this down as well.
BT:
Yeah, so check it out. I can count the number of people that actually use this instrument to make music on less than one hand. It's a real number, okay. And I know these guys personally that are using them to make music on. The instrument ... So I got one of these about seven years ago, and it arrived from Australia. It's another big hint, and it was dropped and destroyed quiet literally.
BT:
Cosmetically, all the cards were smashed, the monitor was destroyed, the keyboard was dinged. So with my own hands, I hand sanded and sparkled the wood. I laser colour match the paint. I took every key out and retro brighten the keys and rebushed them. I redid every capacitor in the entire machine. I installed new fans. I put a CF card reader and an SD card reader in it. Rebuilt the power supply.
BT:
The thing has been worked on completely to the metal. And then the icing on the cake to this instrument is like I mentioned, the monitor had been smashed. So on these hopeful machines a couple records ago of mine, a gentleman who's a ... I'm a huge fan of I was lucky enough to meet a number of years ago now, Stewart Copeland, came and played drums on that album and Stewart's a big user of this instrument.
BT:
And so when I was getting to the point where I did need the monitor to continue working on it, I sent him an email and I said, "Stewart I know that you use the system a lot back in the day and I believe you still have some." I was like, "You don't know of a monitor for what ..." because those crazy green monochrome monitors. And I didn't hear back from him, which is not like him. I assume he's in the middle of a project or something.
BT:
And then like two weeks later, a box turned up in my house and I opened it and it was absolutely mint condition, green monochrome fair light monitor. So my choice is a fair light. I've kind of even probably known it for the last five minutes. And specifically a series three. This instrument, it's everything I thought it was going to be times 1000, like the sound of it. So you think, how can a sampler reproduce the sound and it's got more vibe than that sound had to begin with?
BT:
I can promise you, you can sample a string sound, a vocal sound, Prophet-5 saw wave, it does not matter what you put in this thing. And part of it is that every single card, there's no word clock in the machine. So the cards are all running slightly out of sync no matter how well calibrated it is. The filters are all slightly off. It has anti aliasing filters and Curtis filter chips on every voice. But you want to talk about through whole circuitry. The thing is like a fricking car. Every card is-
Chris Barker:
Yes. We do.
Will Betts:
You do.
BT:
I do. Every card is like ... it's like a channel in an old vintage Neve. It's freaking-
Will Betts:
Beautiful.
BT:
The sound of this instrument when you play a chord on it for the first time, I don't care what patch you choose, you won't believe it. You actually won't believe it. It just melt your brain how vibey this thing sounds. I knew it was going to be incredible. But I had no idea the magnitude of incredible is going to be.
Chris Barker:
That's all of your studio kit. Now we have one last thing for the studio, which is your luxury item. Now this isn't gear related. But maybe there's something throughout your whole career that you've always had in the studio or something that you wish you'd have had you now have that's kind of like your luxury go to thing. So yeah, tell us what your luxury item might be in your forever studio.
BT:
Oh my God, I'm so stoked. This is like a free unicorn. I didn't know this one was coming. So okay. So it's easy though, because we have no effects. So we've got effects and box, whatever.
Chris Barker:
No, but this isn't studio kit. We're looking for maybe you're going to have to code on your own effects in sea sound. But that's okay.
BT:
Okay, so this is like, what are we talking about? Like this is like-
Chris Barker:
I don't know, we've had people have like a wine cellar, we've had people have pieces of art, a picture that means a lot to them that they've always had in their studio or various things like that. It's basically something non studio, non nerd related. So, something comfortable luxury, something that would go well with the fishes under the sea.
BT:
All right, well, I've got one for that. We didn't get effects. So I'll live without my lexicon 224, I may drown myself there, but okay. Cheers, guys. Okay, so what I'm going to-
Chris Barker:
We hold no responsibility for BT's drowning.
BT:
You got me excited, then you brought me up, you brought me down. It's just like a roller coaster ride. Okay, so I'm going to pick an uplift desk, because I like to stand some when I work. And because I do such long hours at times, and I have for better part of 20 years, I like to be able to stand when I'm working. So I'm going to pick an uplift desk.
Chris Barker:
Are they those motorised desks where you can just press a button and it comes?
BT:
They are.
Chris Barker:
Yes, I've seen those.
BT:
Yep. Yeah. It looks sort of like a draught table. And I hate to sound like a parent here. But the ergonomics of your workspace is really important if you want to do it for a long time. And so I'm going to pick an uplift desk, because it's good for you to get up every now and again. And we forget to. When you're like really in flow, you forget to get up and move around.
BT:
And I've been known to sit there for 12 hours, sometimes I'll just put my desk up and stand because that's better for you. So, there you go. That's my pick.
Chris Barker:
Okay, well, so Will, do you want to run us down the full list, the location, make us picture it.
Will Betts:
I love it. We're in the Maldives, in a room underwater with a Mac Pro rack mounted, 1.5 terabytes of RAM, because you need all that, 50 terabytes of storage, Logic ProX your interfaces are Lynx Aurora(n) for more focus space and better imaging. You have in your studio, the speakers are ATC SCM25A three way midfields, you have on that computer, you're running Csound.
Will Betts:
You have near the computer, presumably, but not too near because you want to be able to walk around and see the fish, a Rev 2 Jupiter 8. You're recording vocalists and any other I guess it will have to be marine wildlife with a blue bottle with a B6 capsule. You have a vintage ARP 2600 using the ring mod and spring reverb for your effects. So you do have some effects. And you have a Fairlight CMI series 3 of your sampling needs and an uplift desk to make sure that you can work out those legs and glutes obviously.
Chris Barker:
Nice. That sounds pretty good, though. It's fine not having a Lexicon. That's pretty good. That's pretty sweet studio.
BT:
I can picture the music that would come out of that space. See, now you guys have done something fairly naughty in a way like, I might need to actually do this. Like I might need to actually make this happen.
Chris Barker:
There's a feature in MusicTech Magazine for that. Yeah.
BT:
Yeah, I could picture that in my head. And I can picture the music that would come out of that space, and how inspiring that would be to sit and look at fish all day and have a bear lightning and a Jupiter 8 there.
Chris Barker:
We should get in touch with those guys that have those underwater rooms and see if we could build a temporary one and make something, that'd be a cool feature to see. Imagine photographing that, it would be so beautiful underwater.
Will Betts:
We'd have to get BT into it and then I want to hear the music that comes out of it. Do you have a synth you can hear in your head BT? Can you tell us what you're hearing?
BT:
Quite literally. Just be a kind of ... So because we got Csound there too, I'm picturing something that is in the style of this binary universe type records, like really interesting detailed kind of, I don't know what people call it now, but sort of IDM sort of down tempo chill kind of stuff, but with a little bit of an '80s esque slant to it because we've got the Fairlight, we've got the Jupiter 8 there, the ARP 2600. So, it's kind of chilled down tempo IDM beautiful-
Chris Barker:
Retro fishcore. Yeah.
BT:
There you go. Atmospheric, you know.
Chris Barker:
Kind of Sci-Fi element to. I'm hearing like to kind of underwater Sci-Fi thing. Because underwater feels a bit space like. Anyway doesn't it.
BT:
It does.
Chris Barker:
It's got that kind of same vibe.
BT:
Yeah. I love it. That might need to happen. We might need to do this.
Will Betts:
Amazing.
BT:
Make it happen.
Chris Barker:
Lovely. Well-
Will Betts:
Thank you BT.
BT:
My pleasure.
Chris Barker:
... all that's left to say is thank you so much for joining us. We know it takes time and yeah, everybody stay safe. How has lockdown been treating you? Have you been okay? I guess you're in the wilderness.
BT:
We're good. And thankfully, our family friends are okay. We've had a bunch of friends that have been sick, but everyone has done well with it so far, and we're good. Both my wife and I are very introverted. You wouldn't know it. But so, it's been a time of a lot of creativity. So it's been good in many ways. So yeah, thanks for asking.
Chris Barker:
Good.
BT:
Hope you guys too. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yep. Yep, we're fine. And if you ever visit in my town of Bath, do let me know.
BT:
We'll do.
Chris Barker:
We'll go on a synth nerd fest.
BT:
I would love that man. Yeah. I'm overdue. I've got friends there. Yeah, let's do that for sure.
Chris Barker:
100%. Nice one. If you're enjoying the MusicTech My Forever Studio Podcast, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcasting app and even rate the podcast but only if you like it, of course.
Will Betts:
We'll be back next Tuesday with Dutch DJ and producer Mason of Exceeder fame.
Chris Barker:
That's right. Will the exceedingly nice Dutch DJ choose to dance, shake, and move his way towards a hardware or software based studio? Find out next week.
Will Betts:
Perfect. Thanks again for listening and catch you next time.