This time we’re joined by Seeb, the Norwegian duo behind the enormous dancefloor remix of Mike Posner’s, I Took A Pill In Ibiza. Listen to learn which affordable vintage mic recreation they can’t live without for pop vocals, how Espen upgraded a classic polysynth and find out the best-practice for avoiding confrontations with bears in the wild.
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:
The studio will have to be created within the confines of our completely non-arbitrary rules and importantly, it's a studio our guests will have to live with forever. But what are these rules?
Chris Barker:
Well, our guests 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 our guests want a selection of plugins combined into say a single package?
Chris Barker:
No. No bundles. No bundles!
Will Betts:
Joining us today are Simen Eriksrud and Espen Berg, aka Seeb, the Norwegian production duo that shot to fame with their dance floor remix of Mike Posner song, I Took A Pill In Ibiza.
Chris Barker:
At the time of recording this podcast, that track alone has had almost 1.3 billion streams on Spotify. They've also made similarly huge remixes for Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Bastille and One Republic.
Will Betts:
Readers of MusicTech.net may recall we broke down their single, Sad In Scandinavia, a few months ago in our Under The Hood feature, so we know we're in the presence of fellow studio nerds.
Chris Barker:
Okay, let's get to it. This is My Forever Studio with Seeb.
Will Betts:
Welcome.
Chris Barker:
Here we are.
Espen Berg:
Thank you.
Simen Eriksrud:
Thanks.
Espen Berg:
Round two, finally.
Chris Barker:
What listeners won't get is that we just had the classic, "Let's find which streaming servers aren't overloaded during the pandemic while we try to do a podcast." And we finally found one that seems relatively stable. So here we go. So, you're in Oslo right now, next door to... Well, you're in the same room right now. But you have two studio rooms next door to each other, essentially. Is that how you work usually?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. We sit each our own rooms so we don't argue and fight all day, basically.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Well, you're going to have to basically combine those arguments into one Forever Studio with hardly any items in it.
Espen Berg:
It's going to be a difficult one.
Will Betts:
What could go wrong?
Chris Barker:
Now we've brought you into the same room, it could be... We could have a fight, couldn't we, on our hands. Which is good, yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
I would say we maybe spend 50% of the time alone, and then maybe 50% in my studio and we finish songs and we work together and stuff. It's like more 50-50.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
Then we have the nice balance so we don't... Because some years ago we only had one room, before we started Seep.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Simen Eriksrud:
It was kind of maybe a little bit too crowded and it felt...
Espen Berg:
And I have to say, before that again, even earlier we had three rooms and we had this huge SSL mixing console and we had outboards from the roof to the floor. But we just keep it simple now. It's working so much better.
Simen Eriksrud:
Definitely.
Chris Barker:
Well, if you like simple, you're going to love this podcast.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
Love it already.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So first off, you heard the rules on the intro. Tell us where you would have your Forever Studio. Would it still be in Norway or would you put it somewhere else in the world?
Espen Berg:
We have to agree on this, Simen.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. We have kids so I would prefer to have it in Oslo.
Espen Berg:
We need to have it in Oslo or somewhere nearby. We both love nature, hiking. We love the silence, stuff like that. It kind of comes with the territory when you're a music producer. You have to have some time off music. So we like to be out in the woods. So maybe somewhere out in the woods, on the top of a hill or something with a 360 view of Oslo and the beautiful countryside.
Simen Eriksrud:
Because Oslo is surrounded by a big forest. Even though we area one million people, we have this great forest around us. It's a really nice place to go when you want some time off from the busier than life. So maybe a studio near the forest, and as you said, with a great view and maybe a lake running nearby and some birds singing [crosstalk 00:03:54].
Espen Berg:
That sounds so nice. Maybe also we should have at least one parking spot.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
One parking spot?
Will Betts:
Well, they want for little.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. I mean are there bears in those Norwegian woods?
Simen Eriksrud:
Not in near Oslo, but it is if you go a little bit further up north east, you'll find some bears.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, I must say though, every time I'm biking around... I was doing that yesterday, like 45 kilometres out in the woods. I'm always thinking a little bit in the back of my mind... I know the bears have been... There haven't been any bears around for 100 years, but some day one of them will pop up, I'm sure. And I'll be the one to meet him.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
That's why you need a bell. You need to have a bell. Don't they say that if you walk around, you should have a bell on?
Chris Barker:
So, sorry Will, are bears scared of bells?
Will Betts:
No. Well, bears don't... Hang on. Wait. Bears can hear you coming if you're wearing a bell. I mean just like a little... like a sleigh bell.
Chris Barker:
Isn't that just going to be like Pavlov's cat or whatever? Eventually they'll go, "Oh, food is in the area." They'll hear the bell and know it's dinner time.
Will Betts:
Well, they're only eat you once hopefully.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Maybe we just put bells on all your friends.
Simen Eriksrud:
But not on you.
Will Betts:
I understand the thing is you don't want to surprise a bear, so you want to walk heavily and carry a bell. Not like a loud... Not like a town crier bell.
Espen Berg:
You can sing and shout. You don't have to wear a bell, but it makes sense.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Because that would be annoying. You've got your studio in the woods but it's just constant sound of bells from the outside that you're trying to block out.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, everywhere. That would ruin it, for sure.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So we've got the location-side. So then what's the vibe? I mean, we can see a little bit into your room now. It's very wooden. Are you thinking a cabin kind of vibe? Are you going for that kind of rustic approach to the studio? What's it going to look like?
Simen Eriksrud:
Maybe a fireplace in the corner?
Will Betts:
Right. Nice.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. But I'm more into minimalistic stuff.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. Me too.
Espen Berg:
I'd keep it away from the log cabin style, but not like an acoustically typical treated room as we have. It gets a little too clinical sometimes. I like to have some sort of natural vibe to the room. Sometimes I go up to the cabin and word for a week or two, because there you have a natural space where it's silent but rooms are still natural. I think what we aim for in this studio is to keep the room as live as possible without ruining the sweet spot of the mixing position.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
So, some kind of... you know. I mean not like a concrete cabin, but like...
Simen Eriksrud:
I would like a really good crafted acoustic room.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
So it's pretty flat, and when you know the bass it's solid. The only problem we have here is that the roofs are very low, so when the acoustic architect drew the room it was not impossible to get it really optimal.
Espen Berg:
It's not perfect, but it's pretty close.
Simen Eriksrud:
No, but pretty good. Yeah.
Will Betts:
Yeah, you can't tell in the mixes. So you're doing something right.
Simen Eriksrud:
There's no way of telling that. I wish it could translate into our work qualities even, that would be really nice.
Chris Barker:
And so we've got the location, we've got the vibe of the studio. Now, you get three free items because every studio pretty much needs a computer, an audio interface and a DAW. So let's start with the computer. What computer are you selecting? Now, I've often just gone, "Mac or PC?" But if you want an Atari or whatever, you can have that as well.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. An Atari with Cubase ST maybe or a...
Simen Eriksrud:
I'll go for the Mac style. The new Mac Pro, what do you call it?
Espen Berg:
Yeah, absolutely.
Simen Eriksrud:
Like for £60,000 or something.
Espen Berg:
And this is no... Budget is no limit right, so we can?
Will Betts:
Yeah. We've got very deep pockets.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. Let's just go for the beast, the big Mac with everything in it.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
Espen Berg:
Definitely. Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Barker:
I mean, obviously you can imagine that's quite a popular choice.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Just spend £85,000 on a...
Espen Berg:
Perfect.
Chris Barker:
Fine.
Will Betts:
Done.
Chris Barker:
What's the DAW you're running on there?
Simen Eriksrud:
Ableton.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, it's definitely Ableton. I'm sure we have... There is no more expensive version, is it?
Simen Eriksrud:
No. No.
Espen Berg:
I think we have the suite. It's the one we choose.
Chris Barker:
Is the suite a bundle though? I think it may be a bundle, [crosstalk 00:08:20].
Espen Berg:
Is it? No.
Chris Barker:
No, no. It's too early. It's too early.
Will Betts:
It's too early for that. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
We'll let you have the Ableton suite. I mean, have you always used Ableton though, and you both use Ableton?
Espen Berg:
We have to say both yes and no.
Simen Eriksrud:
I think in 2011, nine years ago, you switched from Cubase to Ableton.
Espen Berg:
You got pretty upset about it.
Simen Eriksrud:
I didn't like it, because I like Cubase because you could comp vocals very easily but you couldn't do that in Ableton. But when I saw what it did, it did a lot of cool stuff in Ableton and I didn't manage to do that in Cubase. I had to switch. I was going through this painful process and going to new software, but I love it. I love Ableton software.
Espen Berg:
Because right there, we didn't work together as we do now.
Simen Eriksrud:
No.
Espen Berg:
We work together as producers on other people's records, and suddenly I had this advantage, I could make way cooler sounds on my stuff than he could.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
And I actually-
Simen Eriksrud:
My confidence went just down and I had to switch.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, I learnt-
Simen Eriksrud:
Go Ableton.
Espen Berg:
I learnt it in... It was six weeks, because I staying home with my second son. He was-
Simen Eriksrud:
One year or something?
Espen Berg:
Paternal leave. Yeah, and this was like within a very short couple of weeks. And I took this course, I can't remember where.
Simen Eriksrud:
Sonic Academy.
Espen Berg:
Was it Sonic Academy? I started the course, did three hours. Suddenly I was on to creating a track. I said, "Yeah, skip this course and just do this track." And it became a big hit in both Norway, Sweden and Finland. So I knew I was onto something because I got really bored of the blank screen you see in Cubase every time you open it. It's like, "Oh. It's just a chore to put stuff in here and make something from nothing." While in Ableton, you can just throw stuff together in kind of a random way and make something interesting.
Simen Eriksrud:
And if you want to do some automation, if you want to have filter in all the music, you do it in one click and you just hit record the automation. You have it within five seconds, whereas in Cubase it took five minutes and then after five minutes, I... Fuck it, I don't want to do it. Ableton's so easy, if you want to programme something it'll do it right away. It doesn't stop you from your workflow.
Will Betts:
You did mention about vocal comping there, because when you were doing the track breakdown you were saying sometimes it gets a little bit messy when you're in the vocal recording stage. So how do you manage that then?
Simen Eriksrud:
I think on the Drink About record we did about two years ago, I think that's when you comped it in Cubase.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
And you said, "Oh, I love comping in Cubase."
Espen Berg:
I really love Cubase. I don't want to slag Cubase, by the way.
Simen Eriksrud:
No, we're not slagging Cubase.
Espen Berg:
I've been using it forever, but it's such a great tool when it comes to... If you have more than five to 10 vocal takes, you have 20, 50 even, I've been into 100. But it's so easy doing the comping and now even Logic has got this quick comping feature that seems like it's inspired by the Cubase [crosstalk 00:11:10].
Simen Eriksrud:
Plus in Cubase, you have a built in Melodyne function. You can alter the pitch while... You don't have to comp it and then you do like a Melodyne afterwards.
Espen Berg:
No.
Simen Eriksrud:
You can do everything at the same time. Whereas in Ableton, you can just have 10 tracks and you group it. And then you can just slice it and you can comp it in Ableton, but it's not that easy.
Espen Berg:
We use both of them but-
Chris Barker:
If you're going to have to choose, you're going to have to choose Ableton though.
Espen Berg:
Definitely have to choose Ableton.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, definitely.
Espen Berg:
Because it's so inspiring.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Okay. And your final free item in the audio interface. What would that be? I mean...
Simen Eriksrud:
I'm pretty happy with my Apollo x8, the new Thunderbolt interface.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. I think we should stick to that. You have the x8, I have the x8p just to be a little more cooler than you.
Chris Barker:
People can't see the webcam, but there was a cheeky grin when it was like, "I have the 8p."
Espen Berg:
So, this is how it goes every day.
Chris Barker:
You can have the 8p in the forever studio. Would you like to have the p?
Espen Berg:
Excellent. Yeah. We'll go with the p one.
Simen Eriksrud:
Go with the p one. Okay, cool.
Will Betts:
You want those eight preamps. Okay.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Those vocal compings.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, Yeah.
Chris Barker:
In Ableton. Nice.
Chris Barker:
So now it gets a bit more complicated because you've only got six other items for this studio.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
At the moment, you don't have any headphones or speakers either so I guess one of your items would have to be one of those I guess.
Simen Eriksrud:
Right.
Chris Barker:
So what's your first item going to be in the Forever Studio?
Simen Eriksrud:
Well, let's...
Espen Berg:
Should we make a list to make this more-
Will Betts:
Like a shortlist?
Simen Eriksrud:
No.
Espen Berg:
Let's just go for... We need a mic.
Simen Eriksrud:
We need one microphone, and either a set of speakers or a set of headphones.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
You need speakers in the studio.
Espen Berg:
I would say we need... Let's skip the headphones. It's going to be difficult doing vocal sessions, but we can manage.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
We so we'll do a microphone, we'll do a couple of speakers. But speakers counts for one, right?
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Let's think about your speaker choice first then. What would you go for in the Forever Studio? Unlimited budgets.
Espen Berg:
We have a couple of sets of ATC speakers that we really like. In this other room, a friend of ours is setup there. He has this... What are they? 150 ATC, 150 SL Pro. They sound really, really nice. You know, with the double woofers and the whole thing. So something like that maybe. Some ATC 150 SL Pro.
Simen Eriksrud:
I'm not sure. But to me, I have a pair of Focal in my studio. But I think I just had that for two years. Before that I only had NS10s.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, you did.
Simen Eriksrud:
So when we did all the Ibiza remix and everything, it was all did on the NS10s.
Espen Berg:
Maybe we should still to those.
Simen Eriksrud:
To be honest, I love the sounds of NS10s because they're very near. It's a really tight sound.
Will Betts:
Very nice.
Simen Eriksrud:
I know. I know. But people says, "Oh, if you make it sound good on the NS10, it sounds good everywhere." But I just love working on them because I just like the sounds of it. Maybe it's the room that kind of works with the room, I don't know.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
It's so controversial right now.
Simen Eriksrud:
But also have a sub together with it.
Espen Berg:
But that adds into more stuff, and then you need a-
Simen Eriksrud:
I know. I know.
Espen Berg:
You need an amplifier.
Simen Eriksrud:
Because you need a sub if you make dance music.
Espen Berg:
You need a separate amplifier on those.
Chris Barker:
I think I would... I mean, we're bending rules already. But if you're choosing NS10s, I'd give then an amp. Right, Will?
Will Betts:
Yeah. You can have an amp. You can have an amp.
Espen Berg:
All right. Cool.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. That's cool, an amp. But not a sub?
Chris Barker:
No, not a sub.
Simen Eriksrud:
No? Not a sub?
Chris Barker:
That would be a bundle.
Espen Berg:
How about if we went for my speakers, the ATC-
Chris Barker:
There is comes. I like this.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. The ATC...
Simen Eriksrud:
But they don't have that low end that just-
Espen Berg:
They do. They do.
Simen Eriksrud:
No. I don't know.
Espen Berg:
They have this real nice, not very huge but they're kind of nice.
Chris Barker:
But you won't have the low end on the NS10s because... Unless you get a sub as an extra item.
Espen Berg:
No. No, no.
Simen Eriksrud:
No. That's definitely no. Yeah.
Espen Berg:
If you asked [crosstalk 00:15:06].
Simen Eriksrud:
I will maybe add an extra item for this sub. I don't know we'll use up that slot.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you'd asked us a couple of years ago, we would definitely say the KRK6000s or the 9000s. You know, from way back?
Will Betts:
What, those grey ones?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. They're really square looking, like boxes with one of the speakers protruding from the cabinet.
Will Betts:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Espen Berg:
But why shouldn't we say the ATC 25, the ones that I got? They were pretty good. They're better than your Focals, even though they're-
Simen Eriksrud:
I like Focal.
Chris Barker:
You could have the biggest ATCs that they do. There's no budget limitations here.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, let's go for the 150 ATCs.
Simen Eriksrud:
I'd go for the biggest, we have this big low end. Let's go for it, yeah.
Espen Berg:
They really look nice. They look huge and sound huge.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
Okay, cool.
Will Betts:
Okay, the SCM150, is it?
Chris Barker:
We'll recap the list as we move forward in the podcast and you might make some changes later on. So let's go. For now, we've got the ATCs.
Chris Barker:
Okay, item number two. What's it going to be?
Espen Berg:
It's the microphone because we need to do vocals. We can get people to do-
Simen Eriksrud:
But in the beginning, we worked really well without vocals because people sent us acapellas.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. But we-
Simen Eriksrud:
But the recent, yes we have our own sessions, so we need a microphone, yeah.
Espen Berg:
We're always recording vocals. I mean it's something we have to do.
Simen Eriksrud:
Remember that Telefunken 251? We really liked that one?
Espen Berg:
No. I don't think an iPhone counts as a microphone because that would be outside of the list. You can have an iPhone that just records vocals onto that and we can skip the mic. No, no. Let's go for a microphone.
Chris Barker:
I like this.
Espen Berg:
I mean, one microphone.
Chris Barker:
I like this ultimate bending of the rules. It's fine. It's fine.
Will Betts:
I'm intrigued to know what the other five are if you're trying to skip a mic.
Simen Eriksrud:
We need a microphone, yeah.
Espen Berg:
So for a microphone, it's actually pretty simple because we are using that microphone right now and we have had all the microphones you can imagine. I mean even we have, even in the Telefunken 251 real one in this other room, and right now we're using a clone of that one from GA. What's that short for?
Simen Eriksrud:
Golden Age, yeah.
Espen Berg:
Golden Age. It's the 251 clone from Golden Age.
Will Betts:
Nice.
Espen Berg:
I mean, we had a shoot out on... I'm not sure. Was it on...
Simen Eriksrud:
I think it was the 251.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It was on the 251 but I can't remember which vocalist. I think it was Dagny actually. She tried the original and GA one, and the GA one actually came out in a little bit more clear way.
Will Betts:
Wow. Because that's not an expensive microphone. Not as expensive as the original 251, right?
Espen Berg:
No, it's not.
Simen Eriksrud:
No.
Espen Berg:
It's like a 10th of the price or something, but it sounds really, really nice.
Chris Barker:
That's a great podcast tip for anybody listening then, isn't it? One to check out.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, it's really good. So I would say it sounds 92% the same as the 251.
Will Betts:
That's very specific, Simen. That's exactly 92%.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
What's the preamp for it? What are you using? Is that just straight into the UA?
Simen Eriksrud:
We're using the Universal Audio, yeah.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. We're just going straight into that. We can skip the whole preamp thing because we can come up with a lot of suggestions there, but we'd rather spend them on other stuff.
Chris Barker:
But what I actually mean is what do you actually use? Not just the Forever Studio, when you're recording in your studio, do you still preamp with the UA?
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Simen Eriksrud:
We used to have this 1176 clone from... I've forgot the name.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It was a real one.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah?
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
I mean we already have a 1073, we have LA... We used to have an LA-2A.
Simen Eriksrud:
[crosstalk 00:18:36].
Espen Berg:
We have a CL1B compressor from the Danish company, but we never use them any more because we go straight into the Apollo. We put on some insert plug-ins in there, or a preamp plug-in from the-
Will Betts:
The Unison stuff?
Espen Berg:
And they sound really beautiful.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, but the clean preamp is also pretty good on the mics.
Espen Berg:
Absolutely. It is kind of the way you can compare those mics as well, but in the mix, in a dense mix it's difficult to hear those couple of percentages of betterness from the 251, the real one. It doesn't really add up to spending so much money on something like that.
Simen Eriksrud:
I think if you were recording more like jazz music or very acoustic music, I think it would benefit to have the original 251 because you can hear a more natural sound, especially in the low end. I just hear comparison, it was very impressive. But when you do vocals and you process them with 10 plugins and you have going through your mixed bus and it's mastered and everything, I don't think you can hear a difference.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Wow. And we can't-
Jingle:
Upsell your dreams.
Espen Berg:
Well, of course. But I think this...
Simen Eriksrud:
I don't think it's all about money. It's like you can have simple tools and you can make great music I think.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Simen Eriksrud:
The Ibiza record was all done in the box in Ableton. We just plugins, it was nothing fancy at all.
Espen Berg:
No. No mastering either on that. They just whacked it out the way it was.
Simen Eriksrud:
Just straight arrow.
Chris Barker:
Bear that in mind though is you only have the stock plugins in Ableton as well, obviously right now. So we're moving on. We've got the mic, we've got the ATCs.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Item number three.
Will Betts:
So we've got four left. Four left, and one luxury item.
Simen Eriksrud:
So maybe a plugin? Okay, for plugins I would... There are a lot of good plugins in Ableton but I really love House On Fire. I've been using that so much on the music bus and on the master bus. It just glues it and makes it a little bit... the sound sparkle. So we've been using that maybe a little bit too much, but it's like it makes everything sound so much better.
Espen Berg:
I think we can say that or we can up the Ozone a little bit and maybe go for version eight. Isn't version nine out?
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. But it doesn't sound as good, especially seven. I was testing number seven. It didn't sound good, so I just stick to number five.
Will Betts:
It's really interesting you say that, because you're not the first electronic producers to say that the five algorithms are better for that style of music. So what is that difference for you?
Simen Eriksrud:
I think maybe it's the multiband compressor. Maybe that's one that sounds pretty musical.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
When you put it on, just music kind of glues together, hear the synths pop out more.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It actually reminds me of the multiband compressor from the TCA Electronics M5000. I used to have one of those and I used them in mastering for several years. And they kind of like-
Chris Barker:
Is that what went into the Finalizer as well?
Espen Berg:
No. Yeah, it's not totally the same thing but it's more or less based on the same algorithms. But I always thought the M5000 sounded a little tad better, and maybe it has to do with the clipping or something. But I kind of think those plugins sound... I mean the Isotope 5 sounds a little bit similar to what I remember from the M5000.
Chris Barker:
So it sounds like the Isotope should implement, like in their latest version, a drop down-
Will Betts:
Legacy algorithm.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. So you can select an older algorithm and then you could get the new version and just compare, A-B them.
Espen Berg:
The main issue with the five is the latency and the processor use. It's a little too heavy I think, but it sounds good.
Simen Eriksrud:
That's not that much.
Espen Berg:
No.
Will Betts:
But you've got a Mac Pro, with wheels, that's going to be fine, right?
Espen Berg:
Yeah, so it doesn't matter.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, if it doesn't run on that, it's not going to run on anything.
Chris Barker:
So three studio items, three bits of gear left.
Espen Berg:
I think we should say we should do at least a couple of more plugins, like one or two VSTs. We need a proper hardware synth and then we can come up with a nice thing at the end.
Simen Eriksrud:
I will just say one thing, because we have this Prophet-6 Sequential audio, and for a long time it sounds really good. But Espen here, really recently bought this Prophet 600, and Espen knows everything about electronics so mod it.
Espen Berg:
I modded it a little bit, yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
And made it sound even better.
Espen Berg:
I made it stereo as well.
Simen Eriksrud:
And it's like the dream... When I tried it, "Oh wow. This is like the dream synthesiser because it sounds wobbly in a very... this retro way.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
You don't get that sound from the Prophet-6. It's just like you don't need the chorus, you don't need reverb delays, it just sounds raw.
Chris Barker:
And you made it stereo you say?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. I made it stereo. I found this mod from this German guy who has actually taken out signals from everything voice chip and feeding it through this panning matrix. So I put that on the side of the synth so I can pan everything voice. And it has this GliGli mod that makes it more or less into a small baby version of the Prophet-5. It just sounds absolutely amazing.
Chris Barker:
Cool.
Simen Eriksrud:
Because what is interesting, as Espen previously said, we had this studio with SSL, a lot of outboards but we got rid of it because you spent more time maintenance rather than working on music. So when we started the Seep project, we were more or less on laptop only.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Right.
Simen Eriksrud:
But now, since Espen has got this thing on old unlocked synths, how many have you bought now recently?
Espen Berg:
Well, too many. But I'm going through... It's just fun. If I buy something and it gives me... Normally there's at least one or two songs coming out of it.
Simen Eriksrud:
Definitely, because now we like moving little bit other way from out of the box... No, out of in-the-box.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, we're moving out of the box.
Simen Eriksrud:
We're moving out of the box. We're taking some of it out of the box.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
That kind of goes back to what you were saying about how you would ideally like to move studios every six months. It's kind of like changing your working methods every so often can...
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It just frees up so much creativity. I find that if... Let's say now that if we should stick to an unlocked synth for this.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. We should have that one as the one. And it has old MIDI, so we can use that to control Ableton. Or do with choose one item for the MIDI interface.
Chris Barker:
No.
Espen Berg:
No, the MIDI interface.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
We play everything live so let's not worry about that.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay.
Will Betts:
But it does have MIDI does it? Because this was a 1982 synth, the Prophet 600.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. Yeah. It's the first-
Simen Eriksrud:
Because you need control the VSTs, you know?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's the first synth with MIDI. So we have MIDI and let's say we have MIDI on the back of the Mac or something like that.
Chris Barker:
Will's not convinced. To be fair, we've not considered this before though, the fact that the Apollos don't have MIDI ports on them, do they?
Espen Berg:
I don't think so, no.
Simen Eriksrud:
No, they don't have it.
Chris Barker:
Which is weird. They stopped that quite a while ago, putting MIDI ports on audio interfaces.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. They could have put one in there.
Will Betts:
Well, since USB-MIDI came along, it's kind of become pretty redundant, hasn't it?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's not much space on the back of them though, so they might have a hard time squeezing in a MIDI port.
Chris Barker:
Well, with the USB-MIDI thing, Will, to be fair because leads and things are included in our studio and you can essentially get a lead that is a MIDI to USB.
Will Betts:
Oh, come on. Okay. Yeah, fine. Fine. Fine.
Chris Barker:
That's fine. that's fine.
Will Betts:
I'm not happy about it, but you can have it.
Espen Berg:
Thank you. Thank you.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Simen Eriksrud:
Would you have another synth then, not the Prophet 600 or what are you...
Espen Berg:
We have in the studio Oberheim OB-Xa, which is of course... But that's going to coming in a very new version soon, so I guess the price of that is going to drop a bit. It's not by the way as warm and nice sounding as the Prophet 600. But-
Chris Barker:
Really? Okay.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, the Prophet 600-
Chris Barker:
Two huge synths there with those panning oscillators and those-
Espen Berg:
Yeah. I mean the 600, it beats... I mean I've got Apollo 6 and Junior 6. We've got the Prophet-6 here and we've got a Junior 106, and it beats all of them. It sounds like a... It's beautiful.
Simen Eriksrud:
Got the Korg Poly-6.
Espen Berg:
I must say my favourite synth right now... I mean I should say sampler. I just bought an Emax, original one.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
That gives me even more inspiration than the Prophet 600 right now, but maybe we can include that as the luxuries.
Simen Eriksrud:
It has really good analogue filters and it's 12 bits. It sounds really retro, the sampler.
Espen Berg:
It's really good. But we'll go for the Prophet 600.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
Prophet 600 is item number four. Okay. Lock it in, Will. Lock it in.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
Right.
Chris Barker:
Get it in there. Get it in.
Will Betts:
It's in.
Chris Barker:
Get it on the order sheet.
Will Betts:
That's number four.
Chris Barker:
So item number five.
Espen Berg:
And then we have to go with a VST. That's going to be a little hard.
Simen Eriksrud:
If you have one VST that if you want this modern flavour, maybe-
Chris Barker:
Serum, Sylenth. Go on, which one is it?
Simen Eriksrud:
A Spire or a Serum maybe? Maybe Serum, Sylenth? I don't know.
Espen Berg:
Would you say the Spire covers the VST needs? I don't agree.
Simen Eriksrud:
No. No.
Espen Berg:
It's too...
Simen Eriksrud:
The Serum I think is more versatile.
Espen Berg:
The Serum is cool, but that's... I mean maybe that could compliment the Prophet 600, because that's like a warm, buttery feeling and the Serum is hard and digital. But yeah, should we do that or should we do that Massive maybe?
Simen Eriksrud:
Massive's also pretty good.
Espen Berg:
We have all VSTs imaginable.
Simen Eriksrud:
There's so many.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. This is always the hardest point of narrowing down the podcast, because people forget just how many plugins they use.
Simen Eriksrud:
I'm going to look at my list.
Espen Berg:
And if we say Serum, it's like... I mean we use it a lot, but not for everything. It has a really aggressive sound.
Chris Barker:
And do you think things like Serum and Sylenth, are they going to keep going on? I mean are they already sounding dated or-
Espen Berg:
Yeah. I mean they're classics. They're modern classics. They'll probably go out for a few years and then come back again, I guess like... I mean the Sylenth is... How long has it been around? It's over 10 years. It's 15 years or something.
Chris Barker:
15 years at least I'd say.
Simen Eriksrud:
It's crazy.
Espen Berg:
And it's still being used, that people are using it today.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's got to be mid-2000s.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, something like that.
Chris Barker:
2005, 2006. Yeah.
Espen Berg:
Something like that. So should we say the Massive or the Serum or the Sylenth? Maybe the Sylenth.
Simen Eriksrud:
Massive is very versatile actually and has so many different sounds on it.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, it's...
Simen Eriksrud:
And we use that a lot also in our music. So maybe Massive.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Is that Massive X you're on, the latest one?
Simen Eriksrud:
No, not the Massive X, the...
Chris Barker:
Oh.
Espen Berg:
We'll go with the Massive actually, or should we say Kontakt?
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, also we use Kontakt.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Right, sure.
Espen Berg:
We'll go with the Massive.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, go with the Massive.
Chris Barker:
So Kontakt as in the sampler, fine. But if you're thinking of the complete bundle, then no bundles.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. No bundles.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, I know.
Chris Barker:
That's why we implemented that rule. Otherwise people would just be like, "Yeah, I'll have the waves bundle, the complete bundle."
Chris Barker:
Okay. So what are we on now, Will? Is this item number six already?
Will Betts:
It's our last studio item.
Simen Eriksrud:
Okay. Okay.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. That's going to be a little difficult.
Simen Eriksrud:
Are there any plugins who...
Espen Berg:
Any plugins? There's so many plugins.
Simen Eriksrud:
Nice reverbs? We have been using so much the Eos reverb.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
But maybe we... Sometimes we use this for so many years, we need to try something else. I don't know.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's-
Will Betts:
Which one is that, sorry? The [crosstalk 00:30:12].
Simen Eriksrud:
It's Eos.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, the old from...
Simen Eriksrud:
From... What's the... Let me see here. Who is... Is this Audio Damage? Yeah.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It was kind of the first plug-in reverb that came out that had this kind of shimmering effect, like the ValhallaShimmer and the big vintage vibe, the Valhalla thing. No, sorry, vintage vibe, I mean the-
Chris Barker:
As Norwegian's, it's strange you're not choosing Valhalla.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. Maybe we should go for-
Simen Eriksrud:
Valhalla's good.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's pretty good. That's also on everything that we do, but... Shall we-
Simen Eriksrud:
It's really good, the Valhalla.
Espen Berg:
The Valhalla VintageVerb? We need some reverb in there.
Simen Eriksrud:
But also the Seventh Heaven is really good.
Espen Berg:
Oh, yeah. That's great.
Simen Eriksrud:
They sampled... What's the name of that hardware, famous hardware?
Espen Berg:
Yeah, the Bricasti.
Simen Eriksrud:
That's the one. Yeah.
Will Betts:
Yeah, nice.
Simen Eriksrud:
It's really good.
Chris Barker:
We could-
Speaker 5:
Upsell your dreams.
Chris Barker:
Why not get the Bricasti M7?
Espen Berg:
Yeah, we'll definitely do the hardware Bricasti one.
Simen Eriksrud:
But it's so easier to just put it on a plugin. If you want to side-chain it, it's a nightmare if you want to side-chain a hardware boxes.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
That's a very good point. Yeah.
Espen Berg:
A few years ago, we'd definitely say the 224 or the 480, but it's such a hassle to use the hardware boxes now.
Will Betts:
So is this like SSL days you're talking about, where you'd have-
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
That's a classic look.
Espen Berg:
We'd have so much stuff patched in there and all turn out into a huge mess at the end of the day.
Chris Barker:
So no Bricasti M7. We're going-
Espen Berg:
We'll actually go with the Valhalla VintageVerb, I think. Because we're always using it, like on everything.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, nice.
Espen Berg:
So that's our go-to plugin for reverb.
Chris Barker:
And that's good with the Valhalla reference. I am enjoying that.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
To Valhalla! Exactly.
Espen Berg:
We should have actually picked a channel strip on this. We could have taken more stuff into one.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. Because enabled, you can wrap it up a lot of plugins into one.
Chris Barker:
Into like... What would you call that? A bundle?
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
It's fine. It's a rack. It's not a bundle. It's not a bundle.
Espen Berg:
Well, so we covered that and luxury item is free of... It's not necessarily connected to music or?
Chris Barker:
It's not studio gear but it might be something that you always have in everything studio you're in.
Espen Berg:
Right.
Chris Barker:
It could be a painting, it could be an awesome-
Simen Eriksrud:
I would go for the coffee machine.
Chris Barker:
Coffee machine is a popular choice.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
But it's on it's last verse now, so we need to change it.
Simen Eriksrud:
Maybe upgrade it a little bit because it's a pretty fancy coffee machine, it was quite expensive.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's been doing like... I think I took one of them at home and that was already on 30,000 cups I think.
Will Betts:
Whoa!
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, because it actually counts on the cups.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:33:00].
Simen Eriksrud:
For 10 years.
Espen Berg:
No, more.
Simen Eriksrud:
More?
Espen Berg:
I bought it...
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, it must be.
Espen Berg:
The one that I bought, it was before my first son was born. Remember.
Chris Barker:
30,000 cups.
Espen Berg:
A long time ago.
Simen Eriksrud:
I remember, we were working with the... you know the lead singer of A-ha, Morten Harket. Yeah?
Espen Berg:
The '80s band, yeah.
Simen Eriksrud:
It was 11, 12 years ago and back then we were using just instant coffee. That tastes, sorry to say, but like shit. But then when he came to the studio, he had this big coffee machine with him.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. He was carrying the machine under his arm.
Simen Eriksrud:
Because he couldn't stay in a studio and work with this crappy studio coffee so he always brought this big machine. And he had a friend that imported and his friend sold it to us.
Espen Berg:
He set us up a good deal.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah.
Espen Berg:
So we actually bought this machine and it was actually the one he carried down here.
Simen Eriksrud:
It's the same. So we had this one for 12 years and-
Chris Barker:
It sounds like he was essentially a coffee machine salesman though.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. He kind of like... you know?
Chris Barker:
He just arrives with it.
Espen Berg:
I can kind of imagine him...
Chris Barker:
Did the track ever get recorded or come out?
Simen Eriksrud:
No.
Chris Barker:
Or did he just go, "Right," and take his commission?
Espen Berg:
It did actually. It was for an album that he was doing.
Chris Barker:
That's brilliant.
Espen Berg:
But I can imagine him going around. I mean he's all over several studios probably a week. I'm not sure what he's doing right now, but he's just carrying along these machines. It's like selling them. He's selling more of them than any other salesman for the company.
Simen Eriksrud:
I remember I was pretty nervous when we were waiting for him, because he was a big pop star. And I saw him up the stairs with this huge coffee machine, I said, "What the fuck?"
Espen Berg:
Yeah. It's a JURA coffee machine. It's a Swiss make.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Espen Berg:
It's good, but these days there are so many great coffee machines.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah. Of course.
Espen Berg:
So we are sorry to say we have to get a new one soon because it doesn't taste as good any more. They have a lifespan, these machines I think.
Chris Barker:
But it records the amount of cups?
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
So you know that it's 30,000 cups?
Espen Berg:
It's way past 30,000 now, by the way. This was a long time ago. If you count, I mean how many cups a day?
Simen Eriksrud:
If it's 10 cups a day in the whole studio? We are [crosstalk 00:35:06] people there.
Espen Berg:
10? I would say 20.
Simen Eriksrud:
Then you have 7,000 a year.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. We're not drinking all those cups ourselves though.
Will Betts:
You share the studio?
Espen Berg:
We have people around it.
Simen Eriksrud:
We're shaking. We're shaking in the studio. I've got 70,000 cups of coffee.
Espen Berg:
Yeah. If you want to know the secret behind the stuff that we do-
Simen Eriksrud:
Drink a lot of coffee.
Espen Berg:
... that's coffee. Too much.
Will Betts:
You don't need any beat repeat with those, do you?
Espen Berg:
No. We're twitching all around the studio.
Chris Barker:
Twitchy, shuffley kind of music. Yeah, good. Nice. Okay, Will, do you want to do the rundown of what's been selected and then we can see whether you're happy or not with this? You've got to picture it. Okay, Will, here we go.
Will Betts:
Okay. I mean have you picked the JURA coffee machine? Is that what you're going to go again for your coffee machine?
Espen Berg:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Will Betts:
Okay. Beautiful.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, definitely.
Will Betts:
So picture the scene. We are outside Olso, in the forest near a lake with birds singing in the trees. You have a Mac Pro, £60,000 version, fully specced out, ready to great. Your DAW is Ableton Live Suite and your running audio into and out of a Universal Audio x8p, listening back on ATC SCM150s, recording vocals with a Golden Age GA251. And for mastering, you're using Isotope Ozone 5, interesting choice. You're playing the synth parts of a Sequential Prophet 600, modded especially by Espen.
Will Betts:
And for more modern sounds, you're using the Native Instrument's Massive plugin. Good choice. And for reverbs you have a Valhalla VintageVerb. And to keep you going through the whole thing, there is a JURA coffee machine, Swiss made, ready to make thousands and thousands of cups of coffee. How does that sound?
Simen Eriksrud:
Perfect.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, spot on.
Simen Eriksrud:
That's it.
Espen Berg:
That's us.
Simen Eriksrud:
Let's move to the forest.
Chris Barker:
Okay guys. Okay, well that's the end of the podcast then. If you're happy, that's the end.
Simen Eriksrud:
Yeah, we're happy. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
I mean all we need to do now is strap on some bells and head to the studio.
Espen Berg:
I'm going to have this picture in my mind every time I go out biking now in the woods.
Chris Barker:
Covered in bells.
Simen Eriksrud:
The bear is waiting for you.
Espen Berg:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Maybe you could train that bear to make you coffee. That would be nice.
Will Betts:
And when's your next single and when's new music coming out for your guys?
Simen Eriksrud:
It comes actually on Friday.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, it's Friday now. It's Monday 7th, so that would be the 11th, wouldn't it? September 11th?
Chris Barker:
So for people hearing this, it's definitely out now. You might even have something else out by then.
Espen Berg:
Yeah, probably.
Chris Barker:
So check it out.
Espen Berg:
There's a lot of new music coming this fall. We're going to have the part two of our album coming as well, the Sad In Scandinavia.
Chris Barker:
All right then guys. Well thank you so much for joining us.
Espen Berg:
Thanks guys. [crosstalk 00:38:07].
Chris Barker:
Good luck with everything in the world as it is right now. And we'll see you on the other side with new music.
Simen Eriksrud:
Thank you, guys.
Espen Berg:
Yes, lovely. Thanks guys. Bye.
Will Betts:
Thanks guys.
Simen Eriksrud:
Bye.
Chris Barker:
Cheers.
Simen Eriksrud:
Bye.
Will Betts:
If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcasting app and give us a glowing review and a five star rating.
Chris Barker:
Yes, please. And don't forget, dialling in next time in Grammy-nominated transatlantic DJ and Producer, Mat Zo.
Will Betts:
That's right. The genre-bending producer will be running us through what he needs for this Forever Studio to make his signature mix of EDM, dubstep and progressive house.
Chris Barker:
That's right. Thanks for listening, and catch you next time.