This time, we’re joined by trailblazing DJ and producer Sasha. The prolific creator has made music spanning electronic genres from acid house to atmospheric trance and more. He’s produced with James Zabiela, John Digweed and BT, remixed Madonna and scored video games such as Gran Turismo. He’s also a massive production nut and one of the first innovators to take Ableton Live into the DJ booth. In this episode, he flips the script and builds his fantasy forever studio from gear he’s lost over his career. Learn which pieces of studio outboard take his fancy, which leftfield vintage synth makes his list and how he learns how to use new equipment in the studio.
This time, we’re joined by trailblazing DJ and producer Sasha. The prolific creator has made music spanning electronic genres from acid house to atmospheric trance and more. He’s produced with James Zabiela, John Digweed and BT, remixed Madonna and scored video games such as Gran Turismo. He’s also a massive production nut and one of the first innovators to take Ableton Live into the DJ booth.
In this episode, he flips the script and builds his fantasy forever studio from gear he’s lost over his career. Learn which pieces of studio outboard take his fancy, which leftfield vintage synth makes his list and how he learns how to use new equipment in the studio.
STUFF WE TALK ABOUT (SPOILERS AHEAD!)
https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/japan/park-hyatt-tokyo/tyoph/dining
https://www.thomann.de/gb/thon_studio_side_rack_xl_10u_black.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Weatherall
https://www.musictech.net/reviews/dj/pioneer-djm-v10-mixer/
https://www.vintagedigital.com.au/ams-dmx-15-80s-stereo-digital-delay/
http://piecesof8music.com/roster/steve-dub/
https://voidacoustics.com/club/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_JD-800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooky_(DJs)
https://uisoftware.com/metasynth/
https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/rackmount/harmonizer/h9000
https://www.eventideaudio.com/community/forum/rackmount/h9000-app
https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/stompboxes/multi-effect-processor/h9-max
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, engineers, DJs, and industry figureheads about their fantasy forever studio.
Will Betts:
The studio our guests describe will be one that they have to live with forever, but even in fancy forever land, we have some rules. Totally reasonable and non-arbitrary rules.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. So what are these rules? Well, our guests can select a computer, a DAW, and an audience face. Those are freebies given. Then they have the complex challenge of choosing just six other bits of studio kit. Plus one non-studio related, luxury item.
Will Betts:
Chris, there is one more rule though. Isn't there?
Chris Barker:
Yeah. And it's very important.
Speaker 4:
No bundles!
Chris Barker:
No bundles. That's the one. Choosing a package of separate software or hardware as a single item is not permitted.
Will Betts:
Today on the show, we have a gentleman that Wikipedia calls Alexander Paul Coe, but he is better known to the world as Sasha.
Chris Barker:
Yes, indeed. Sasha is prolific and his music spans electronic genres from acid house to atmospheric trends and much more, making him a very difficult artist to pin down. Sasha is produced with the likes of James Zabiela, John Digweed, BT, and he even remixed Madonna, scored video games such as Gran Turismo, and the list goes on. He was also one of the first true superstar DJs.
Will Betts:
He's also an enormous gear head and one of the first innovators to take Ableton Live into the DJ booth. So I'm excited to hear what's on his list.
Chris Barker:
Yes, let's get to it. This is My Forever Studio with Sasha. Welcome.
Sasha:
Hi guys. Nice to be here.
Chris Barker:
That was a chunky intro for you. Did you like it?
Sasha:
I liked it very much. You missed a few things out, but...
Chris Barker:
We don't have time.
Will Betts:
We don't have time for all your accolades, let's just say. Yeah, I know. Yeah.
Sasha:
No, I'm joking.
Chris Barker:
As we've just heard, superstar DJ travelling the world. Where would you put your dream forever studio in the world and what would it look like? You know, the space and the vibe.
Sasha:
I mean, probably one of the most inspiring places I've ever written music was... Have you seen Lost in Translation, the movie with Bill Murray?
Chris Barker:
Yes.
Sasha:
That hotel he stays in is called the Park Hyatt in Tokyo. When you're in the rooms in that hotel, you can basically see the whole of Tokyo twinkling away in the middle of the night, or you could see Mount Fuji during the day. I'm lucky enough to have played in Tokyo many times and it's always the place I request to stay. Sometimes the promoter won't foot the bill and I have to pay a little extra myself, but it's just the most incredible hotel with this amazing vista. I find that whenever I go to Tokyo, I'm usually quite jet lagged and it's very hard, as Bill Murray finds out in the film, it's very hard to get adjusted to the local time zones and you do end up sitting up at two, three, four in the morning, wandering down to the lobby to see some guy playing jazz piano or whatever.
Sasha:
I find that in those moments, rather than getting wound up that I can't sleep, which is what I used to do, I treat those moments as kind of sacred writing time. This time when no one's going to bother me. No one can bother me. I'm in this completely alien space, overlooking Tokyo. In terms of writing music, it's one of the most inspiring-
Chris Barker:
Yeah. It must feel like Blade Runner or something, looking-
Sasha:
It really is. It really is like that. I mean, Tokyo is like a city from the future anyway. So yeah, I've written a lot of melodic ideas and worked on tracks at three, four o'clock in the morning in those hotel rooms whenever I've stayed there. So if I had to pick a spot, that would probably be-
Chris Barker:
Yeah, we can do that. We can take it over. We can maybe take over the penthouse, have that as the studio.
Sasha:
Yeah. That sounds good.
Chris Barker:
What about the decor in there? Would you keep it as it is, or do you have a particular vibe that you like for writing? Do you like everything neat and tidy and kind of futuristic or-
Sasha:
My studios have usually been quite messy because I'm constantly changing things. I've found that whenever I've paid a load of money to wire things in, I end up within a year ripping it all out. I'm always moving things around and trying different methods in the studio and changing a direction.
Sasha:
At the moment my studio is just, there's just cables everywhere. I'm always trying to find the right workflow for where pieces of equipment should be. So whenever you set something in stone like build and screw it into a piece of wooden furniture, I usually find it's not the right place for it and I want to move it somewhere else. So at the moment, I've got everything on these wheelie racks that I got from Thomann and I can just move things around and I'm constantly doing that depending on what track I'll be working on that day. I might move my drum machines closer, the sequencers closer, or I might move the mixer closer. Yeah. I'm constantly moving things around.
Chris Barker:
There's something to be said for that. Isn't there? Having a big room with everything in the middle that you can get round the back of everything, because that's the other thing as well. When you hardware everything in, sometimes even if you just want to move a speaker, you're like, oh, I've got to crawl under the desk or-
Sasha:
Yeah. At the moment, I'm in quite a cavernous space in the basement of this house. It's like a garage, a thing that I'm in which when I first walked into it, I was like, this is going to be a disaster because I clapped my hands and there was literally a 12-second reverb in the garage and I was like, this is going to be terrible. What am I going to do? I can't... Oh my God. It was just such... and it was really harsh, you know? I think it was something to do with the metal door of the garage. It was just like, the angles of the walls and stuff, it was just insane, the sound of this reverb.
Sasha:
But, as we bought stuff into it and I set up a sofa there with the telly for when we want to watch some footy, and then on the other side of the room we just put all our boxes and it just all soaked up the reverb, and now it actually sounds amazing. I don't know how I've done it, but I've managed to acoustically treat this terrible space.
Will Betts:
When you get it right, it's just like, don't move a box. Don't touch anything.
Sasha:
Don't move anything. Yeah. But yeah, it's quite wide and quite deep so I can get round all the back of the gear. So if I do need to change something around, it's quite easy. It's just not very, it doesn't look very nice to look at, but in terms of the workflow, I like being able to just constantly move things around.
Chris Barker:
Feels like if you, if you're a young DJ, now you need two studios. You need the one you work in and one for Instagram.
Will Betts:
Or the LEDs. Yeah.
Sasha:
You need one for Instagram that's perfectly white and got the panels everywhere and it's just got, everything's lit with neon, the LED lights and stuff. And then yeah, the one you actually use is just a total mess.
Will Betts:
Yeah. Your laptop on the coffee table or something. Yeah.
Sasha:
It started off like that because when we got locked down and I was in Ibiza, I had no gear there. All my stuff was in London and I didn't even have a pair of speakers. I was like, damn, I'm going to have to work from home. I'm like, okay. So I need to set up. I just gradually... A guy from Pioneer sent me over some speakers and I started borrowing bits of gear from other people or a push controller and this and that, and just gradually built it up and then spent a little bit of money at home and bought a couple of analogue bits. Yeah, it's just, it's not a very complex big studio, but it's got everything that I need right now.
Chris Barker:
What are you working on right now? You've got a new compilation and some bits coming out, some new music?
Sasha:
Yeah. There's a new album coming out this month called LUZoSCURA. It's a compilation of original music. I've also done a DJ mixed version of it. It's 21 tracks with like two of my own... No, three of my own on there actually. It's all come from a sound that I was curating. There was a Spotify playlist that I started working on, started putting together about three years ago. In the beginning it was just the sort of music that I wanted to listen to when I wasn't listening to club music and looking for club music. It was all the weird and wonderful electronic music that I like to listen to at home or that I like to look for inspiration for in the studio. So I started doing this playlist and I'd update it a bit willy nilly, and then in the last couple of years, we've taken it a bit more seriously and it gets updated every couple of weeks now. At the end of the year, we'll do the best 100 tracks of the year.
Sasha:
The response of it's been really, really strong and I feel that when we got into lockdown and all my gigs started to cancel, I found it very hard to listen to banging club music. Two to three months into the lockdown I'm like... Because whenever I'm listening to banging club music, I always think of where I'm going to play it, at what time in my set I'm going to play it, and I'm always organising things in my head and I can't help but do that when I'm listening to club music.
Sasha:
So once all the gigs dropped out for summer, I'm found it hard to listen to it because I'm thinking, well, I don't know where I'm going to play this. Where's this going to fit? When am I actually playing next? So I really gravitated towards this other sound. This LUZoSCURA sound.
Sasha:
I had to do a couple of streams. We did one outside in the garden in Ibiza and I played the sound and put it together as a DJ set. it's the first time I'd actually DJ'd it. I was just used to listening to it on Spotify, but I hadn't actually sequenced the music together before, this kind of music.
Sasha:
A lot of the tracks are really short and there's a lot of music in some of them. So, mixing them, it's quite intense, but it really worked and it really flowed as a DJ set. I really started going down into that sound and we talked about, we should do something with it, develop it. The idea of doing this compilation came about.
Sasha:
The great thing about Instagram and Twitter and stuff these days is that whenever we would update the Spotify playlist, we'd tag all the artists that we were using in the playlist. So I just made a list of like 30 artists that I wanted to put on the compilation and reached out to them, and everyone was like, "Oh yeah, I know the playlist, I've got this piece of music." It came together so quickly and so effortlessly. It was really nice the response I got from a lot of these artists.
Sasha:
A lot of these artists were people that if I had approached them to make a record for Last Night on Earth, which is my more club label, I don't think they would have known what to do with it, but because of the playlist, they already had an idea of what the sound was and it was great because I made a lot of connections with some great new artists, with some older artists that I didn't have a connection with. Yeah, it's been a really positive thing. The album's turned out great I think, and it's going to be dropping this month.
Chris Barker:
The original music that you made for that, was that made in that makeshift studio in Ibiza then?
Sasha:
Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah. I had a couple of these late night spurts where I would just... I had all these MIDI sequences from tracks that we hadn't finished and I'd put them all into one session. So I basically had this master session, Ableton session just full of MIDI clips and I just started firing these MIDI clips onto different synths, and just one night, I think I got like 10 different ideas down. I was about to go to bed at like 11:30 at night. I was in quite a bad mood because it had been quite a full-on day and I thought, I'll just go down and have a fiddle with that session. And then before I knew it was four in the morning, but I had about 10 different ideas printed down and three of those actually turned into these tracks. So yeah, it was one of those nights where I just went crazy with the writing. I like to do that in spurts like that.
Chris Barker:
I think yeah, when you're on it, you've just got to keep going. Haven't you? When you have that moment.
Sasha:
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Well, that segues as nicely into the fact that you're dealing with your limited cutdown studio in Ibiza and we're going to build a limited studio now, but with budget no option, fantasy forever studio.
Chris Barker:
First three things you get for free, you get a DAW, a computer and an audio interface for free. So let's talk about those three things before we get to your six choices.
Sasha:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
So computer-wise, Mac, PC. You must have started back in the day on Ataris and all sorts, right?
Sasha:
Yeah. I think we had an Atari running Notator, was it? Yeah. I mean, we shifted onto Mac as soon as it came available on OS 9. There was some quirky things OS 9 that I do miss. I was talking to BT last year. He's actually rebuilt a whole old OS 9 Mac with all those old plugins and stuff. Because there's stuff that never made it over into OS X, you know? And there was a certain sound that that OS 9 stuff had. We were using Logic in OS 9 at the time and there were just certain plugins there that just had a really unique sound. A little bit crap, but really good. I just got rid of that system completely. I had a whole Pro Tools rig. Yeah, he's actually built that entire system to get that sound back.
Chris Barker:
Did he mention that on the podcast, Will?
Will Betts:
I think he did. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
We had BT on last series. I think he mentioned that. Yeah, yeah.
Sasha:
Yeah. He's got a whole room dedicated to 1990s I think.
Will Betts:
All those zones. Yeah, it's mad.
Sasha:
We talked about making a followup because it was something like 20 years since we made the Ride record together. I think Ralph Moore from Mixmag posted something about it and I was like, God, has it been that long? It's crazy. So I got a hold of him and I'm like, you know, we really should make a followup to that. It came out as well because Andy Weatherall used to play that record at the end of his sets and people always used to tell me that, "Weatherall finished with your track again." It was one of his secret weapons really. I think he used to think it was quite funny he was playing a Sasha and BT record. So yeah, when he passed away it came up and was in the conversation. Yeah, I spoke to Brian and we were like, well, if we're going to do a followup to that record, we've got to use all the equipment we used. He's basically got this whole room set up. I don't think there's any MIDI in it. It'd all be recording things.
Sasha:
A lot of the time I do collaborations, we just start sending stuff backwards and forwards online and a lot of the time you finish a track without even getting in the room with somebody. But we both decided that when this quarantine shit's over, I'm going to come to Washington. I'm sure I'll be heading there for a show anyway as soon as this is over and spend a couple of days in his 1990s room.
Chris Barker:
You should go full '90s. You should do the clothes, the food. The haircuts, everything. Cool. So I guess for your forever shoot, you're going to choose Mac, right?
Sasha:
Yeah. I have to. I would choose one of the biggest, fattest ones available.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Yeah. That's a standard choice. You go for desktop. Yeah? Rather than laptop?
Sasha:
Yeah. The iMac Pro does look pretty tasty though. Pretty powerful. So maybe we'll do that.
Chris Barker:
Will's noting it down. Full spec iMac Pro. That's got to be like-
Sasha:
15 grand, I think. It's just mental.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. What about DAW? What's your choice for music making now? Are you still Ableton?
Sasha:
Yeah. I can't really look anywhere else but Ableton, to be honest. It's just become embedded.
Chris Barker:
You were at the forefront of that. When I interviewed you in Avalon, that was still I think probably still quite a few years after you started using Ableton-
Sasha:
Yeah. I think Ableton 4 was the first one that I got into. So I wasn't right at the front of it, but yeah, it was there. Four and five are the first ones that I really got my head around.
Chris Barker:
Especially taking it live, you were definitely one of the first to-
Sasha:
I do feel that as Ableton developed, it got harder and harder to use it for DJing, actually. It became a little more complex. The earlier versions, five, were a bit more simple and a bit more straightforward for DJing. I think that the Ableton guys just thought, well, Traktor's got the whole DJ thing taken care of so we're just going to focus on the producers.
Chris Barker:
It did feel like there was a split at that time though. They could have had Ableton Live and Ableton Studio and had two products, and have-
Sasha:
Yeah, because it was called Ableton Live. Wasn't it? Yeah. I do feel that it went more studio focused because there are-
Chris Barker:
Are you still Traktor now?
Sasha:
No, I don't use Traktor now. I stopped using that. I had some problems with a particular laptop I had of mine and it just kept on shutting down in the middle of my sets without warning, just go black screen and then I'd have to reboot. It happened three or four times in front of big crowds and really stressed me out. So I went out and bought a new computer, a brand new laptop, set it up completely clean. I was DJing, I think in LA again, and I had the whole night there. I was doing six hours and it did it again in the first hour. I remember for the next five hours, I was just sitting there going, is it going to happen again? I was just, that was it. And then after that I was like, I can't deal with this. I just can't deal with it.
Chris Barker:
So are you back to USBs or Rekordbox-
Sasha:
Yeah. I'm using USBs, Rekordbox. I love the new Pioneer CDJs. They're wicked. Their new mixer as well. The V10 is amazing. I love that new mixer. I'm just much more comfortable that you just know it's not going to go wrong.
Chris Barker:
Do you use the Pioneer sampler? Is it the S1 as well and things like that?
Sasha:
Yeah. S1000 I use. I actually use that quite a bit in the studio. It's really fun. It's really fun in the studio.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Yeah, back to DJing DJing, but because of the technology, it lets you still chop and change like [crosstalk 00:17:55].
Sasha:
Yeah, you can really go to town with looping and effects and stuff now. A lot of the reason why I was so into using Ableton, the new machines cover that anyway.
Chris Barker:
What would your audio interface be?
Sasha:
That's a tricky one. I've changed audio interfaces so many times I don't really have a particular brand that I'm... I guess the Universal Audio ones are probably the ones to go for just because of, they sound great and they've got all those built-in plugins and stuff, but [crosstalk 00:18:30].
Will Betts:
Uh-oh!
Chris Barker:
Oh, he's remembered. Will had the finger on the button there. You do get a few with the device, though, but you won't get any extras. It is the standard choice to the point where this question is becoming a bit tiresome. Sorry, audience. Everybody picks a Mac and the UA, pretty much.
Sasha:
All right. Sorry. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Apart from the engineers who'll go for like a Burl or something like some really weird, high-end, super high-end clock audio interface thing. Well, we'll look in the UA. Do you need mic preamps? There's one with mic pre-amps and one without. Right, Will?
Will Betts:
There's a few different variations. Yeah. Are you going to need mics later on do you think, Sasha?
Sasha:
If someone's coming to Tokyo to record a vocal with me, then yeah. Maybe.
Chris Barker:
With those three freebies out of the way, now we get to your six choices. So item number one in the forever studio, and I guess you're going to need some headphones or some speakers. You're going to need to hear it, but any audio that you choose. Item number one out of your six.
Sasha:
Well, I'm going to talk about the pieces of equipment that would make up my dream studio. There's one in particular that I've never owned, but most of these things I've actually owned them at some point and I've either stupidly sold them or I've left them at a mate's studio and he's stupidly sold them because he needed some money, or they've been lost in a move or nicked or I've given away or I've just got rid of because it wasn't fitting at the time and then massively regretted it later. I think I could make up the studio from bits of gear that I've lost in the mists of time.
Chris Barker:
Love it.
Sasha:
The one piece of kit that I've never owned yet and I'm on the cusp of buying because I keep hiring it whenever I'm in the studio in London and I love it to bits is the AMS digital delay? What's it, the 15? Yes. The AMS model DMX 15-80S computer controlled, stereo digital delay.
Will Betts:
Just rolls off the tongue, that one.
Sasha:
I don't know if anyone's actually done the delay yet. I'm hoping that somebody will do a version of the delay, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they've actually done it and I've missed it. I think there's a reason why they haven't done the delay, because I think it does something so unique and so different to any other plugin, chain in, any other piece of equipment that I've ever owned. It's got this sound to it.
Sasha:
Manchester in 1988 is where I started my musical career and my journey. I started DJing and I was part of this whole Factory Records, Hacienda, Madchester. I was part of that whole sound. I was just right place, right time. I have such a strong connection to the music from there. Everything pretty much made during that period of time has this delay on it. You know, it has such an incredible sound to it, because on the front you've got all these silver knobs that you can muck around with while you're recording. It's just so hands-on and you get stuff out of it that is just absolutely bonkers. It would take you hours with plugin chains to do this and setting up MIDI controllers, and you'd have to know what you were doing it for. Whereas with this thing, we just, whenever-
Chris Barker:
You play it like an instrument kind of thing.
Sasha:
You can play it like an instrument. I know the Chemical Brothers have got like eight of them or something daft and they just hoard them because they keep breaking I think, because they're quite old. They keep on getting them serviced and using parts from one to fix another one.
Sasha:
I worked with Steve Dub who is their engineer or kind of the third member of the Chemical Brothers really. He showed us what he does with it. We would just sit there for hours recording, putting stems through it. We'd print a load of stems of our tracks and we'd feed them into the AMS and just hit record, have it come up on the desk and just go bonkers with it. We've just got hours and hours and hours of stuff that you then go back in and chop up or use. It's so unique and so out there. It's just a beautiful piece of kit.
Will Betts:
We've not had that one before. Yeah. Excellent.
Chris Barker:
Lovely. What a great choice. That's a great way to kick things off. Always nice when somebody picks something that we've not had before on the podcast.
Sasha:
Yeah. I just saw one pop up for a good decent price. I might end up owning it by the end of today actually. We'll see. We'll see.
Chris Barker:
What is a reasonable price for this thing these days? What are we looking at?
Sasha:
I was looking about six months ago and they were all up around four grand. I was told like a year and a half ago they were all down around two grand, so they seem to fluctuate. Maybe when somebody goes on a podcast like this and talks about it, the price goes up, and then they get forgotten about a bit and they've dropped back down again.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, what a great piece of kit.
Chris Barker:
The MusicTech My Forever Studio podcast is supported by EVO by Audient, the fantastic EVO Start Recording bundle and the EVO 4 and EVO 8 interfaces.
Will Betts:
Yes. If you're a beginner, you can enter the world of audio recording with the EVO Start Recording bundle. Professional, powerful and versatile solution for home recording from studio-grade audio brand Audient. This comprises the EVO 4 audio interface, the remarkably robust SR 1 large-diaphragm condenser mic with shock mount, and a set of the Audient EVO SR 2000 monitoring headphones.
Chris Barker:
That's right. Featuring loopback and smart gain, the new EVO bundle and compact interfaces make sure you can achieve studio quality recordings from the start.
Will Betts:
Smart gain means you don't have to worry about setting input levels, making it ideal for music makers who want to spend time creating, not engineering. And loopback lets you record everything you hear through the interface, making it a great fit for home recording rigs, podcasters, streamers, and content creators.
Chris Barker:
EVO Start Recording bundle is suggested to retail at 199 pounds, 220 euros and $249 in the USA.
Will Betts:
Discover EVO online at evo.audio.
Chris Barker:
So if the first choice is not something you own, but you're saying... So item number two, is this going to be something that was stolen or lost or a big regret from selling?
Sasha:
Yeah, let's talk about my MPC3000, actually. That was the first piece of equipment that I bought that I learned inside out. Basically I fell into probably the similar trap that many people do when they first get a studio. I got a record advance and I went, right, I'm going to buy loads of new equipment. Got rid of some of the old stuff or whatever. This was my first room setting up actually, where we ended up recording Xpander and loads of other stuff.
Sasha:
Yeah, I went out and bought loads of equipment and then sat in this room for about a year just not really understanding any of it very well and getting very frustrated and not releasing much music, not really getting anywhere and just constantly reading manuals and not really understanding a lot of the basic stuff.
Chris Barker:
This was a time where the manual was your only option as well. There's no YouTube videos or-
Sasha:
Yeah, there was no YouTube and some of the manuals weren't very well written.
Chris Barker:
There's a lot of bad translation as well from like a lot of Japanese.
Sasha:
Yeah. Really bad translations. Yeah. Japanese or German. Yeah, just not very good translations. I remember getting really frustrated with this room and not getting anywhere with it. Then I decided, I was going to Australia I think for two months. I was touring for a month and I was going to take a break while I was there and I thought, I'm going to take my MPC3000. I'm just going to take one piece of kit with me and I'm going to sit down with it and I'm going to learn it inside out. So I took that, took the manual with me and I did that. I just literally sat there every day with this one piece of kit and by the end of my two months, I just knew it inside out. I understand how everything was working internally and how to get what I wanted out of it. I was getting great sounds out of it. Great grooves.
Sasha:
When I got back to the studio in London, I've suddenly realised I actually knew a lot more of the equipment in the room because I'd learnt one thing inside out. It helped me understand the whole way the studio was set up. So it was a real breakthrough rather than like, you know, I'd been sitting there trying to learn about 10 different bits of gear at the same time and it was just too much. You know? So yeah. That's always my advice to anyone going in the studio, is just learn one thing inside out and everything else, that'll all makes sense to you then.
Chris Barker:
Especially in the day and age of plugins, I think a lot of people do that with synths. They get plugin synths which is ridiculously powerful, but they just don't dig into it. They just go through. Yeah.
Sasha:
No, they don't dig in. They go through the presets and they're like, "This isn't very good," and then they just get bored of it and buy another one. Certain things like Diva, for example, I mean that thing's just so deep and complex and you can get anything you want out of it really. But it's very easy again to flip through presets and go, "No, this isn't really what I'm after."
Chris Barker:
What happened to the MPC?
Sasha:
I don't know. That got lost in a move somewhere. I think I left it, because I stopped using it. Stupidly stopped using it I think when I switched over to Ableton. I thought I don't need that anymore. Yeah. I don't know if it got nicked or left in a storage unit somewhere. Yeah. It's quite sad that one, because that was my... I really wish I'd kept that original machine because I loved the sound of it.
Chris Barker:
Does it have any significant birth marks or tattoos or features that people might recognise?
Sasha:
No, I don't think so. I didn't put any silly stickers or anything on it. It was my first proper connection with the studio, so I just wish I'd held onto it.
Chris Barker:
Well, hopefully somewhere somebody is using it to make music right now and it's not being skipped.
Sasha:
Hopefully, yep.
Chris Barker:
That brings us quickly on to item number three. So, so far you've got an MPC and you've got a delay.
Sasha:
I could do quite a lot with those two. I need a synth, though.
Chris Barker:
Well, you can, but you also can't hear them, so.
Sasha:
Oh, so I've got to get speakers.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. We don't give you those ones for free.
Sasha:
Okay. Well, I would pick the Focal speakers that we use at the moment because they're absolutely ridiculous.
Chris Barker:
Are they the Twin6 Bes? The three-way ones?
Sasha:
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Or the SM9s?
Will Betts:
SM9s are very popular because they just... Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Gary Barlow's-
Will Betts:
Standing speakers.
Chris Barker:
Pick, wasn't it? Yes-
Sasha:
Gary Barlow!
Chris Barker:
Yeah. We had Barlow on our Christmas special who was brilliant and had the SM9s partly so he could throw them at intruders if needed because they weigh a tonne.
Sasha:
Yeah, that's them. SM9s. Five grand. Yeah, they're the ones.
Chris Barker:
Intruder-busting, Focal SM9s.
Sasha:
Yeah. They just sound absolutely brilliant. We have them in the studio in London. I actually work on a pair of really pretty cheap speakers in Ibiza. I've got two little setups in Ibiza. I've got the Pioneer speakers that they sent to me during the lockdown because they were in their lockup in Ibiza. They said, "You can have these." I actually really like working on them. They're just speakers I can work on all day and they just don't bother. They just make everything sound good. I have got a pair of Genelecs wrapped up in a box and I actually think, funnily enough, for working all day long on them, the Genelecs make everything sound just so pretty and wide that you can work on something and think you've really nailed it and take it away and you're like, ah, where's all that? Widened is gone. You know? Yeah, I actually like working on these. Then I've actually got a Void club system in my basement at the moment, which has been lent to me by them and it sounds absolutely sick, but I can't work on that all day long. That's nice for when the friends come over and you want to show off.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. They're pretty sparkly, the Voids as well. Aren't they? They can be quite, maybe not for all day working. It can be a bit fatiguing on the ears.
Sasha:
Yeah. They definitely can be a bit fatiguing to work for long periods on them. The cheaper Pioneer, I think they're about 500 quid a pair of these Pioneers, but I really like working on them. But if I had to pick a pair for my penthouse in Tokyo, it would have to be the SM9s, because those things just sound wonderful.
Chris Barker:
Nice. Lock that in, will. Lock it into the build.
Will Betts:
It's in.
Chris Barker:
Item number four.
Sasha:
Well, yeah, I need a synth. One of the synths that got away again. I've moved a lot in the last 20 years from England to America, back to... All around America, a few different places, back to Europe, back to London, to Amsterdam for a bit, Ibiza. So yeah, I lost my beloved JD-800 synthesiser along the way somewhere. I just don't know what happened to it. I left a few synths in New York. I've got some of them back. I've got an ARP 2600, a blue one, the old one. I got that back, thank God. But yeah, a couple of the other ones, they just got lost in the move somewhere and the guy that was looking after him, he moved a couple of times and he can't remember what happened to them. So somebody somewhere's seen it. It's standing up in a corner somewhere and thought, "I'll have that."
Sasha:
The thing about this JD-800, it's the one that we used for absolutely everything. We used it on Airdrawndagger. We used it on... I mean, just all that music that I wrote in the late '90s or early 2000s. Just everything. We got to a point with that synth where we actually made a decision, I think around about the Involver days, to stop using it because we'd used it for like, I don't know, 15 years on everything.
Chris Barker:
I think it became like, that synth became a little bit of a poster child of that genre of music and around that genre, and once other people started realising that was your weapon, you have to pivot so that they don't catch up with you, I guess.
Sasha:
I guess so. What happened was we got a hold of the Virus, the Access Virus, and that thing does a lot of the same sort of sounds as it, but a lot more as well.
Chris Barker:
It's that Supersaw kind of thing. Isn't it? That they had going on with Roland and those kind of synths I think.
Sasha:
Yeah, but there's something about the JD-800 or the sliders. Editing it, the size of it, the weight of it. The keyboard was nice to play. It was just one of those synths that you could go back to time and time again.
Chris Barker:
It looks so '90s as well. I love it.
Sasha:
Yeah, it does.
Chris Barker:
It was just before that time when they started putting... It was like peak where they couldn't have sub menus and operating systems and things like that, so they just kept have to adding sliders and there was so many.
Sasha:
Sliders and buttons. Yeah. It was just so much fun to sit at and just... We had a Waldorf Wave as well during that period of time, which I ended up selling. Even though we got some amazing things out of the Waldorf Wave, it was very temperamental and it just didn't have the instant wow factor that the JD-800 had. With the JD-800 you'd sit down and within two minutes you'd feel like you're Vangelis. Just wonderful music would start popping out. The Waldorf Wave you'd have to work a little harder with it. It didn't have the internal effects. We did get some amazing things out of that, but I wasn't so attached to it. I don't feel as much loss with selling that, especially because I put the money to good use in the studio.
Sasha:
But with the JD-800, the fact it just went without us realising and it was full of our sounds as well. You know, we'd edited every patch and it was all completely customised to our sounds. There was certain tracks where you could literally sit down, put the preset on and you're like, oh, that's the track. There it is. So, yeah. That's-
Chris Barker:
Any more significant markings or anything? I'd love if one of these got discovered because of the podcast and somebody said, "Oh, I got that. I found it in a-"
Sasha:
Yeah. The only thing I think that's remarkable about it is that all the patch names are just gobbledygook, because Charlie May who did all the programming on that thing would sit at it for hours and he would always name things with just stupid symbols and numbers. He'd never actually named something like atmospheric pad or whatever. He'd always just put down gobbledygook. So that's the only thing that would give it away is that if all the presets in it have got these strange names.
Chris Barker:
Well, listeners do let us know on the email address editors@musictech.net if you think you might have Sasha's lost JD-800.
Chris Barker:
We're closing in now. Item number five.
Sasha:
This is a bit of a curve ball. This is a system that it's sort of a synth, but it's also got a computer linked to it. Could this count?
Will Betts:
Depends what it is.
Chris Barker:
I like the way Will just leant in and put his finger on the button ready. So let's see. Let's see.
Sasha:
Okay. So it's a system called Kyma, K-Y-M-A. It's basically this granular synthesis production tool very much used in Hollywood for sound design and stuff. It comes with a little controller and that's all it does. So there's a computer there, but that's all it does is do Kyma.
Chris Barker:
I've heard of this, yes. A super computer for sound type thing, as it was known.
Sasha:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yes. I remember seeing this thing. You can get it in a rack mount type thing now, can't you?
Sasha:
Yeah. Something like that. So we bought one of these in the '90s and it was just like this... I really love granular synthesis. I really love some of the sounds that we get out of that. We use it quite a lot in the studio. Whenever we get stems for a remix, for example, we'll feed them into lots of different granular synthesis programmes. One of the ones we get the best results out is called Metasynth, but it's really clunky. It's this French programme and it's just really weird and clunky and it's not very easy to use, but we get some incredible things out of it.
Sasha:
Kyma was this system that you could actually do live granular synthesis processes, but it was really hard to use. Nine times out of 10, you would get absolute gobbledygook out of it that wasn't usable. We had it in the studio for probably about 10 years and every time I'd go over to it, you'd end up losing a day of your time because it was quite hard to use. I ended up having a guy come over from New York actually, who was like a Kyma dude and he came for a week and spent a week in my house and the stuff we did that week, we just got in to process loads and loads of stuff and we got such incredible stuff out of there.
Sasha:
So really it was the fact that I just couldn't get my head around it. It was a bit too deep and too complex for me. But if I was locked in a penthouse in Tokyo and I had some time on my hands, I would like to relearn how to use that again because I've had such incredible results out of granular synthesis programming over the last few years. That is the king of all granular synthesis weapons, really. So yeah, to, I would like to revisit that. I sold that system just because I got frustrated with it because it just seemed to be a time wormhole for us.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. It's like one of those systems I guess where you have to spend a day just programming, not making music.
Sasha:
It's kind of like that. Yeah. Or you have to be an absolute nerd and learn it inside out, which I think BT did. He's probably still got a Kyma system in his '90s room.
Chris Barker:
Of course.
Will Betts:
There's some tracks that we can hear your granular synthesis work from Kyma on.
Sasha:
I'm actually working on a project at the moment which is all based around granular synthesis and stretching things. Basically I've been taking little loops of music, say two bars or four bars long, and stretching them to say an hour.
Will Betts:
Are you using PaulStretch or something like that? What are you using to do that?
Sasha:
You can stretch using things like Metasynth and other granular synthesis programmes. You can stretch very small pieces of audio to incredible lengths. We did one for six hours. It was a four-bar piece of music and we stretched it for six hours to see what happened. The interesting thing is that what happens is, there's music buried in between the notes, so the reverb tails or the end of a voice or the beginning of a voice or just all the stuff that's in between the notes, when you stretch it out, you can find magic in there because the granular synthesis programmes, they just fill in the dots. It's almost like AI, really. If you used a normal sampler to stretch it for six hours, it would just be a distorted mess. You couldn't do it. But with granular synthesis, it breaks everything down into tiny little grains and fills in the gaps. If there's a gap there, it'll fill it in.
Sasha:
You end up finding these incredible harmonics and pads and music in between notes that when you actually listen back to the original sample, it's like it's not there. It's almost like the people that wrote the music don't realise that there's a layer behind it. So it's like sampling the space between the notes, which is really exciting. Sometimes you'll get nothing out of it, but sometimes you'll find absolute gold.
Chris Barker:
Does that take us to the last item?
Will Betts:
Yeah. We're onto our last item already. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Okay. That's about on time as well. Well done, us. Final studio item, and then we'll go, we'll do a rundown after this and then you can change your mind after the rundown, see what you think, but what was going to be the final item for your fantasy Tokyo penthouse, amazing studio?
Sasha:
It's a tricky one, but I've become very reliant on using Eventide products over the last 20 years. I've always had... I had H3000 and then the Orville, I had that. Then more recently we've been using the H9 pedals because they're just so powerful. All those algorithms that are in those old bits of kit are in the H9s now and they're just so powerful. So I've got about 10 of those things.
Sasha:
I guess if I had to pick an absolute weapon, it would be their latest flagship, the H9000.
Chris Barker:
A popular choice as well.
Sasha:
That thing I think it can do everything. It's a spin-up between the H9 though, because the H9 you can programme it with the iPad and you can really quite quickly edit your presets. It's actually a really fun thing to use, but the power of the H9000 I think probably, I'd have to-
Chris Barker:
They took the iPad programmability out of the 9000.
Sasha:
Oh, is it in it? I don't know. I haven't got one.
Chris Barker:
I don't know.
Sasha:
I'm actually, I'm waiting to get a hold of one. They're going to send one over for me. I actually had sold my Orville so that I could pay for that.
Will Betts:
You can actually. The H9000 does have an app, but I'm super interested because people at home, obviously not many people can afford an H9000, but the H9s are super affordable though.
Sasha:
They're super affordable and they've got just incredible algorithms in there. I use ones when I'm DJing. Usually in DJ mixes, reverb, the algorithms are pretty crap. The Pioneer one, sorry guys, isn't very good. Their echoes. They're just not great. The new Pioneer mixer has got the analogue effects section in it, which is absolutely brilliant. I use that a lot, but I don't really use... On the other side of the mixer, they've got the standard effects that they've used, the digital effects. I don't know. You can't compare those to Eventide. Eventide just, you put a reverb on and it's cavernous and it can fill the whole club up. They're pretty amazing.
Chris Barker:
With that V10 mixer, you've got amazing routing so you can route to a fader. You can have the aux as a fader so you can cut stuff and it's really nice.
Sasha:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's a wonderful mixer that is. But yeah, the H9s are just so powerful. They're affordable. Yeah. We ended up buying a load for our live show so that my piano had its own one. We went direct out of the piano into the mixer and all the synths had their own H9. So we've ended up with about eight of the things. In the studio I use two.
Will Betts:
What are your favourite algorithms on the H9 then?
Sasha:
Oh, let me think. I can't think straight, hang on a second.
Chris Barker:
Are they mono in stereo out?
Sasha:
I think it's stereo in stereo out. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Oh, lovely.
Sasha:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
They've got some amazing names from there. I remember I was at a NAMM show one time and they were releasing the CrushStation and they decided that their whole thing was going to be like wearing crab claws. And so this guy was adjusting the one knob on the top and it was just a giant crab claw and it was very unwieldy, I'll say.
Sasha:
Yeah, they've got Tricerachorus, Harmadillo. I think the SpaceTime are the ones that I use the most. Shimmer is another one that I really like for the reverbs, the Shimmer one, the SpaceTime. Then obviously for pitch shifting, the Crystallizers and stuff are just incredible. With the app, you can put two or three on top of each other and create these really quite deep and complex presets. Yeah, I've got a really wonderful pitch-shifting reverb that just bends while I'm DJing. And if you throw the whole track through it on a kick or a snare, it just fills the whole club up. It's the one I go to all the time. I think it's called Hell's Gate. I use that a lot for my DJ sets.
Chris Barker:
Well, I definitely want one of these now. I had to play with them once at a NAMM awesome thing when they brought the pedals out. They were great. Yeah. Need one.
Sasha:
Yeah. We use them on absolutely everything.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So, going for the 9000. Are we going for the big one?
Sasha:
I think so.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, you've got to. Okay. So Will, do you want to do the rundown? Sasha, have a listen to this. This is your forever studio.
Will Betts:
We're in a penthouse at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, specifically for those sacred writing moments that you mentioned. Your computer is the now discontinued iMac Pro, fully stocked. Your audio interface is a Universal Audio Apollo. You have Ableton Live 11 Suite we're going to give you because we're benevolent like that. For your studio items, you have chosen an AMS DMX 15-80S stereo digital delay, an Akai MPC3000, Focal SM9s. Your synth is a Roland JD-800, and you've also gone for the Kyma granular synthesis system, and for effects, an Eventide H9000.
Chris Barker:
How does that sound?
Sasha:
That sounds like I could make some music with that.
Chris Barker:
Yes. Good. So no changes? We're locking that in?
Sasha:
Let's lock it in.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, we've locked it in.
Sasha:
The only other synth that I lost... I'm still not as attached to it as the JD-800 but I had a Memorymoog once and that was a beautiful piece of kit, but it kept on going wrong and we eventually got rid of it because it just was really unstable. But the sounds we got out of that were really beautiful. I think the JD-800 is yeah, it's that long lost love.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Yeah.
Will Betts:
What's interesting about that though specifically, is that I think that's the first vintage digital synth that anyone's chosen. Everyone always goes for old analogue stuff. That's the way that people go with this. So to have that is a nice change. Do enjoy that.
Chris Barker:
We've got one final item. It's not a piece of studio kit, but it's a luxury item that you can have in this penthouse. Obviously you've got your furniture, you've got your cables, you've got your family, you've got your pets. Don't worry about any of that stuff. Is there something that you've always had in the studio, like a picture or some art or something that you would have in the fantasy world to have in that studio? A luxury item?
Sasha:
Oh yeah. I've got, there's this one picture of me on top of Space. It was taken for the Global Underground in Ibiza compilation. Dean managed to get a picture of me on the roof of Space with my legs hanging over next to the Space sign and the planes going overhead and I'm pointing up at the plane. I don't know, it just makes me very happy. It reminds me of where I came from.
Chris Barker:
What year was that taken?
Sasha:
That would have been, when was that? '94 or '95.
Chris Barker:
Wow.
Sasha:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
That's been in every studio since then pretty much.
Sasha:
It has. Yeah, it has.
Chris Barker:
That's wicked. That rounds up the My Forever Studio podcast with Sasha. Thank you so much, Sasha, for joining us. I had a blast. Always good talking gear with you.
Sasha:
Nice one. Great. Thanks for having me.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Compilation will be out, is out now, so check that out. Yeah, that's it.
Sasha:
Nice one, fellows.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Thanks so much to Sasha. But before we do the usual call for reviews, suggestions and general love and affection, we have a statement from Sasha. How do you feel about this, Will? A statement. Pretty political, right?
Will Betts:
It feels dubious, Chris.
Chris Barker:
It's a statement regarding a forever studio gear choice. So hold your breath, Will, finger on the buzzer.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
It's also worth noting as well, we should point out that this was recorded while Sasha was under the travel limits of the pandemic and wasn't in the studio, which you may have noticed from the less than perfect recording, but hopefully you still enjoyed it. We thought it was a great episode.
Chris Barker:
Anyway, here it goes. I'll read the statement. This is from Sasha.
Chris Barker:
I want to change the sound card because I've been using the pioneer VM10 mixer in my home studio since we did the My Forever Studio podcast. I use it as my sound card and it's brilliant to have a DJ mixer with a sound card in it and that level of control. I can record live DJ sets into Ableton and all the channels and effects come up on separate channels so I can properly edit and produce the mixes after I've done the live mix. The rooting in the mixer is amazing and the onboard analogue effects section is really powerful and useful. I just mixed down the LUZoSCURA album with it, and it was so effortless and fun. I know this is a bit of a cheat because it's a sound card and a mixer... Bundle button ready, Will. But I thought I would see if I could sneak it in. So, are we allowing this, Will? What do you reckon?
Will Betts:
I'm going to allow it because I think it's a clever workaround and I appreciate that. Also, yeah, this is a one-time deal. This won't happen again.
Chris Barker:
Let's draw a line under it. Okay. Done. Sasha, you have your Pioneer VM10 swapped in.
Will Betts:
Well done.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Now for our cries for love and affection.
Will Betts:
Yes. If you are loving the My Forever Studio podcast, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcasting app and give us a five-star rating and a review, please. We do read all of them and we love hearing your guest suggestions. We've actually had some amazing guest suggestions in the last week or so for the next series, so if you want to us, email editors@musictech.net.
Chris Barker:
Yes. Yes. And next week on our final episode of the series... Cry, cry.
Will Betts:
Oh, final episode! So, I'm not a loud crier. I'm like a single tear guy.
Chris Barker:
Like the emoji. I see, yeah. Next week on our final episode of the series, we journey into studio forever-dom with the brilliant Belgium brothers, Soulwax. Soulwax, Will.
Will Betts:
Yes.
Chris Barker:
Soulwax, you're excited?
Will Betts:
I'm very excited. I've been a big fan for a long time. So if you tune in next time, you'll discover that they are a duo that have so many synths, they sometimes forget what they already own. So it's going to be worth listening to, and it's going to be a huge challenge for them, more importantly.
Chris Barker:
It's nice when people have just lockups and warehouses full of gear that they've collected and they can't remember what they have. So yeah, do tune in for that one. It's going to be fantastic. I can't wait. We'll see you next time.
Will Betts:
See you next time. Bye-bye.