Rare gear, custom-built furniture and a classic synth which once belonged to Vincent Gallo… Gui Boratto shows us round the amazing home studio where he made his new album, Abaporu.
Gui Boratto – My Studio
This is my home studio. It’s a floating wood box in my apartment here in São Paulo. I use a Mac Pro running Pro Tools and Logic 9.
EMS VCS3
This is one of my favorite pieces of gear. It’s the EMS VCS3, used by Pink Floyd on Dark Side Of The Moon. I bought it from the actor Vincent Gallo. It’s quite expensive but it sounds so unique. Songs like ‘Galuchat’ and ‘Stems From Hell’ were made with a lot of its sounds.
Sequential Circuits Six Trak
This is the Six Trak from the inventors of MIDI, Sequential Circuits. It’s a very cheap but still nice little synth. I’ve made some nice sounds with it. The main ‘Azzurra synth lines were made by this baby. I’ve even used it for some drum bleeps. It reminds me of some of Kraftwerk’s sounds.
Apogee Converters & Summing Box
My favourite AD/DA converters are the AD-16x and DA-16x by Apogee. The black summing box is from Electric Lane. It’s a hand-made analogue box built by Mitch, the same engineer from Robert Babicz’s studio. It sounds soooo nice!
Acoustic Treatment
The shape of my studio has been worked on by my friend Leo Leite. He worked for years with Sasha in NYC. Some years later he came back to Brazil and he specialised in studio acoustics and shapes. He made my entire studio and he also made the diffusers, all in wood. The walls are coated in ecological leather. As I smoke, I preferred this option instead of common studio fabrics, avoiding the smoke smell. And it looks and feel so much nicer.
Guitars, Bass & Mandolin
Some of my guitars and bass. The mandolin was a recent acquisition. I’ve been trying to play REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ In the back, the 2010 Beatport Prize for Best Electronica Track with ‘Besides’, from my second album Take My Breath Away.
Monitors
For monitors, I use a pair of ADAM S2X and Dynaudio AIR Series.
Koma Elektronik Sync Box
I was using the Pro Solo MkII from Kenton, but this year I discovered the super RH 301 from Koma Elektronik, a very small factory from Berlin. It can sync different types of old and new machines running together with no stress. It solved lots of problems using different syncs together.
Gui’s new album, Abaporu, is out now on Kompakt. Stream it now via Spotify or order from iTunes here. Find Gui on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.
02.24 PM
Nice post.
04.54 PM
Cool! Great artist!
08.27 PM
Very, very nice. Jealous! Great studio. Great artist.
10.17 PM
I got Abaporu album last night. Gui never dissapoint!
10.35 PM
Musician and architect! Good taste!!
03.22 PM
Too much – follows the trend of many other artists collecting incredible amounts of gear…..
11.23 AM
What a epic collection of synths 🙂
05.21 PM
So curious to know how certain artists afford the gear, does their music pay for it? Job on the side making comercial soundtracks? A garbage man?
09.30 PM
@yush Thats the thing with Analog equipment. It’s very large and each piece has a unique range. You combine many together to get unique sounds. The trend would be to simply use the computer to create beats on piano roll. Computers are great, but Gui is a great audio engineer and producer. He knows analog is second to none.
12.23 AM
The money comes most from his Daddy, his family is loaded. This way is pretty easy to get a Studio like that.
11.57 PM
Yep a lot of artists have rich parents, not all but a lot. The ones who hustle have my respect.
01.48 PM
Rafael: So what if his ‘Daddy’ bought his synthesisers, I’d call that an investment in his sons future.. Now if someone was using ‘Daddies’ cash to go out and party or feed a drug habit.. Now that’s a different story.
04.36 PM
has he used any of this ? the album sounds like it was produced with laptop