Lakeshouse

Lakeshouse – My Studio

For years and years we didn’t have access to a studio and just worked in our bedrooms. When Endre started studying music production at Westerdals we tried a bunch of the studios there and this one is our favourite by far. The monitors here are just incredible and we mixed all the tracks on the Firkanta EP on them. The acoustics in the control room are acceptable for recording too and most of the vocals and trombone on the EP were recorded in here as well. We try not to record vocals in a booth as the synergy of us together in a room makes for better performances.

Squire Bass

Espen: This is actually not mine, it’s my good friend Joel’s. It’s one of the best affordable basses I’ve played. It’s almost impossible to tune properly, but it sounds great when you get it right; fat, chuggy and dry like a 60’s kinda bass. Especially when played with thumbs. And since it’s so small, it’s a dream to play! On the track “Firkanta” it went straight into the box through an LA-2A compressor, which gives it that warm, fuzzy feel.

Focal Solo 6 BE

Endre: Though I have not heard these play in a different room than this one, I am pretty sure
they would sound great in an equally treated room. The treble is crystal clear and highly
detailed, and the mid-range, 100 – 800Hz in particular, is so precise it’s disturbing. I’ve
referenced albums I love and listened to a thousand times on these and discovered mid-range
blunders and irregularities I’d never heard before. When I do surround mixes (Which is possible
in this studio) these babies make for a near-psychedelic experience.

You can check out our monitor guide for 2019 here. 

Sketchbook

Bjørnar: I usually bring my sketchbook to the studio. Just to doodle while the other guys are
mixing. The drawing to the right is me trying to draw a portrait of Bill Evans.

Roland SH-32

Bjørnar: The SH-32 was the first synth I ever bought. It’s pretty damaged now and has a mind of its own but we still like it, mostly for soundscapes and simple arps. It has the dumbest arp mode that makes me laugh every time I use it. Some of the presets are just so gnarly they can make or break a track. A lot of the knobs no longer work so I often find myself having to workaround its limitations. Next to it on left is a zoom recorder if we need some ambience from the street or the woods.

Korg MS2000

Bjørnar: I got The Korg MS2000 about two years ago from my dad. Just out of the blue he bought it for me. It’s probably the greatest present I’ve ever been given. When you get your hands on something like this it feels like a whole new world. Our track «​Du kan gjere kva du vil»​ (meaning:«You can do what you want to do») was made almost exclusively by the MS2000. The built-in arpeggio is dodgy and unpredictable and whenever I use it I always ends up somewhere different than I intended, and I’m usually happy for it. This piece of equipment really made me feel like I could do whatever I wanted. Thanks dad.

Casio SA-10

Endre: This is my favourite plaything atm. I love buying old kids’ keyboards at garage sales and sampling them. Most of the sounds are useless but there are always a few that sound amazing, and processing those in Ultrabeat, EXS24 or Kontakt makes for great possibilities. You can hear the SA-10 on both Ambulanse and Robåt. Ambulanse would not have happened without it as I used it for the main chords, my favourite sound on the thing.

Arturia MiniBrute

Endre: I actually have two of these babies, but one of them experienced a severe swing in temperature and is currently dead. Though you can do a lot of different sounds with these I typically use them for arpeggios, leads, white noise effects, percussion and sweeps. A lot of the noisy stuff on Robåt is from this synth. There is something really pleasant about building your own drum sounds with subtractive synthesis as it gives me a personal relationship to them. Using this synth is like a never-ending rabbit hole of distractions and happy accidents. Some times I use it for meditation. Tweaking drones feels very similar to doing a chant or a mantra.

Trombone

Andreas: S.E.Shires Michael Davis tenor trombone. This is my favourite horn. It is a small bore trombone with great overtone production and a round personal sound. It is my go-to horn if we need a nice solo or melody (I also have a Conn 88HT Greenhoe Large bore trombone that I use for more orchestral/low register parts). Next to the trombone is my trusted plunger mute, $5 at the local hardware store – great for effects!