Moodmusic boss Klas Lindblad – aka Sasse and Freestyle Man – shows us around his incredible Blackhead Studio.
Freestyle Man – My Studio
An overview of Blackhead Studio.
Speaker Setup
I love my speaker setup of Focal nearfields and Genelec 1032s as mains, but I miss a small NS-10/Auratone kind of speaker for checking vocal levels and such. So I’m looking into the small One 12s from Amphion or classic Auratones for a second pair of nearfields. I do like the Focal 6be Solos for their non-fatiguing sound and great stereo width, but I’m missing a bit of mids on them.
Avocet Monitor Controller
I think the most underrated gear in studios are usually monitor controllers. The Avocet from Crane Song is such an excellent sounding monitor controller with a great headphone amp and plenty of connection possibilities. Actually it’s the most used piece of gear in my studio alongside my monitors, so the investment in a good monitor controller always pays off.
Yamaha PM1000 Mixer
This is my favourite tool in the studio, my trusted old Yamaha PM1000 mixer. It’s a live board from the 70s but fully discrete and mine is as new with lots of mods and a full recap and beefed-up power supply. There are so many legends on the interwebs about this desk – about Neve this, and API that. It’s all crap. It just has tons of soul to it, and that’s good enough to me. The slogan they advertised these boards is spot on: “Think of them as your musical instrument.”
Tegeler Vari Tube
The Tegeler Vari Tube is a really musical tube compressor, and it’s affordable as well. Michael from Tegeler Audio is a great guy and builds amazing processors so I want to support businesses like his. When I do stem-mixing I run usually bass or vocals through the Tegeler, with a very tiny bit of compression. Even running stuff through it without compression is a nice way of getting a bit of that round tube-sweetness to your material.
Analogue Synths
The SH-101 and Jupiter-8 are my faves when it comes to analogue synths. I guess I’m a Roland fan. I had most of the big polyphonic classics and the Jupiter is the only one which stayed. It’s just good for anything, be it the bass, pads or leads. In my current setup I sequence it with the Arturia BeatStep Pro, which is synced to my DAW. Mine has a Kenton MIDI inteface so this makes life much easier.
NI Maschine & Omnichord Le Strum MIDI Strummer
These are my favourite controllers, the NI Maschine and a hand-made Omnichord Le Strum MIDI strummer. The Maschine is just a beast when it comes to loops and grooves – I’m using the drum sequencer as my main writing tool. Le Strum is a funny little gadget which you can use to make these epic string or synth arpeggios and chords – it’s hard to describe what is does but it’s so much fun.
Cables and Finnish Brandy
The perfect combo after a long day in the studio.
Klas Lindblad’s Wave EP as Freestyle Man is out on April 8th on his own Moodmusic. Find him on Facebook and SoundCloud.
04.25 AM
Only problem with this “studio” article is that there seems to be so much more to talk about in there…
10.40 AM
Nice one.
Have a look here for some video insights in his studio – https://youtu.be/V4mLQwQTtIo
08.57 AM
best section ever.
But I agree that there seems to be much more things to talk about.
09.50 PM
Totally with Michael, there are so many pieces of kit and ya hear nothing about how he really uses it all. Not asking for a full on interview, but something!
08.19 AM
silly honest question here…. does anybody know where i can get those black patch cables in the patchbay pick? i need some that length. recommendatons welcome. cheers