Vin Sol shows us round Soo Wavey HQ, the studio where he and label co-owner Matrixxman work.
Vin Sol & Matrixxman – My Studio
Soo Wavey is located in the shadows of an abandoned TV tower in San Francisco, close to numerous bulk health food co-op outlets. The studio was built five years ago and over the years has been expanded and remodeled a couple of times. We didn’t have a table saw when we built it so the dimensions are all based on a single sheet of plywood. Straight up simplicity. Everything is custom to the room and lots of friends have helped out in one stage of the build or another. On the last go around we tackled the shelves and desk in which both Nikola Baytala and Matrixxman put in work. Just some bros with power tools getting busy, no big deal really. It’s powered by a Mac Pro and Genelec monitors, which was one of the more crucial upgrades recently.
Akai MPC2500
When I began making music I started with an Akai MPC. Through the years I have had the 60 MKII, a 3000, even a 4000 but ultimately I ended up buying the 2500 twice and keeping the guy. I like to do my drums on here. The swing is boss and the MIDI integration into the rest of my setup really helps with workflow.
TR-808 with MIDI upgrade
At Soo Wavey HQ we love to bang the boxes. I got this bad boy in a trade with a dude on Craigslist – one of the best moves of my life. Having MIDI on here is the ultimate, since I like to use the MPC to sequence. It’s always instant inspiration. I love how no two 808s sound the same. The best example of that is Matrixxman’s ‘Soul M8’ on Soo Wavey. He used another 808 (that was modded) and it was astonishing how different it sounded from mine.
Doepfer MAQ16/3 sequencer
I don’t know why the hell I bought this guy but I do not regret it at all. It’s a sweet sequencer with endless possibilities and three rows of parameters to get freaky with. I bust this out when I’m trying to get textures that are a little more random and off.
Outboard Effect Rack, aka The Tower of Power
I tend to use a mix of plugins and hardware effects in my production. The past couple of years I’ve kinda chilled on getting new synths and drum machines due to space and have been building this stack up. The Eventide H3000 SE is pretty much my go-to for activating sounds. There is the classic DBX compressor in there, my RE-201 Space Echo and a couple of 500-series units in there for colour and EQ.
Korg Mono/Poly
This is the closest thing in my studio to a modular synth. I kinda like to find really convoluted ways to trigger synths. Check this routing out: MPC to Future Retro Revolution to a DIN-sync splitter to the TR-707 to the SH-101 to the Mono/Poly. This whole process gets me harder than a roll of quarters. Good times!
The Personal Trainer
Every studio should have a personal trainer for those moments when you gotta push a little harder. Gotta keep it smoke free in the studio so we use vapour power. Looks like we ran outta cookies, which happens to have the same name as the A-side to my upcoming Soo Wavey 12″.
Matrixxman appears on Metaphysix, II: Rhythm, out now on Jimmy Edgar’s Ultramajic. Vin Sol’s Western Ways EP is out on June 16th on Soo Wavey, with an EP on Heidi’s Jackathon to follow. The duo team up again for their second Sade edit 12″, ‘Never Thought’/’Love Is Stronger’, out now on white label.
Find Vin Sol on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud. Find Matrixxman on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.
11.30 AM
cookies…yeah…