Andre Bratten

Andre Bratten – My Studio

This is it. It’s not too big, but the room is quite long so it sounds very good – quite important.

Korg MS20

The best of both worlds, really: it’s instant but also capable of doing advanced stuff. I really like the external signal processor on it – it’s great if you need to process boring drum machines (like the Vermoma DRM!).

Yamaha DX100

This one is awesome. I have a thing for FM, especially for polyphonic stuff. I don’t know why, but poly analogue stuff is not always my cup of tea. If I hear one more Chorus II on a slow LFO’d Juno 106 pad I’ll get a little angry. It’s the same with the Ableton ping pong delay preset.

Vermona DRM

Well, I really hate this thing, but I use it anyways. It takes insane amounts of external processing to make this crappy thing sound cool, so I have to patch it through ten million things each time, so that’s also probably why I hate it so much. So much hassle, but after a couple of hours of working it, it really sounds awesome. It’s very clean and discrete so no, it’s not just, “Buy a new one”. It’s throughout my EP with my friend Machinedrum.

Underneath is a weird mixer I use for distortion and reverb, so the Vermona piece of shit is always pre-patched through there.

Synthesizers.com Modular

This is my main instrument. The possibilities are endless really, and I can just spend hours tweaking it. Nowadays I use it mostly for drums, but a couple of years ago I used it for everything. The bassline on ‘Trommer & Bass’ is made on this, and the kick drums and percussion on ‘Aegis’ is also this one, but with a little help from my Sherman Filterbank.

String Synths

I used to make music for theatre stuff and these two made my life a little easier. Instant sound and so powerful, but dreamy at the same time. I use them for pads, like on ‘Aegis’ for example.

Speaker and Recorder

The monitors are PSI Audio A17. I’ve been searching for good speakers for a while. I had Adam, Dynaudio and NS10s – whatever you can think of, I’ve probably had it for a while. It’s the most important thing in the studio, so it takes some time to get the perfect ones, but the PSIs are really perfect. I can sit for hours without my ears getting tired.

On the right is a Tandberg TCD tape recorder. The model isn’t unique, but mine is. It has some kind of internal flaw that makes it one of a kind. It’s actually the thing I value the most in my studio.

Piano

This is my piano – it’s basically what I write all my music on. It’s also perfect with my cello bow for abstract sound carpets. It’s tuned differently, too.

On top is of course my saw. Both of them were used on the Röyksopp remix I did. And on the right, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s Yamaha Omnichord. It’s fun when you’re having a cigarette in the back yard.