Seuil and Le Loup show us round the Paris basement studio where they made their forthcoming debut LP.
My Studio – Hold Youth
The studio is based in the centre of Paris in the 3rd arrondissement, which is like a little village within the city so it’s the perfect place to be. This is Seuil’s studio but we work on our Hold Youth project here too. The basement is separated into two and the other half is used by the French group Noze. This studio was originally occupied by the dOP guys. Seuil used to work with them, so after they moved to Berlin four years ago he took over and built his own space.
Roland TR-909
This is one of our centrepieces! We use it in almost all of our tracks, actually. It’s really easy to use and multi-faceted. It’s perfect when you want to combine modern & old school. We try to make it sound as good as possible using a few elements in a very minimalist way. The swing is unique and combined with other gear like the Tempest or the modular, it’s a great combo.
Roland SH-101, DSI Tempest & Akai MPC1000
These three were a big part of the making of our LP, De La Club. The Tempest is a forward-thinking machine – it sounds really far from a computer and different from a usual Roland. Its sound is quite close to a modular thing, using analog signals to make your beats. We used it mostly in the second part of the LP (the more modern approach) in tracks like ‘Black Dog’ and ‘La Tournerie’. The MPC 1000 was used for sequencing our samples, and the SH101 is great for bass and sub bass.
Toft 16-Channel Mixer
The central gear of the studio. Everything’s plugged into the desk when we’re jammin’! We did all the mixdowns on it. The EQs are really nice – really musical – and it brings a real warm feeling to the sound. It’s really cool for house and hip-hop especially.
Schippmann Ebbe & Flut, Doepfer Dark Time & Modular
We had some modular feeling in this LP. It’s the essence of our project, trying to connect old hardware with the future of modulars, showing the two sides of our sound: the mix between the old-school and modern. To sequence the modular or the SH-101 we used the Dark Time analogue sequencer, which is really more interesting to use than a computer.
Rode NT1 Microphone
The Rode NT1 is entirely part of our studio. It’s always nice to bring a new colour of sound other than the usual drum kits from well-known drum machines! We used it for the intro on the LP, ‘D Light (Human Beat Intro)’, dedicated to the late J Dilla. We recorded the beat with our mouths and added some real claps to bring a human feeling.
Bear
Expect some nice guest features on our next productions. The bear is the shit…
Hold Youth’s debut LP, De La Club, is available to stream in full below, and is released on vinyl on May 1st. Find Hold Youth on Facebook and SoundCloud.