We go behind the scenes in Long Island Sound’s enviable studio.
Ireland’s Long Island Sound have been refining their rapturous take on techno for over a decade. From Dublin beginnings to launching the forward-thinking Signs of Space imprint, the duo have performed across Europe, with headline shows in Dublin, Prague, and London’s fabric.
Following acclaimed releases including Hydra, ‘Tide’ and ‘Gone’, they now present their most introspective work to date: ‘CV / Gate’. Blending cosmic rhythms, razor bass, and melodic spidery arpeggiated synths, the track highlights the duo’s attention to detail and melody.
‘CV / Gate’ is out now via Signs of Space.
OUR STUDIO
Welcome to our studio in Dublin. We’ve been here since 2020. It’s on the top floor in the suburbs, which is nice compared to some of the basement studios we’ve been in before. We’ve got plenty of natural light and can see the sun setting in the evenings. Unfortunately it’s not acoustically treated, so we generally don’t mix stuff down here.
Soundcraft LX7ii Mixer
This is what holds everything together. It’s dusty, it’s crackley, sometimes the faders need a wiggle, but it’s ours. People might say it would be easier to just use a digital mixer or soundcard, but we just like the feel of it. It gives us the flexibility to send any hardware synth to our pedals at the turn of a knob. Plus, it sounds cool if you overdrive it.
Korg Mono/Poly
We love the Mono/poly, especially for its fat low end. We recently used it for the basslines in ‘Gone’, and our remix for Depeche Mode. It was only during the mixdown of the Depeche Mode remix that we realised the pitch is a bit off. We re-recorded it with the corrected pitch, but ultimately used the original detuned version because it sounded better.
Korg Polysix
This was bought in the same week as the Monopoly. A very exciting week at the studio. It’s a fairly basic synth, but it sits in the mix so well. It’s definitely got some limitations, but we just love how warm it sounds.
Yamaha DX7II
We got this for a steal from a family friend. Occasionally it sounds like there’s an egg being fried on the motherboard. There’s a lot of in-depth synth architecture that we’ve never been bothered to learn, but we have put our own downloadable patches on it. We had the original DX-7 before, which we used for the main riff in our 2020 track, Cosmic Spring.
Behringer MS-1
This is definitely our most used synth. It’s really simple to use. It’s got only one oscillator, but several waveforms. It’s a great synth for learning synthesis. We’ve used it to make strings, plucks, basslines; pretty much every kind of sound. It’s the main sound we used in our new track, CV / Gate. Every lead/string sound in CV / Gate comes from the MS1. We used different envelope and parameter settings to achieve different tones. The MS-1 is also heavily used in our live show.
Novation Bass Station 2
Despite its name, we typically use the BS2 for riffs, rather than basslines. Like the MS-1, it’s got a simple design and is easy to use. It’s especially good for the live show because we can send automated patch changes to the synth, unlike the MS1. There are some sick expansion packs available to download. We’ve used the BS2 to create the main riffs in our tracks Searching and Warsaw from last year’s album, Hydra.
Roland JV-2080
This is a great synth module for choirs, pads and strings. It’s got an old interface for menu scrolling, but it’s worth navigating. We bought it off a guy on Reverb who told us there were no expansion packs installed… Little did he know there were actually 2 inside! We were recently listening to some old demos of ours that use this synth, which has given us inspiration to use it more often.
Roland TR-8s
A good drum machine for getting jams off the ground. We’ve been mainly using it for the live show for buildups and drum fills, where we send it to different FX racks; delays, reverbs and flangers. The only drawback of the TR-8s is that we constantly have issues syncing it, so we have to adjust midi sync every time we do a live show, nudging it closer to the metronome.
Erica Synths & Ninja Tune Zen Delay
This pedal is wild! Flangey, dubby, overdriven, tubey madness. Best used un-synced. Run anything through it and you’ll get some interesting results. Strings, vocals, percussion, whatever. We used it for the vocal processing in ‘Gone’, and for the outro string, where we ran the MS-1 through the Zen for a nice pitching effect.
Strymon Big Sky & Eventide H9
The Big Sky is the first pedal we ever bought. We’re suckers for wet sounds, so it was always on our list to get one. We send the BS2 through it for the live show. The H9 is great for a wide range of effects: everything from chorus to tape delay. The Eventide plugin is great, as it allows you to adjust parameters on screen and save any adjustments directly to the pedal. It also receives patch changes for the live show.
Sandalina O’Flip Flip
Sandalina O’Flip Flip is a weird sandal that followed us between 2017 and 2019, turning up in mysterious places at mysterious times. We have now harnessed its mystical powers for our own creative needs.
Find Long Island Sound on Instagram.
Long Island Sound’s new single “CV / Gate” is out now on Signs of Space. Listen on Bandcamp.
Photography: Brian Lincoln.
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