Analog Love for your Music

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I just upgraded the studio with the last missing pieces of sick analog gear and rewired everything with two digital patch-bays, so I'm ready to be super productive in producing my own music, and mastering yours :)

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I fell in love with electronic music in the 1990's as a teenager and began going to clubs and parties in Amsterdam. Those parties turned were transformative experiences for many and created a new culture. I've been producing my own music since around 2004 and recently launched Aeonica which you can read about here: https://aeonica.org/about

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: For mastering it's really mostly electronic music such as techno, house, psychedelic trance, and downtempo music. Though I've been recording and producing some non-electronic music, in the direction of rock and grunge. My musical taste is broad.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I use a hybrid (analog-digital) signal path that combines carefully selected high-end analog hardware and mastering grade converters with software plugins in my studio. This gives me best of both worlds in terms of the precision and recall of digital and the warmth, harmonics and colour of analog.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Andres Klein or Bram Fidder for mastering electronic. Adam Haggar for mastering non-electronic. Mastering your own music after hearing it 500x in the same room as it was produced, is in most cases a bad idea. Fresh ears and perspective in a different room will produce best mastering results. Therefore, for my own productions I've worked with Andres, Bram and Adam, and found they are amazing professionals, and great people to work with.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both! Digital for precision and easy recall, and analog for natural saturation and harmonics created by the beautiful circuits and transformers, that are not well emulated digitally.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Harmonic

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Create a good listening environment i.e. acoustic treatment and good monitors, or at the least very good headphones, otherwise nothing you do translates well to other situations and it is near impossible to get the mix right.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Good taste ;)

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Fresh ears, passion for music, and boutique outboard gear to give some analog-love.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: My musical tastes are incredibly diverse. I love Giorgia Anguili, Jan Blomqvist, Simon Posford for their creative original electronic music. I'm always impressed with Rick Rubin as a producer both in terms of result and vision. As a teen especially I was inspired by the late Randy Rhoads, who played guitar on Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman albums.