Next up in the Recommeds Series is Jock Nowell-Usticke, better known as BAYNK, a producer and songwriter from New Zealand.
Below, he recommends some studio essentials.
1. Crumar Seven Physical Modeling Electric Piano
I bought this thing entirely for the aesthetic, not wanting to splurge on a Rhodes, and ended up falling in love with the sound. It’s physically modeled and essentially a synthesizer. It’s thick and warm, easy on the eyes and my go-to keys sound for everything.
2. Roland AIRA Compact E-4 Voice Tweaker
Trying to approach making music in different ways helps fulfill my urge for novelty in the studio and this is one of the best tools for it. It both tunes your voice and provides an array of voice mutating and stutter effects which, when run through a few guitar pedals, can give beautiful and wild results and is always either inspiring or hilarious.
3. Georgia
My cat I obtained for my partner during the pandemic has become my close confidant and creative partner. I do a lot of writing alone and having something living and breathing in my general vicinity gives me comfort.
4. Prophet 6
I’ve had this synthesizer for many years now and have built up a slew of presets that I always return to. It’s always inspiring to send MIDI out of Ableton to it, especially complicated and randomized MIDI as it tends to get confused and make more interesting sounds.
BAYNK's new video for "Grin", directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid (Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar).
5. SAMPLR
This is an iPad app that is a normal sampler that you can play with your fingers. You can also play samples like they’re a violin. It’s hard to explain without demonstrating physically, but it is extremely intuitive and fun to play with.
6. Saxophone Case
The saxophone is whatever the CASE is the true MVP. I love plastering this thing with stickers from the various venues I’ve played, places I’ve been, vinyl promos from my favorite artists, if walls (cases) could talk, etc.
7. Rutger
The longer I make music, the higher my standards get, the more I want to tear my hair out, and the less I want to make music. Rutger (The Nicholas) helps solve most of these issues; his talent combined with his endless enthusiasm is an essential studio “must-have.”
8. Hologram Microcosm / Chroma Console
Both of these pedals tend to have an immediate “it just sounds better” effect whenever I run anything through them. They take MIDI in so can be tempo synced with Ableton. I’ll feed them strange patches from SAMPLR or the E-4 and get delightful results.
9. Faderfox MX12
This is purely a live tool (for now) but is so fun to use and feels amazing. It only does what you tell it to do, so its possibilities are endless. The layout is clean and the knobs and faders feel incredible. I use it mainly as a beat repeater / FX unit / mixing board for controlling the live show.
10. TELEFUNKEN M80
I sing quietly which requires turning the gain up on my live microphone a fair amount. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of unwanted noise creeping into my mic and bleeding back into my headphones and speakers. This mic has the best noise rejection I’ve found so far and is fully chromed out and sparkles when light hits it on stage. It is extremely heavy but the highlights outweigh that negative.
BAYNK's forthcoming album Senescence is due out September 27th.
Synth History Exclusive.
Photos provided by Baynk.