SQL
We meet up with Amsterdambased producer Pim van Horssen to talk about creating his debut album, Sequel
“Ableton just allows me to get more creative. Especially with hardware – it’s really intuitive”
Dutch producer Pim van Horssen has steadily been building a reputation over the past decade with a steady stream of meticulously crafted techno releases. In recent years he’s expanded his formerly software-centric workflow to embrace increasing amounts of analogue hardware and field recordings.
The fruit of this development has been this summer’s debut full-length album, Sequel. FM caught up with him in his Amsterdam warehouse studio during ADE 2017.
What’s your favourite piece of production gear at the moment?
“My favourite bit of kit at the moment is the OP-1 from Teenage Engineering. It’s a really cool, crazy kind of synthesiser-slash-sequencer. I can take it on the road as it has batteries and a little speaker. I can build ideas that I’ll later use in the studio.”
What’s a production tip you can share with FM readers...
“A cool trick is when I’m mixing down, bouncing everything down to separate audio tracks and then loading it up to a different DAW. Instead of Ableton, I’m loading it up into Logic and then mixing in Logic.
“It’s really made my mixes way better. You have a different approach to the mixdown stage because you can’t make any changes to the decisions you made before. You just have to work with the audio.”
How do you feel about the current state of dance music?
“I think the scene is really alive. A lot of my friends are starting up labels and little parties, and just doing their own thing. What’s really cool is that sites like Bandcamp and other alternative outlets have started to be really big instead of just iTunes and Beatport. So now you have alternative ways to buy music and support artists.”
How did you get started making music?
“I started out making music around ten or 12 years ago. I think my sister took me to my first illegal rave and I decided I wanted to make this kind of music. I was playing bass and not really going anywhere with my band because everyone had different views.”
What’s your studio setup like?
“I moved into my studio about a year ago. It was really funny how I found the place because I was working as a technician and my contractor at the time was due to go over and check it out. Because we’d finished working, he asked me if I wanted to come along. I met the guy at the warehouse and it turned out he wanted to have some music done for this project, which I then did for him. In return he offered me studio space here.”
What’s the one piece of studio gear you couldn’t do without?
“I’m using Ableton Live as my DAW at the moment. That’s because it’s more oriented towards live jamming, and after ten years of using Logic and Cubase I really wanted to try a different kind of workflow. I was getting stuck with these eight-bar loops… Ableton just allows me to more creative. Especially with hardware, hooking up everything to Ableton, it’s really intuitive.”
What gear could you not do without?
“That would be my Prophet-5. I had one on my wishlist for maybe ten years and I finally saved enough money to buy one, and it’s been my main synth ever since. It has everything I want from a polysynth. It can do amazing basslines, really good pads, it’s just a really good workhorse.”
And the latest addition to your studio?
“That would be an MFB Tanzbar. It’s an analogue drum machine that I traded for an Elektron Analog Rytm. Which I didn’t like because it had too many menus.”
What’s your dream bit of gear?
“I would really like to have a Jupiter-8 in the studio, but it’s one of the most expensive old synths out there…”
Where to you start with a new track?
“I always start building a theme. I do this by jamming on my synths and just recording everything. Then I cut little bits out of that.”
What are you working on right now?
“I’m currently working on some ambient stuff for the art project for the warehouse where I have my studio. And then I’m working on an EP for a small local label, that’s going to more dub techno. And for the rest, I’ve got maybe 20, 30 different projects I’m working on but it takes shape really slowly.”
Do you have a final message for FM readers…?
“Whenever you feel down and you want to stay positive, just realise that you’re just one tiny, tiny speck in the universe and whatever you do it doesn’t really make any sense anyway!”
want to know more? Keep up with the latest news, dates and releases from SQL at www.sqlmusic.com