IN THE STUDIO WITH: Roman Flügel

German producer/DJ and label owner Roman Flügel is known for his nonconformist approach in the electronic music scene. We visit him in his enviably synth-packed studio to find out what makes him tick

Few artists are able to inject a sense of soulful sustenance into the quirky world of electronic music. While some genres are burdened by their own dogmatism, Roman Flügel’s multifaceted approach has always been enlightening. Since 1995, the German workaholic has amassed seven solo projects (including Eight Miles High and Soylent Green) and nine collaborative aliases. To illustrate his diversity, you only have to look at Flügel’s output. Despite not arriving until quite late in his career, his solo debut album Fatty Folders (2011) was a journey into mellow Tech House, followed three years later by the punchy Electronic Pop of

Happiness Is Happening. Meanwhile, this year’s All The Right Noises once again demonstrates Flügel’s eclectic mix of styles, falling evasively between the apertures of traditional House and Techno.

In terms of sound creation, Flügel is a hardware buff and synth fan, having amassed a hefty collection over the years. However, while he is more than happy to absorb what the digital world has to offer, Flügel does not consider himself a laptop producer and would prefer not to be defined by the technology he uses. More important is his commitment to sound itself and his ongoing desire to locate the source of his creativity. FM: Some people might not know, but the first music you got into was EBM, which is a Dance splinter of Industrial music?

Roman Flügel: “That was definitely part of my youth when I grew up in the ’80s. It was between ’84 and ’86, right before Acid House hit Germany I would say. There was this period of time when I was really into that electronic music, which was coming from Belgium: bands like Front 242, Nitzer Ebb from the UK and Skinny Puppy in Canada. But things changed very quickly when I heard the first Acid House tracks back around ’87. I’m sure there are still a few EBM fans here and there, but back then it was all part of my youth culture.” Your latest album All The Right Noises is very serene. Was writing and recording the album an antidote to the hectic world of DJing? “I would say it’s always been like this for me. Growing up with Techno in the ’90s, there was always this ‘night’ experience, but then you also had the next day and a big part of that was stuff like Warp Records and the more chilled sound. So while I’ve released plenty of 12-inches and club music, I’ve also made music to listen to or home listening music. I would say that with this latest album, everything is more connected to me.” Your music’s always had a strong identity, but would you agree that you’re a non-conformist? “I’m trying to achieve this and it’s not something that I think about too much, but I think it’s important to not just imitate. Of course you might start imitating in the beginning, that’s how you learn how to do things, but then it’s very important that you try to shape your own sound and character within the music you’re making.” Much of the music on the new album was a result of live takes. Did you want to avoid quantising or perfecting the sound too much? “Some of it was live takes with less quantising, just playing with my fingers, recording and then doing little edits here and there. But that approach is something that’s changed over the years. I’ve finally found it more interesting to be less obsessed with perfection, whatever that means, and having a certain amount of levity within the creation process, just letting things happen without trying to cleanse everything.” Does creativity still come naturally to you, or do you have to work harder to cultivate an environment in which you can be creative? “First of all, it comes naturally, but it’s a lot of work at the same time. If I don’t go to the studio and do something every day, there’s hardly anything coming out. I need to have this constant workflow to do something I’m satisfied with at the end. I usually go into my studio every day, where I can be playful and start to record and use those opportunities I have to trigger my creativity. If I lean back and wait for something to happen, nothing will happen.” Does experience allow you to throw out what’s unnecessary from the production so you can focus on the essence of whatever you’re trying to get across? “I definitely feel that a lot more these days than when I first started. Over the years, you find your own way to treat instruments and their possibilities, and I found out that it’s a lot more important to keep the essence of what you are trying to create rather than recording track after track after track.” How do you get a clear separation of sounds and how important is sound placement? “Well for me it’s always about putting the lower frequencies in focus. If you do club music, there is always the balance between the bass drum and the bass frequencies, which is very delicate. I found out at a certain point that it’s very important to separate certain frequencies from each other to get a good result in the mix. For example, there are always some frequencies that are a bit disturbing and make things a lot more difficult to mix, so I’m looking for those disturbing frequencies and trying to separate things in the stereo band by working a little bit on the EQ.” Do you adopt certain principles for EQing? “I’m not usually too harsh when using EQs. I don’t use them to extremes, just to come close to the sound I want to have because you always have to find a balance. If you push a lot of treble then you probably have to push a lot of bass as well, but that doesn’t make the music sound a lot better in most cases. It’s the same with mid frequencies; they can be really harsh in the beginning and you think they’re going to sound brilliant, but after a while they actually sound quite annoying.”

Is EQing something you analyse right at the start or is it best left to the final mix? “I would say I do it when I collect ideas. Sometimes collecting ideas is a lot faster than doing the EQing, but I at least try to listen to the mix at the very beginning to see if something is too disturbing or doesn’t sound right. At the very end, once I’ve done the final mix, I check it again to take a look at the EQs and the final stereo sequence. Of course, finally I go to a mastering studio to use someone who helps me [ laughs]. I’d say I do 50% in the studio and the other 50% is done during the mastering process.” Have you found someone you can trust who truly understands what you’re trying to achieve? “I actually found someone who used to work with dub plates and mastering – his name is Lupo. I’ve been working with him for many years now and we have a good relationship. As soon as he gets the files, we talk about the music and then he does his own work on it. I don’t usually go to his studio because he knows what I like, but it’s very important to get along with him and have the same perspective so we can hear the same things that need to be changed. You want somebody who listens a bit differently to you and also has an interesting view on what to change. For example, making things louder without destroying the mix – some people think it’s an easy thing to do but it’s not at all, and that’s something I leave to my mastering engineer. It’s the same with very detailed frequencies or transience – he knows the technical side a lot better than me, has the best equipment and knows exactly how to use it.” Do you adopt a less is more approach to reverb and delay too? “After all these years, I have a few effects that I use a lot because I’m very familiar with them, and that includes on the digital side. I have a few settings that I’ve created on my own – a chain of delays and reverbs that works best for me and gives my music a certain character. I’m not trying to programme something new all the time. When it comes to using chains of effects, there’s certain parts of the production where I go back to techniques that I’ve used before, things that work well for me and shape my personal sound.” So creating your own identity can be done just as easily by creating a chain of production techniques as using particular sounds? “Yes and I think that’s something that comes once you start working in production on a very constant basis. These days, I know exactly where I will end up by doing something and there are certain chains of events that not only work well for me but work in terms of sound and that has become an important component in the creation of my own sound.” In terms of delay, you use the analogue Ibanez Time Machine and a digital DM1000… “I think what is very important to my music is the combination of everything in my studio. I’m not a laptop producer, but I’m not a computer nerd either. I have plug-ins and all the digital options in my computer, but it’s very important to use a lot of outboard too. You mentioned the Time Machine, which has such a specific character. The delay and the flanger can give the music a very specific flavour, and I like to combine this with an old reverb from Ensoniq. Combining those things can allow you to come up with something extremely interesting.” So you prefer using analogue gear to plug-ins? “It’s not about using pre-programmed plug-ins all the time, but combining things to come up with something new. That’s why I never sold anything and just bought things and kept them in my studio. After all these years, I have this collection of things to use, like old effects reverbs from the ’80s. It’s just something I really like; they have a certain character and you can also get them quite cheap [ laughs].” What else do you use for effects? “I use the Eventide H3000 B Ultra-Harmomiser because the chorus and flangers can be used in a very drastic way allowing you to create some very interesting things within your stereo range. It also has some pretty crazy effects in it that are especially good for percussion. The Eventide produces a very interesting and flexible effect that is of a very high quality. The one that I have is made especially for guitarists, but I use it for something very different.” So in terms of software, you use Logic, but mostly as a sequencer rather than a sound generating tool? “I use it for sequencing MIDI obviously, but it’s also my digital tape machine, so I use it for a lot of wave data within Logic and arranging different tracks. With the MIDI stuff, everything goes through my

I find it more interesting to be less obsessed with perfection… just letting things happen without trying to cleanse everything

mixing desk and back into Logic. Basically, I record everything on my mixing desk, combine all of the effects and then go through a Fireface 800 audio interface and back into Logic.” And Waves is your go-to software package? Do you think it complements analogue hardware? “There are plenty of things to discover within the Waves package, but at the very end there are only a few things that I’m using a lot. It’s pretty much the same as everything – you find out about certain settings you really like and start using them; but I’m very happy with everything that Waves Complete offers. All the software packages are so flexible and useful that I don’t really need to buy new ones all the time. I’m already confused by the amount of sounds I have in my computer; it’s incredible what they offer – even just using the sounds within Logic.” How are you using Ableton these days? “I’m using Ableton for certain things because it’s so easy to use, particularly for doing interesting loops in a very fast way. When I prepare things for my DJ sets, I start recording old records and doing edits, which is also very easy to do in Ableton.” So when it comes to performing live, you’re using Ableton and the Technics 1210s I notice you still have? “I used to play live for a couple of years, and back then I used Ableton Live, but these days I don’t play live anymore, I just DJ, so I’m not using Ableton. Honestly, I would love to play live one day but I’m just waiting for the right concept because I don’t want to just open a laptop and press play. In the very beginning, I was travelling without a laptop and using hardware sequencers, which was not only a lot of work but I was always afraid during the soundcheck whether everything would run smoothly. So I’d rather do something with other people then maybe try to recreate whatever we did in the studio on a different level in a live situation.” You have a Teac A-3340 reel-to-reel tape deck. Is that to get tape saturation on your sounds? “I used to do that in the past, but right now it’s unfortunately broken. I need to get it repaired, but it’s a great machine. I used to record with it when I was in my first band, because that was our only way to record music back then. They are quite fragile, and it’s not very easy to find someone who can do a good job in repairing it.” You have some drums and a guitar in your studio. I can’t hear them on the album, but do acoustics make it onto your records? “Not on the last couple. The first solo album I did, some of the recordings were made with live instruments, but again they were processed in the computer so they are quite disguised. I used to play drums in the past when I was in bands and still have them set up in the studio. I can’t really play the guitar – my brother used to play the Ibanez – but it’s good for doing sounds that don’t sound like a guitar, more like drone sounds.”