Talking Shop: Martin Terefe
London-based Swede Martin Terefe is best known for his work behind the scenes as a producer for artists ranging from Jason Mraz and Mary J Blige to KT Tunstall and Cat Stevens. Having previously released music of his own as a part of the collective Apparatjik, alongside members of Coldplay and Mew, 2020 now sees Terefe branching out under his own name for debut album The Involuntary Gardener. FM caught up with him to find out more.
When did you start making music, and how did you first get started?
“As a child I lived for a few years in Caracas, Venezuela. Our neighbours’ kids had a guitar teacher and I asked if he could start teaching me. Each lesson he used to write down the words of a Spanish folksong and then find the chords to go with them. I figured out that with a few chords in the bag I could play most songs and make up my own. That’s how I got into song-writing.
“I moved back to my native Stockholm as a 10-year-old and not too long after I had a band and was making demos on a cassette four-track. When I was 15 I signed my first publishing deal and my ‘advance’ was a bunch of gear. The newest and coolest at the time. I still remember the setup – a Fostex eight-track reel-to-reel, a small Tascam mixer, an Atari 1040 with Creator (the first step to what has become Logic), a Juno-106, and the centrepiece, a Roland TR-808. I remember unpacking it, plugging it in and thinking, ‘damn, this sounds exactly like real drums. Surely it’s the end for drummers?’ I was wrong, but it was the beginning of the end to recording without a click track.”
Tell us about your studio/setup
“Over the 30 years I’ve been producing records I’ve also managed to become the owner of a few studios. In London where I live, I own and work out of Kensaltown and Eastcote studios. They are multi-room facilities with writing and mix rooms, as well as several great tracking rooms. It’s a dream place to work full of incredible vintage gear but with the necessary computer stuff to make it a top-end modern studio.”
What DAW do you use and why?
“I work on Pro Tools because at one point, doing what I do, it was clear that it had become the recording standard. I like to play around with Logic sometimes but to be honest I’m not great at sitting in front of the computer for too long. I prefer playing instruments and then piecing things together as I like them and that works great in Pro Tools.”
What one piece of gear in your studio could you not do without, and why?
“In some ways I think that to keep creative in production and recording you shouldn’t get too hung up about the gear. Easy to say, I know, when you have more than you need, but looking back I made some of my most exciting recordings on very basic setups. I once thought to myself that if I ever used a piece of gear all the time, I’d get rid of it. I did. It was an original Roland VP-330 Vocoder and I sold it for 600 quid which was too cheap even back in the ’90s when I sold it. I’ve regretted it ever since and now it seems I can’t sell anything which is a problem sometimes.
“Actually, one thing I have that I’d hate to ever lose is a great vocal mic. A Telefunken ELA M251 from the late ’50s that I’ve had for almost 30 years. They only made them for three years and finding an original isn’t easy and certainly a big investment. Recently I bought a couple of replica mics made by a Swedish company called Golden Age. Of all the ‘new’ produced 251 copies I’ve tried , the Golden Age 251 sounds amazing with a lot of the characteristics of the original. It’s affordable too and I can highly recommend it.”
What’s is the latest addition to your studio?
“The most recent purchase was the Golden Age 251s I mentioned above. We have such a wealth of microphones in the big studios but sometimes when you start a song in one of the writing rooms, you end up with a guide vocal that is amazing but you wish you’d recorded it on a better mic. This one works great and I can easily match the sound with my vintage favourites!”
What dream bit of gear would you love to have in your studio?
“I don’t know if it would be a dream or a nightmare but I would love to have an original Mellotron. They are a maintenance nightmare but such amazing things!”
When approaching a new track or project, where do you start?
“Once the songs are written and I’m ready to record, I often start with a tracking session with some great musicians. From there it can go in many directions – from letting it be exactly as we played it, to manipulating and looping and creating entirely new weird sounds out of whatever we recorded.”
What are you currently working on?
“At the moment some new music with Apparatjik together with Jonas Bjerre (from Mew) and Magne Furuholmen (from A-ha) and one of my absolute favourite singers Concha Buika. Apparatjik is our joint art collective where everything is allowed… including music! It was a while since we recorded anything new together so it’s really exciting.”