website for Espen Gulbrandsen
NEWS
E-mail me if you have any thoughts on the content on this site or some music you heard somewhere
March 26th, 2012:
My latest track "From Floppy" is featured on the new Silk Royal Showcase 2 compilation, which will be released in just two weeks! Later the same track
will be released as a single on Silk, with a remix and another original.
My track "Pulver" has now been released in the edm mp3 stores, included on the Baroque Miami 2012 compilation. Check out my Soundcloud site to listen.
March 12th, 2012:
My techno-ish contribution "Pulver" is featured on the Baroque Miami 2012 compilation which is coming out these days! Please feel free to check it out - something different than what I normally do.
Upcoming releases are planned on labels, but I won't reveal their names yet. I've also uploaded a couple more tracks to my soundcloud site so please check those out :)
Here's a list of some of the stuff I use in my studio:
- Mac Pro 8core, early 2008 model
- Yamaha P-140 electronic piano
- Uad-1 PCI Express
- TC Powercore PCI Express
- Acoustic Energy 8" nearfield monitors and subwoofer
- Arturia Arp2600 and Arturia MiniMoog software synths
- Native Instrumens: Battery 3, Massive, Fm8, Reaktor 5, Pro-53, Razore and Absynth 4
- Logic Studio 9 + Ableton Live (occasionally)
- Fxpansion Geist for drum programming outsite of the Logic world
- Microtonic
- For visual monitoring I use Inspector XL, Voxengo Span, and Waves Paz.
- Waves Gold
- Fabfilter Volcano 2, Timeless 2, and Twin 2.
- Avid mbox audio interface
- Fxpansion DCam
- SPL Transient Designer for treating my poor drums
Some older hardware synths include: Novation Drumstation, Novation Nova.
Native Instruments Massive:
I've been using Massive and custom built Reaktor ensembles for my music since 2006. Massive is very flexible, and despite the fact that it's been so extremely popular and widely used, Massive is not just for making ugly dubstep.
The interface is easy to grasp, and the sound is crisp and clear
Mixing to mastering plugins?
Some producers mix to their mastering chain, meaning they have compressors, limiters and/or eq set up when they start the project. Why? It certainly lets you get an idea of what your track will sound like after mastering,
so that you can compare your track with whatever you think sounds good in the first place. I've been using this technique myself quite a lot. Among other things, it lets me monitor how loud my fx chains will sound after everything is compressed and limited. Without this treatment, I sometimes find it difficult to determine how loud my fx busses should be.
Downloads, sounds and more
NI Massive
I'm putting together some free patches for Native Instruments Massive. Some of the sounds are based on factory presets, so you may recognize some of the
macro attribute names. Let me know if you find these useful!
Fantasy on mp3.com
Where it all started
Several years ago I had a project on mp3.com under the guise Fantasy. It was melodic trance made with only hardware gear. The computer was only helping out with
the MIDI sequencing. The melodies were in focus. The Fantasy project was quiet a success, with over 500.000 plays/downloads.