Giom

May 13 2011

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Giom and I’m a French DJ and producer living in London. I’ve been producing beats about 10 years now but only started sending out demos to labels 5 years ago. I’m now lucky to be able to make a living from it and am doing it full-time. I’m also a professional drummer and still do a bit of session work from time to time.

What hardware are you using?

27” iMac i7 computer, M-Audio Fast Track Pro interface (it does the job, but I plan on changing it soon), a pair of active Tannoy Reveal monitors, Akai APC40 (brilliant!), Mackie Big Knob, Beyerdynamic DT 250 headphones, M-Audio Radium 61 MIDI keyboard, sEX1 microphone, Alice Mic-Amp-Pak 2 microphone pre-amp, Electrix Filter Queen, Alesis 3630 compressor (French House secret weapon), Simmons SDS 800 electronic drum kit, Pearl Masters drum kit, quite a few snares and cymbals and also a lot of hand percussion.

My modest DJ setup is a pair of CDJ-100s, a Citronic mixer and a Vestax PDT4000 turntable. I got all these second hand years ago. I also do have some equipment in the studio which I tend not to use anymore such as my Akai S-900 sampler, my Drawmer LX2 compressor, and old Mackie CR1604 mixer, a Revox B77 which needs fixing (I’m never selling that) and a Korg N364 synth (every year I switch it on and check if there are any cool sounds, but no, still nothing… Gonna have to wait tilI those foul 90s digi piano sounds come back in fashion again).

What software are you using?

I use Ableton Live Suite 8 for everything, from the creative process to the final mixing stage. I think it’s absolutely amazing, it has really made the music making a lot more fun than it used to be. Music doesn’t have to be made from left to right, and Ableton proves it with its genius clip idea. The instruments are amazing too, Simpler, Operator, drum Racks, I use and love them all. It’s also super fast and easy to use, and with a dedicated controller such as Akai’s APC40 you can really multiply the fun factor by 10. Apart from that, plugin-wise I use Rob Papen’s Subboombass which is pretty cool, some Native Instruments effects such as The Finger and The Mouth. I also love all the TAL plugins, which are all free to download: their JUNO emulation is especially great. 

What would be your dream setup?

A dream setup would definitely include some vintage gear, like synths (I would actually love an SH-09 and a JUNO-60), a Fender Rhodes, and better mics. But I’m very happy with I’ve got right now :)

It’s so important to spend the time learning the software, it’ll make you work better and faster. Spend hours using it, read about it, check tutorials out online. YouTube is an amazing source for tips and tricks for music production, no matter what software you use… I find reading publications such as Future Music or Sound On Sound is also really useful, and they give you tons of royalty-free samples every month. Finally, you can’t beat learning an instrument, even if you just learn a couple of piano chords, it will improve your productions tremendously.

Where can we find you on the web?