Container 90 on Grand PrixXx

C'était inattendu mais ce début de mois a vu paraître un nouvel album de Container 90 reprennant la formule Punk-EBM tellement énergique agrémentée de quelques surprises...et de samples d'introduction toujours hilarants.
Encore mieux, Ronny Larsson a tout fait lui même à la souris et a bien voulu nous partager ses méthodes de production, basées sur la simplicité du 100% logiciel et là encore avec quelques surprises (Vanguard, bon sang !).

This was unexpected but the beginning of this month saw the release of a new Container 90 geting back to so energetic Punk-EBM formula livened up by a few suprises ....and still many hilarious introducing samples.
Even better, Ronny Larsson has done everything by himslef with hard mouseclicks work and has been kind enough to share his production methods, based on 100% software simplicity and, there again, with a few surprises (Vanguard, for goodness !)

 

 

 

Gears and software

What gears/softwares did you use for Grand PrixXx ?

It’s been Cubase on PC since our first album Scandinavian Master in 2006. At the moment I got Cubase 5 but don’t feel any urge to get an upgrade. Works fine from my pint of view. Microphone is a Rode NT2-A. Works very well when I record hooligan choirs because it has a 360 degree recording set up. On the new album I recorded six people standing around it at the same time.

Your favorite gear(s)/software(s) ?

Since 2006 it’s VST stuff. At some point I feelt I got to try hardware stuff and got myself some Roland Boutique and a Microbrute. Mostly for everybody else was so exited about working with hardware and it was supposed to sound so real. I did the Friendship & Love 7” only with hardware stuff and acusstic drums just to find out it was very hard to work that way so now I’m back with the VST stuff again. So nice to just fire up the computer and the current projet I’m working on and there it is… just as I left it. Favorite VST is often copies of real analog sythesizers like Juno 106, Mini Moog, Prophet 5, Arp2600 or MS20. On the new album I used a the sample based Nexus wish sounded a bit different then the analog clones I always used before. Also like the trance synth called Vanguard.

Any evolution in your setup ?

When we started in 2003 we borrowed a Juno 106 and a S1000 sampler and used a Atari 1040 for sequenser. Since 2006 Pc and Cubase with  VST’s.

Sound Design

Do you use/tweak presets  ?

I love presets, any VST without and I rarly even try them. Most of the times I try to find a sound that satisfies my vision and then tweek/adjust them so it fits it’s purpose.

Do you design you own sound  ? On which synth/plugin in particular ? 

First I remove all buillt in effects like eco, reverb, corus etc. If I need any of that I add that in the production. Some tweeking in the VST but I don’t use any particularly program. Many sound are not only one sound, very offen 2-4 layers of sounds that plays the same notes. I try to think how a rock band is set up is. Drums, base, guitars, keyboard and vocals. Ok… what do this sound represent, for example mid sounding guitar to the left, lets remove some base frequencies and pan this synth sound to the left.

 

Personal synth story

I could recommend to check out all the free vst stuff out there. You can come a long way with just free stuff. TAL got some realy nice synthesizers and effect I used over the years.

Writing/composing method

What would be your main writing/composing method ? Do you start classical rythm/bassline then arrange around it ? Do you already have structure in mind ? Do you improvise, record sessions then select ? ...

I’m quite new at composing. My previous partner Jonas did that part and I did drumprograming, arranging and production. Since he quit I had to do it myself. I cant play so it’s alot of clicking with the mouse. If I try to play some at the keyboard it’s so bad it even’t possible to quantize, at least I get the tones so I then can move them to where it suposed to be.
Baseline for a start then adding drumms to try out where the energy is, 4-beat.2-beat etc. Then adding chord changes, new baselines, try more drum changes maybe record some vocal melodies to get a rough arrangement.
Then I usually go for the details, Drumfils, samples, find right synth sound maybe add lead sound etc..

Producing/mixing method

Do you produce/mix in the box or do you use mainly external gears (effect/comp/eq...)

On the new album I tested to work a bit different and more effectively then before. I know making a album usually takes a long time so instead of producing a track at the time I decided to first write all song before any production. When all songs were written I recorded vocals again, fist time not much time spent just as a demo purpose. Then exported all to wave-files for production in a new project. Then used this project more or less as a template for the rest of the tracks, of course with some adjustment.
I only use VST-effects in production and I think most of them comes from Waves together with some included in Cubase and free stuff.

What is your most painful / enjoyable step in track production ? Sound design, arrangement, mixing, mastering ?

Difficult it’s definitely to get all tracks to have a similar sound. With my latest method it was much more easy. Previously one mix could be 2-3 years old and to try to get that one to sounds similar with the latest one usually ended with doing everything from the beginning witch ment double work. I don’t do mastering by myself.

Ronny's Tips

Again check out the free VST stuff out there. It’s alot of great stuff out there and you can actually do alot with minimum gears. It’s all about your creativity and not about the gear.
Listen to all good old stuff made with minimum of gear.

Contact info

https://container90.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/container90/
#svensksynth
#oldschoolEBM
#svenskEBM