Welcome
The German-born producer rose to fame in 2006, when his rework of the classic Love Sensation with Kurd Maverick became a club smash. Since then, he’s remixed huge names, played enormous, sell-out worldwide DJ sets and his singles Live Your Life and Stronger with industry stalwart Erick Morillo and house diva Shawnee Taylor have both been epic club anthems.
Future Music got the chance to peek inside his studio and see the software and studio kit he likes best.
Creating ideas
“I always start with beats and getting a good loop going before reaching for the piano and working up ideas for melodies and chords that way,” explains Thoneick. “I like to find what works musically before I start changing any of the sounds. I love searching for synth sounds and getting new libraries for my plug-ins and finding the sound that is close before tweaking it to work with the track."
The studio
Although Thoneick started with a hardware-based studio, he doesn’t see himself going back down that road, as he explains. “I’ve been working with ATB’s engineer from time-to-time and learning some tricks from him. He told me that with all the plug-ins and software I have right now, there is no need to reinvest in any expensive hardware.”
Cubase to Logic
At the time of the shoot Thoneick was a loyal Cubase user but recently he’s switched to Logic. “I loved Cubase and I thought why change a working system? But I began to have serious problems with the ASIO drivers clipping the CPU. Even with the Steinberg support team, we couldn’t figure out how to solve it on my particular system.”
M-Audio Keystation Pro 88
As a classically trained pianist Thoneick’s choice of controller keyboard was very important, as he explains. “I really wanted to get a keyboard that had weighted piano style keys and assignable knobs and faders. I have the faders assigned up the same on all synthesizers with ADSR on the faders, and filters and such on the rotaries."
Fostex PM0.4
“I bought these six years ago when I didn’t have that much money,” Explains Thoneick. ”I added the subwoofer later on and over the years I’ve really learned how it sounds.”
Behringer Ultracurve
As Thoneick explains, this low cost EQ serves as a monitor room correction solution and sits between his audio interface and monitors. “This was EQ’d to compensate for the unwanted frequencies in the room. ATB’s engineer Rudi Dittmann came in and did all the frequency tests and room analysis for me."