Me in my studio: Mihalis Safras

Intro

Greek DJ/producer Mihalis Safras has a long history in the electronic music scene of Greece, becoming one of his home country's most celebrated DJs.

Over the course of the last decade he has tirelessly established himself as one of the most promising and hard working artists, appearing on at least a dozen 12-inches last year alone. The calibre of Mihalis’s studio output uniquely fall’s in-between these two and since his early studio outputs, his elongated, aching yet versatile and percussive tech-house tracks have made their way onto the celebrated labels of Great Stuff, Soma, Trapez, Saved and off course Material Series.

While having remixed a variety of well known artists like: Dubfire, Mark Broom, Gregor Tresher, Mihalis has exercised room-filling soundscapes, determined and driving techno combined with the most moving of musical melodies. Having recently completed his latest artist album 5 Years Of Material Mihalis guides us through his studio.

Sacred sticker

“Not much to say about this crazy Amplified sticker! We see that every day we enter the room so when I face at it I know that it is time to make some good music!

“It has its own history as whenever I make as good track we say I am amplified!”

The studio

“OK, besides the old vintage record tape in the small corner, here we have the iMac connected to the console that is use for sampling.

“The good old A&H 16 is so useful for importing so called stolen synths from my precious ‘arpeggiator’ on the left.”

“Some racks were borrowed from my old flatmate and are still in there. haha!”

...

Main room

“And here we are in the main room using the Classic MPC2000 for kicks and snares, the ZED8 which is connected to the main card and Shure mics on the right.

"But, most amazingly no Apple Mac here! Strange huh!? Yes I do not produce with Apple computer. Only when I’m sampling!”

Mobile studio

“And this is with what I produced the remix I did for Dubfire when I was in hospital. Very useful when I travel. So I think that it is part of my mobile studio. Do not underestimate it.”

Allen & Heath mixer

“A replacement of the ZED10FX is because the new ZED has the internal effectors that makes it so easy when you record a vocal. No need use VST on vocals with the 10FX.”

Korg Kaoss Pad

“Next to the ZED and below the monitor speakers I have the KaosPad2.

“I must say that I rarely use it in production since the ZED provides all those FXs. But while playing or performing a live set it is very useful. A must buy for me.”

Genelec monitors

“Genelec 8020A monitors and in my opinion one of the best.

“I’ve just replaced my old Yamaha passive monitors so in the next few months we will have some results. Actually I know lots of producers that are using the same Genelec – two-way passive speakers. Really small but so cool!”