Me in my studio: Sacha Robotti
Intro
"My studio has been in existence since 2005 and started off in the living room of my flat in Berlin Kreuzberg.
"Over time it has changed from a hugely chaotic creative mess with various people living and working in it, to a more organized creative mess."
The studio
"The studio is all pretty DIY and low key. As many other dance music producers I know, I don’t own much outboard gear - rather I’ve just used my laptop and an external soundcard for years.
"Most of the music production and promotion I was involved in within the last 7 years took place in this room - be it the BKI podcast, vinyl releases and label work, album production, my solo stuff, Robosonic music, music for other producers or brands etc.“
The computer
"Core i7 920 PC with 12GB ram running Ableton Live and Cubase hooked to a NAS with 3TB space with automated backup routines.
"My buddy Jesco (Music Blocks) built this thing from scratch, it’s a bit of a dirty beast."
Mackie Onyx 1620
"This is the heart of all covert musical operations!"
Adam P11 monitors
"I bought these second hand from a rock producer in Berlin. Nice and crispy sound but quite small, an additional Adam Sub 8 does the trick for adding bass.
"Until I’ve got a Funktion One in my living room, the ultimate road test for any new track will remain a beefy club PA and a sweaty crowd!"
Beyerdynamic DT-990 Pro
"I‘ve spent a lot of time working with these studio headphones. They’re fun to produce on because they’re comfy and bassy!"
Record collection
"I started DJing and consciously buying vinyl in my native Brussels, Belgium in 1995. Nowadays I mostly use Pioneer CDJs in the club – but the bigger part of my life I’ve played vinyl out of my collection.
"It’s like a diary. I love getting inspired from my old records – it’s a great feeling to rediscover tunes I haven’t heard in ages."
DJ spot
"This is the DJ spot with a pair of 20+ year old Technics 1210 MK2 which I bought second hand in Edinburgh in 1998 and two of the cheapest CD players.
"My mate Schätzchen built the 'console' for me out of scrap wood, metal parts and spraypaint.“
MFB 522
"It’s nice to use this little plastic drumcomputer (made by the small Berlin-based company MFB) for noisy percussions and hi-hat patterns, or just to fatten tracks up.
"Plus it’s so small and you can take it with you everywhere! Love it."
Native Instruments Maschine
"This bit of kit is courtesy of my friendly supporters at Native Instruments. I’ll start using this baby more in 2012, I promise!"
Oberheim Matrix 6
"A friend of mine recently gave this dusty 80’s synthesizer to me as a present, how cool is that?
"I downloaded the instruction manual the other day and will attempt to give it a spin in March.“
Acoustic panelling
"Recently my friend and I built and hung up 10 of these 1m x 0.6m acoustic panels. They’re made out of wooden frames, layers of rockwool and wrapped in textile.
"It's pretty ghetto but the room sounds so much better now!“
Big and round
"It’s fun to sit and bounce on these while making music."
You can hear the Sacha Robotti track The Major on theDirtybird compilation Hatched Vol1out now!