Massive album alert!
Out now on Med School, Rawtekk’s Sprouted & Formed is an epic 16 tracker that’s entrenched in rich, highly processed sound design. Oozing atmospherics, musical menace and overwhelming production power, it’s likely to soundtrack many a mission this summer time… And beyond. For a taster, check out No More Vaccine. As we revealed in a recent newsletter, not only does it bang… But it’s free!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_jl7xxW8cA
Having heard the duo are massive studio hardware heads, we asked them to give us three essential studio toys. They replied with some ace answers that range from classic tape-based kit to the fine art of processing found sounds.
Ready to nerd out? Let’s go!
Jupiter4
We used our Jupiter4 to create some sounds for our track Merry Anna. It’s a beautiful synth and offers a nice analogue sound. Its LFO is very fast: it’s one of our favorites. We like the uniqueness of the Jupiter’s arpeggiator. The machine is detuned when we start it because it has to adjust its temperature first. Sometimes we connect guitar effects to it to create amazing new sounds.
Studer 
We utilise the Studer to establish a warmer sound. It’s an old analogue ribbon machine that is still very helpful today, but it requires a periodic maintenance to be more than just nostalgic. Mastering takes much longer using it, but it’s definitely worth it. Additionally we use the UAD Studer plug-in during the process of production on single sounds and tracks. We think the plug-in achieves very good results. The UAD Ampex is a similar and very useful plug-in. We like to put this kind of tape emulation on drums, but sometimes on the final master too.
Found sounds
This is Stefan in front of Cubase. We record noises of our environment and edit them with plug-ins on a regular basis. Sometimes we use about eight plug-ins per channel, we bounce it down and start all over again. For example the rimshot in our song Play The Key is an edited microphone plop. On this we used FabFilter, Rough Rider and Audio Damage. We also like using Voxengo, especially the soniformer and the drumformer. Basically we use almost any UAD plug-in. We also love using Reaktor a lot. It’s an essential and versatile tool providing a unique sound.
Rawtekk – Sprouted & Formed is out now. Listen and download.