Studio Essentials: Wallis

French producer, DJ, and live act Wallis offers a look inside her Lisbon-based workspace for the latest edition of our Studio Essentials.

The JELL imprint founder has previously released music on MIA MAO, BPitch, and JELL, shaping a sound rooted in hardware-led processes and live performance.

Her selections focus on a rack-mounted sequencer from Tiptop, an outboard summing mixer from Neve, and dynamic processing tools from Oxford, giving insight into how each piece fits into her creative process.

The feature arrives alongside her seven-track studio album ‘everything is not yet lost’, which is out today via Kangding Ray’s ARA label.

Check out the full list below, along with insights from Wallis.

Tiptop Trigger Riot

“The trigger riot is a very fun (and somewhat wild) sequencer. This is very much a studio only module, I would never perform live with it, due to how crazy it can get. But in a studio context, I actually want the crazy. I want something unexpected and I want to record a lot of it, to then cherry pick the special moments that sound track worthy. I use it to trigger drums as well as envelopes for synth sounds or bass on my modular. And it helps me make really unique baselines that no human brain could come up with on their own. I love this module.”

Torso T1 Looper

“This is actually the one of the most ridiculously good-sounding pieces of equipment I laid my hands on in the last couple of years. I use it a lot in the studio (and with a few minor changes it could become the perfect live set sampler too). I recommend buying one for your studio and resampling all your samples through it, the effects will make them sound amazing. I love the granular effect and the saturation. Honestly this little box makes everything sound ten times better, and I absolutely love it. Shoutout to Torso. I am super happy to see new companies emerge in the field, and they are a very special company. I also own their T1 sequencer and I absolutely love it too.”

Neve 8816 Summing Mixer

“This one is a bit pricey but it sounds unbelievably good. I credit this machine a lot for the quality of my mixes. How I use it: I send each track from my Ableton project individually into the summing mixer, adjust the volume levels and the panning, and through an insert, I send the full track through a few other analogue units such as EQs, compressors, etc. and I record the final result in a single stereo file back into Ableton. The sound quality this process gives the track, compared to simply using Ableton, is unmatched.

The Neve makes the track space sound so pleasant. I highly recommend you do any stereo field work with analog equipment, it does not necessarily need to be with this exact summing mixer, there is always great hardware mixers for all budgets, but I have never found a plugin that controls the stereo field while still sounding really really good. Only hardware seems to do the trick and I recommend always using an analog mixer to do your final mixing, especially in terms of track levels and panning.”

Synthesis Technology E370 Quad Morphing VCO

“This module is so versatile, yet still rather predictable and it sounds absolutely amazing. It’s very dynamic, and there are many waveforms to choose from and a lot of knobs per oscillator. I love that the knobs allow you to modify the sound in a subtle way (a lot of eurorack module knobs tend to be extreme, and sometimes you just need a subtle vibe change, without moving into totally different territory). I can’t recommend it enough!”

Sonnox Oxford Plugins

“These are the best plugins for mixdown purposes. People often assume I only ever use hardware, but I use tons of plugins too, and the Oxford suite is just unparalleled in sound quality when it comes to limiting, EQ, etc. Earlier I mentioned using hardware EQs, but hardware EQs are more “vibe EQ” that I use to colour my entire premaster. When I need to do surgical things in my mix to clean it up, I do it with plugins and I use the Oxford ones a lot. These are in my opinion sounding way way way better than the very popular mainstream EQs everyone uses. PS: they also have sales on their website every now and then so the plugins are fairly easy to snatch for pretty cheap every now and then.“

Find more Studio Essentials here.

Wallis – everything is not yet lost LP is out now on ARA.