Studio Essentials: AFFKT

By Sophie Perez on July 7, 2021

Spanish DJ, producer, and label owner AFFKT returns to our speakers at the end of this month for the release of his latest full length studio album, The Big Picture.

Coming on renowned German imprint Mobilee, the album adds to AFFKT’s existing collection of music, and one which includes past releases for labels like Selador, Disco Halal, and Needwant.

The Sincopat boss joins us ahead of the albums release to handle this months edition of Studio Essentials. With his picks including synths from Moog and Dave Smith, drum pads, FX pedals, and plugins. Get the full list below.

Moog One

The Moog One is now the king of my studio and is probably the most powerful hardware synth I’ve ever owned, and one of the best synths in history. Most of the time I start recording and I just play with it until I get lost in this magical universe of sound. I have had it for 2 years already but I think I am only using 20% of its potential, it is such a versatile instrument that you can get every kind of sound from, from a great bass or lead, to tasty percussion.

Dave Smith Pro 2

I love the personal crisp sound of this synthesizer, it is a paraphonic / monophonic synth, but you don’t really miss more voices with knobs like the feedback amt to create crazy feedback noises and fx. I would add the distortion knob on the Pro 2 to every single synthesizer out there; it really makes a difference on the sound. Nowadays I don’t use it as much as when I used the mona for everything but I am still creating a lot of great sounds and it includes a really inspiring sequencer that I really like to use.

Boppad & Pedals

This is more than one thing, but as I use them together as a pack I decided to include them together. Right now this is the most common way I add some organic flavour to my drums, the Boppad is so easy to use in Ableton, and once I have selected the sounds I load them onto pads to finally route the audio through the pedals. I am not really playing perfectly but Ableton helps with this, and a little out of sync delay always makes everything sound more alive.

Moog Sub Phatty

Another Moog on the list, but nothing to do with the Moog One, I feel the Subphatty is more like a real instrument than a synth, you don’t have any hidden menu on this one, what you see is what you get, sometimes I miss having another hand to play but even then I enjoy playing and turning the knobs a lot. I have used it so much over the years in the studio and also for live sets, it is like the Sheriff Woody of the place, the cut-off filter does not work so well anymore and a few more things are faulty, but I still love to use it because it sounds amazing.

Knif & Bx_Oberhausen

Again two things in one, but both are so great that I could not pass talking about just one.

I decided to include Knif and Bx_Oberhausen because they don’t have anything to envy to most of the hardware synthesizers on the market nowadays. The basses of Knif are totally out of this world, it is sounding so pure and raw. I use Bx_Oberhausen for almost everything and it sounds magical, the modulation knobs here are unreal. I have really enjoyed using both on the new album, and honestly after using them for a while I have the feeling that with plugins like these my next hardware synth has to be worth, and making the difference as these two do!