When I first heard ROOM8, the classic sounds and catchy synth hooks immediately resonated with the synth pop lover in me, and I was hooked from the first verse- but this was a couple years ago, near the band's first releases. My interest piqued again when they recently released their new EP Visions of You, featuring Electric Youth, whom you may know from the Drive Soundtrack. ROOM8 is the collaboration of Ezra Reich and Nic Johns, who have teamed up in LA to bring back true vintage tones and classic song writing to the SoundCloud age. Their highly anticipated (but still in progress) album Transduction features a host of contributors from the synthesizer's golden years (more info on that on their SoundCloud page). I recently got the chance to talk to the band about their studio gear and influences.
You guys have a very distinctive 80s feel to your music. Can you give me a run down of what you have in your studio, in terms of synths and rack gear? Are you using any plugins for sounds?
ROOM8: We never sit down and go after an "80's" sound. We just love the synthesizers that were built in the late 70s and 80s and we use them to make music. We also love song structure and pop music and soundtrack music which incorporates some of that structure. On some of our earlier material which has begun coming out with the "Visions of You" EP we used a hybrid of VST's and Hardware. On the newest stuff in our studio we are now primarily using hardware. We use Arturia primarily for software (with a few others). In terms of hardware their are a few secrets but some things are:
arp solina
korg polysix
korg lambda
korg wavestation
roland juno 60
roland jx 10
Oberheim OB8
Oberheim Matrix 6R
Yamaha DX7
Prophet 600
Novation Bass Station 2
and a few other ones including a massive rare one that will remain a secret
also our guitar rig is a secret but we can say it's the same rig used on every 80's Giorgio Moroder record.
