At Home with Nicolas Piper & Mia Zedan
What was your first ever piece of recording gear?
It was a Tascam portable digital recorder, which we got to record our DJ mixes.
What was the last piece of gear that you bought?
Funnily enough it was actually our Genelec 8050B monitors!
In which room in your home is your studio based, and were there any challenges in setting it up?
The studio is in a separate room in Nicolas’s home, but there were some challenges concerning the room treatment which we handled with diffusers, absorbers, bass traps and so on.
What type of projects do you use your Genelec speakers for?
We are mostly producing Melodic House & Techno, so it’s mainly for dance music.
What do you think of the speakers, and what do you like about them?
Let’s start at the beginning! Before owning Genelec, for 2 years we had tried several brands but for our heavy-bass genre it was extremely difficult to control and hear the low-end properly, and honestly this is how we got to Genelec. When we received our 8050s we were amazed by the gorgeous mids and tight low-end.
Describe your perfect day in the studio.
When the coffee is good :)
Mixing in-the-box or not? What do you prefer?
We believe that these days a hybrid setup of analogue & software is the most comfortable way.
What’s your top tip for being creative at home?
Dreaming about the live shows and visualising the crowd helps us stay creative when composing our tracks.
Which three artists would you love to collaborate with in a Zoom lockdown session?
Well, we would love to collaborate with Spalamp, Agents Of Time and Adana Twins.
Have you picked up any new skills during lockdown?
In the last few months we have learned and discovered a lot of new things while working at home. We improved our sound and became more focused on synthesis and analogue recording.
If there was one recording session you could have attended, which one would it have been and why?
Hans Zimmer making The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack. Every time we listen to the album we go deep into a very interesting journey.
Since working at home, what has become your ’Desert Island’ piece of gear? What can’t you live without?
Our Desert Island piece of gear is the Moog Subsequent 37 synthesizer. Every time we work with this instrument we discover new modulations, which are resulting in a different and interesting sound.
To find out more about Nicolas Piper & Mia Zedan, click here
instagram.com/nicolaspipermusic