Wire to the Ear takes you on a visit to Jomox.
Posted April 28th, 2008 by Oliver CheslerFiled Under: hardware, interviews, synthesizer, video
Wire to the Ear takes you to Jomox. from wiretotheear on Vimeo.
Last week I decided to buy a Jomox Mbase 01. It’s a 100% analog kick drum module. It gives you kicks that range from a small click to complete bass insanity. It can convincing do any 909 or 808 kick drums plus many more variations. Honestly it’s the best kick drum I ever heard. I will be doing another post with samples and a full review. Take it from someone who performs live every weekend: having a killer perfect kick drum is vital!
My first go to place for all things analog boutique is Schnieder’s Buero and since I already have a Vermona DRM1 MKIII on order with them I thought I would just add the Mbase onto the order. Unfortunately they said 
they were out of MBase’s and didn’t know when new ones were coming in. Next I walked over to Sound & Drumland and they told me it would be about a month. A month? Come on man! I have money there must be a way right?
So I did what any American born capitalist would do and emailed the manufacturer direct. Just a few minutes later Jürgen Michaelis the owner and producer of all the Jomox products emailed me back saying he had one left and I could pick it up from him. I knew if I was going to Jomox I had to bring my camera.
I got on my bicycle (it’s the best way to get around Berlin) and made my way to Neukolin to Jomox headquarters. What I did not expect was Jürgen being so open and friendly. He could see I was seriously interested in what was going on and he put aside a good hour of his day to show me his workshop and toys. I’m very pleased to be able to show you the video above.
Do you see that Mbase 01 he signed? That one is mine!
Here are a few bullet points I picked up from my conversation with Jurgen Michaelis:
- He once worked at Sound & Drumland.
- He repaired Roland TR-909s at a place called Xtended which still exists.
- Because he did repairs for the Roland drum machine he had access to the papers and could design his own machines (the Xbase line) when Roland decided not to compete in the Analog space.
- Roland has never shown any ill will to the Jomox line.
- He personally took a trip to Taiwan to find a manufacturing plant for Jomox products.
- He hand tests every Jomox product still.
- The metal work comes from within Germany.
- He doesn’t listen to much electronic music (I did give him my album though!).
- He is thinking about moving to America someday.
- He did tell me what he is working on next but I can’t tell you (sorry!).
Besides the video I took a few still photos. Check them out: click here
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this was a great mini doc!
its so rare these days to be allowed in somewhere with open arms.
gone are the days of learning about radios and such by going to the local radio station and bugging someone there to teach you, i,e, les paul did that.
im glad you arent afraid to ask. so many people are.
great editing too!
Jürgen is really friendly… this is the kind of thing I was hoping to experience by living in Berlin.
Great job Oliver, JM’s real personality comes through on this video..it’s a great little ‘window’ of insight into his world to see the studio there and the dust collecting both realistically and metaphorically on the SunSyn as he secretly works on yet another brilliant product in the background.
The T-Res is sounding great, too… getting one of those ASAP!
I’ve not met a nicer guy at NAMM than JM…. he cares about his products, his customers, and music.
You can’t ask for more than that.
Thanks so much for sharing the vid with all of us fans that would love to experience a taste of Jomox, Berlin, first hand. If you don’t mind contacting me Oliver, I’m myself thinking about Berlin seriously… I’m from San Diego, fwiw. You can use my email address i used for this post.
Great job!
Great vid!
Shagghie… San Diego you say. Small world, me too.
:P
Thanks for the info. The mBase module is on my next to purchase list now. Haha..
Good video.
I’m hoping that Jomox decides to make some kind of extreme dynamics processor in the style of the resonator boxes – full stereo signal path, all those knobs, all that distortion, those crazy envelopes. If you ever happen to speak with him again, perhaps drop a subtle request?
[...] Wire to the Ear takes you on a visit to Jomox. [...]
I might be in Berlin for a few months this winter. If so, Jomox will have to be one of my visits.
[...] content mixed with the best stuff I find along my online travels. I’ve had a blast visiting Jomox and doing interviews with people like Dan McPharlin so expect more material like that. I really [...]
Great Job. JoMoX is one of my favorite gear producers out there. Had the Vermona, not for me (although it was pretty amazing). My XBase 09 is a critical part of my new live rig:
http://tumblr.subanalog.com/post/86869855/jomox-drum-machine-on-steroids-also-in-picture
Thanks for taking the time to stop by – there are so many of us in the US and other places that really like to know what the “lab” looks like.
Nice Tublr of stuff… happy music making!