Frank Kvitta is a well established german techno DJ and producer. I met Frank when I performed last summer in Spain at the Monegros Festival. He was in the same van traveling to the show from the hotel. We clicked, stayed in touch and next week we will release a monster techno EP called Electronic Pleasure. Frank knows everyone and was able to gather remixes from Ben Sims, DJ Rush, Patrick DSP, Dave the Drummer, Submerge, Alex Kvitta, Boris S, David Christop and more. To start the promotion here’s an interview to let you know a little but about who Frank is.
1. Let’s start with software. What DAW to you prefer and name three
plug-ins you can’t live without.
Hello Oliver, thank you for having me for your great blog. My favourite software for producing used to be fruity loops in the very beginning 10 years ago. After that i started using Reason for many years but i was never satisfied with the sound engine. Then i found Ableton Live and since i found it i use it the most or let´s say, only Ableton Live. I like the workflow and the functions. It´s superfast and easy to use and i can be very productive as i can just concentrate on making the beats and not concentrate how to make the beats. My Top plug ins i never want to miss anymore are the “Waves” of course, Nexus and the FM8 and some secret plug ins ;)
2. What is the oldest piece of hardware you have in your studio?
The oldest piece in my studio is my keyboard M-Audio Oxygen 8 hehe. I sold my old stuff long time ago already, as i just use digital software and some midi controllers and the Presonus digial mixer for productions.
3. When you have been working in the studio too long and you need to
take a 30 minute break what do you do?
Mostly i go outside (if it´s not too cold), have an espresso, do some phone calls, listen to different music (hip hop, rnb, 80´s) and then i go back to work. My ears need a break too, otherwise after too many hours you can´t concentrate anymore and everything sounds the same because ears get tired too.
4. Do you think DJing makes you a better producer? Do you grab loops
from records/tracks or always make your own beats?
I think without beeing a dj or performing in any other ways music, you can be a good producer too, but while you perform you have the chance to see reactions on specific sounds, breaks, melodys which inspire me again to do my next tracks. Also when you perform you have also a great feeling for music and beats which can be very usefull with producing too. It depends, sometimes i mash up loops and sample and cut things out to make new ones, sometimes i start all over and create my own sounds and loops. Really depends on which track i m doing and which style. And i have enough time for a track or not, deadlines are sometimes really tight hehe.
5. How many songs do you finish per month?
Well i can have days where i finish a whole track in about 3 hours from starting with the mainloop until the final arrangement. Sometimes it takes much longer, even days or weeks. IT depends always on the mood, creativity, ideas. If my head is full with ideas and i m in a great mood to produce i can be pretty fast. If those things are not given, thx god we can hit the save button and continue the next days.
6. If you found someone breaking into your music studio what would you
do to the person?
I would take him next to my side and show this person how much work and love and passion has been spent to create all these tracks on this computer and how hard it was to achieve a studio like this over all the years, then i would slap the shit out of him and call the police haha.
7. What is the best snack to have around while making music?
I always have a sandwhich with melted gouda cheese and a “BiFi Roll” and of course loads of drinks. I love snacks.
8. Do you think buying new gear and software helps with creativity
and/or inspiration?
Yes sure, always when i buy something new i get excited like a little kid and start playing around with the stuff and get always new ideas. I think everybody knows the feeling of getting something new and playing around with it.
9. If you were not a DJ/Producer what would be your profession?
hmmm good questions. to be honest i don´t really know. Probably still something with music. Sound engineering or selling hot dogs.
10. Tell us briefly what your master plan for world domination is in 2012.
I have many big plans for 2012. We plan enhanced music podcasts (which actually started already), alot of releases of other genres with new music partners (including you for example), expanding the bookings agency with more people, promote all of us more in the media again (videos, photos, tv) and many more which are my secrets and i can´t talk about them, otherwise this emails explodes and if you survive i have to kill you hehe…kidding…
For more info: frank-kvitta.net
This entry was written by , posted on December 8, 2011 at 2:15 pm, filed under interviews, music and tagged Frank Kvitta, Germany, techno, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m back from a long weekend in Germany. The airline lost my luggage going and coming. To get my equipment in time for the show I had to go from the Leipzig airport to Tegel Berlin by car. This all took so long that I had to go directly on stage without sleeping almost 24 hours. Everyone reacts differently to situations like this and I just get basically [more] insane. Luckily that’s exactly what my live show calls for so it was all for the better. The show photos and the video I made above (music and video recorded in the car on my iPhone) shows my state of mind. To see the full set of photos from the night: click here. The Wet Club in Espenhain German has been properly opened. Stand by the Innovators!
“On the Autobahn. Driving on the Autobahn in a Mercedes Benz with an Italian. It’s the Axis Powers because we have a Japanese girl tied up in the trunk. We’re the Axis Powers driving on the Autobahn.”
For more info: thehorrorist.com
This entry was written by , posted on June 7, 2011 at 8:36 am, filed under live performance and tagged Espenhain, Germany, live performance, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m heading to the airport soon for a live show Saturday night in Espenhain, Germany. Espanhain is about a half hour from Leipzig. The event is for the opening night at a brand new club called the Wet Club. It’s a large event with a lot of DJs and live acts some of which include Divinity (Divinity.De, Bash Events), Tom B. (Beatbrothers, Dusted Decks), Jokers Of The Scene (Fool’s Gold), Acidkids (München), The Robstars (Beatbrothers), Perry Live! (Zehnvierzig and Psychodevils (Leveltrauma, Pd Records, Trier). I often think playing these German events is a kin to American car companies testing their cars on the Nuremberg Track. If you can rock as good as even the last person listed on the flyer you have some cred. I plan on sweating a few pounds off on stage for sure. If I can I will send you updates from the road. You can of course always follow my obligatory waiting in the airport and about to lift off Tweets (link).
“The solar power plant Espenhain Leipzig is in the municipality. This power plant is a photovoltaic power station. It is a partnership project of the Berlin project development company Geosol and Shell. The power plant was dedicated on the September 8, 2004 and at that time one of the largest of its type in Europe.” – Wikipedia
For more info: wet-club.de
This entry was written by , posted on June 3, 2011 at 5:02 am, filed under live performance and tagged Espenhain, Germany, live performance, The Horrorist, Wet Club. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
For those Wire to the Ear readers who also follow my music as The Horrorist here is a set of photos from New Year’s Eve. I performed at the Landespavillon in Stuttgart, Germany. As usual I had a fantastic time, played a few new songs and made new friends. I have to admit it’s hard going from events like this to the daytime standard.
For more info: thingstocome.com
This entry was written by , posted on January 7, 2011 at 9:14 am, filed under live performance and tagged Germany, Landespavillon, Stuttgart, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The nhow is a hotel in the center of Berlin on the Spree river. Why would I be posting information about a hotel on Wire to the Ear? Well this hotel has two recording studios in it available to guests. Not only that Gibson guitars are available to use through room service. Most musicians need really cheap rooms and Berlin is one of the cities where you can find nice hotel rooms for less than a hundred euros. The nhow hotel is going for 174 euro per night so if you stay get your studio time in to make it worth it. I like this idea and there should be hotels for any type of person no? Video game hotels, cat people hotels, etc… Let’s hope this nhow hotel has sound proof rooms, locks on the minibars and paid their insurance bills if they are inviting rock stars to stay with them.
“Located directly on the banks of the river Spree, the Nhow Berlin bills itself as the only hotel in Europe offering two professional music studios. A dedicated music manager is on staff, as is a team drawing heavily from local music colleges. Regular live events and concerts take place in the hotel’s event spaces and terraces, while first-rate DJs are on hand in the bar. The music studios are operated in collaboration with Lautstark Music GmbH/René Rennefeld, which also manage the legendary Berlin Hansa recording studios. The Nhow’s 304 rooms, meanwhile, are kitted out with iPod connections and more than 30 TV and 100 music radio stations integrated in a state-of-the-art entertainment system. Wireless Internet and more than 5,000 videos-on-demand are available in every room; Gibson guitars are even available through room service.” – springwise.com
For more info: nhow-hotels.com/berlin/
This entry was written by , posted on December 5, 2010 at 7:31 am, filed under business, song writing and tagged Berlin, Germany, nhow hotel, Recording Studio. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
To coordinate with my New Year’s Eve performance at the Landespavillon in Stuttgart, Partysan Magazine has interviewed me. You click the image above for a readable size or head over to my record label’s website for an English translation: click here
” I played one year for my Birthday. After the show I walked outside of Club Prag and some young German people were leaving and asked me to come with them. I got in their car leaving all my stuff at Prag. A few hours later I was in some other club so trashed I was asking people what they thought of my live show! Everyone in the new club was like, “Who the hell are you?”!” – Oliver Chesler (The Horrorist)
For more info: thingstocome.com
This entry was written by , posted on December 3, 2010 at 5:10 pm, filed under interviews and tagged 2011, Germany, interview, Landespavillon, New Years Eve, Partysan, Stuttgart, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m back from East Germany. The trip was great but exhausting. No matter how much healthy eating and elliptical training a 40 year old can do prepares you for the body attack two live shows like this take from you. It’s not just the hours of full volume vocals it’s the long flights, drives between cities and lack of sleep. I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I am feeling the pain today. A funny note: When I got to my car at JKF long term parking I had a flat. I fixed it and then the spare blew! After a 9 hour flight that’s just wrong.
For the full set of photos: flickr.com/photos/thingstocomerecords
This entry was written by , posted on August 10, 2010 at 3:43 am, filed under live performance and tagged East Germany, Germany, live, live music, live performance, The Horrorist. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m off to perform two live shows in East Germany this weekend. One of the events is in an underground cave. I’ve played a underground cave before in Germany but I’m not sure this is the same one. Last time we drove miles (kilometers!) into the middle of nowhere to find thousands of cars in a field. Then at one spot people were just walking into a hole. It was pretty crazy, cold and the acoustics were much better than you would think. I’m not sure vibrating tons of rock above your head is a good idea but hey nothing ever goes wrong at these things right?
By the way I’ve recommended MadMimi before (article: here) for letting your fans know your doing something via email and here’s the latest promotion I sent out last night regarding these live shows: http://mim.io/570f2
If you want to get on that email list: click here
This entry was written by , posted on August 5, 2010 at 5:20 am, filed under live performance and tagged East Germany, electronic music, Germany, live performance, synthpunk, techno, The Horrorist. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
K1 Clip – Demo by thingstocome
Here’s some music I recorded for a German female producer. It’s in her court to add vocals for this and send it back to me. You’re hearing two slightly detuned Yamaha CS5 lines. Both are going through D16 Devator’s. You also hear white noise from the CS5 modulated through Ableton’s Auto-Pan. Assorted booms are my own recordings and swing is up.
Alles klar?
This entry was written by , posted on July 24, 2010 at 3:17 pm, filed under Ableton Live, song writing and tagged ableton, d16, Devastor, electronic music, Germany, techno, Yamaha, Yamaha CS-5. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I try not to cross post too much between Wire to the Ear and my record label’s site Things to Come Records. However, when I leave for a few days to perform it’s good to let you guys know why the posts were light. In any case, the photos above are from my live show in Stuttgart at the Lehmann club. I played a bunch of new songs live for the first time. I’m going to make a deadline for my album this week. I think sometime late September. I’m seriously considering releasing it all myself with Tunecore, Beatport and Amazon CreateSpace for CDs. It’s not really about money; I have a well paying day job for that now but I have noticed that the stuff I released myself made me 10x what I made when I signed my music to other labels. So the lessons for today: Deadlines have to be and doing it yourself is the way to make cash in music in 2010.
For more info:thingstocome.com
This entry was written by , posted on May 25, 2010 at 4:47 am, filed under business, live performance and tagged business, Germany, Lehmann Club, Stuttgart, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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