Week 10 S2

BERLIN STUDENT MAGAZINE

APRIL 2022• w10.s2

Dear BIMMers, You are starting to know me, I am Salim here to present you the 4th edition of BIMM Berlin Student Magazine.

Thank you for the constant support you are showing. This week you carried us across the borders all the way to Egypt.

We had to come back with some gifts.

I want to welcome Elliot, 1st-year Production Student, who joins Nic on the Design. Big up to the entire squad, Simon, Liam, Nic, Francesco, Alban, and Filip.

We are getting closer to a football team.

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What you will find in this edition of the BIMM student MAGAZINE:

Side Sessions

Among 4 incredible Student Releases with deep messages, you will meet Khayal, a successful Egyptian band related to BIMM Berlin through its lead guitarist.

At Badehaus, our Master Students or-

A lot of new things! We from now on host the little blue frog and its new Podcast Series, The FreQShow.

German with prof. Albus became Synthesis with prof. Albus and it rocks! You surely want

And for you, we went into some hard negotiaschool. Thanks to Was is’ mit Vegan and Waffeê!

he left us with the authentic Parmigiana you’ll

TABLE TABLEOFOF CONTENTS CONTENTS STUDENT RELEASES VERY VIOLET....................................................3 KHAYAL..............................................................4 JOSHUA SMITH................................................6 MADELAND......................................................7 SPRING SOUNDS 2022....................................9 BIMM STUDENT DISCOUNTS...................11 SIDE SESSIONS ADAM’S RECIPES...........................................13 SYNTHESIS WITH ALBUS...........................15 FREQ SHOW....................................................17 SPRING SOUND LINE UP...........................18

Photo by Alban

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VERY VIOLET My name is Pablo, I am 25 years old. My arTist name ''Very Violet'' comes from a silly old story about a nail polish called the same but this is not the moment to talk about it.

I

started my career by playing the piano at a very young age. I remember avoiding my classical music obligations to compose a lot of different kinds of music. I never cared about musical genres, but everything I was doing had some rock and metal roots. Therefore, I decided to learn guitar and bass to be able to produce my songs. I then became more interested in Jazz and its subgenres, always along with my classical piano career.

Over the years, I released albums and EPs with progressive Metal, Funk, and R&B bands. I started to produce others’ music, worked as a music teacher and session musician.

‘Insane’ is a Single with electro-al

ternative vibes and many synths.

I actually don’t know how to describe my music as I am changing the style for each song. I would say that ‘Insane’ is introspective and reflects my emotions. This song talks about a hypothetical situation of self-destruction and mind disorder.

I’ll be releasing more music in the future, I don’t know in what style yet, but that’s maybe the surprise you will always get with me. I want to do more like ‘Insane’ as I felt comfortable making it and enjoyed the process.

I am looking forward to participating in funky, modern R&B or prog Rock/Metal bands. Actually, any kind of collaboration is welcome.

JOSHUA SMITH M

y name is Josh, I am a 22-year-old English-German hybrid, and I am here to tell you about myself and a new song of mine.

My earliest memory of attempting anything musical, was when I sang along to High School Musical, watching it repeatedly until I knew every line off by heart. In 2017 I taught myself how to play piano and guitar through YouTube videos which allowed me to eventu‘Blame’ is part of a four-track EP called ‘What a strange thing’ and was written 3 years ago.

Back then and still to this day, the most essential element to me as a songwriter is storytelling. This has led to me being called Ed Sheeran... a lot.

The song describes the emotions I experienced after my best friend, and seven-year crush, had gotten together with someone else. For months, I blamed her for making me so miserable. Then one day after I saw how happy she truly was, I felt guilty about how I was feeling towards her. However, still having this anger inside of me I turned it towards myself. Although I do not agree with hating myself for it anymore, writing the song helped me process the situation and allowed me to learn from it.

At the end of April, I will be releasing the rest of the EP. After graduating from BIMM Berlin I want to start playing live shows and eventually record my debut album. However, for now I hope you enjoy the song and I thank you for taking the time to get to know me.

The humble giant and his hidden gems Interview by Liam Weeres

I

PETE SMITH

had the pleasure of sitting down with a legendary producer/engineer in the business, who’s had his fingers on some of the biggest artists we’ve been blessed with since we, as human beings, found out we could bang sticks on a drum made of animal skin. In this interview we will be taking a look into how Pete Smith got in the position to work with musicians like The Police, Stevie Wonder, Joe Cocker and the list goes on and on.

it didn’t quite work out, but the times that it did were thetimes that drove you on and gave you your confidence.”

FOR THE PEOPLE THAT DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR LIFETIME, COULD YOU PLEASE TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT THAT AND ABOUT YOUR LIFE?

“I think as I’ve said before and I still stand with to this day, it’s not JUST about the ability you got, but sometimes you just need to be at the right place at the right time to be able to get opportunities like these. I started as a T-Boy tape operator at Utopia Studios in Camden Town which was a very well-established studio in London, and the guy that owned the studios was also a quite well-known record producer called Phil Wainman. He had quite a lot of belief in me as an engineer and a record producer, I therefore started assisting great engineers like Andy Jackson, James Guthrie and many more. The fact that I could sit in with these guys made it possible for me to soak up as much information as possible from some of the best in the business at this time.”

“Oh well, my musical background is quite prevalent. My grandfather was a band leader during the 2nd world war, Ernest Smith was his name, and he had his own swing band during the thirties and forties. My father went to Cambridge and studied Greek and Latin music and ended up as a writer for the BBC Radio orchestra, and he was also a quite prominent session musician during the sixties and seventies and played on a lot of big records. He was a trombone player and played for Shirley Bassey for 25 years.”

As you can hear music was a big thing in Pete’s household when growing up, you’d say it’s in the blood. He tells me a story of him waking up in the house and hearing his father pling around on his piano and rearranging his instruments in his dedicated music space, I could see in Pete’s eyes that this was a very fond memory of his, even though at this point he was so young that he didn’t really have an idea of what was going on, but he could feel the energy.

“The first record I ever bought was a record by America with Neil Young called “A horse with no name” and I remember actually going down to the record shop in Forrest Hill and purchasing, because normally I had them bought for me, but this was the first time I made an active choice of what I wanted to listen to.”

WOULD YOU SAY THIS BECAUSE NEIL RATION OF YOURS? GEST INSPIRATION,

THAT YOU YOUNG IS A AND IF NOT WHO WOULD

REMEMBER BIG INSPITHE BIGTHAT BE? BE

“Yes, Neil is defiantly a big inspiration, because I loved the acoustic setting and especially guitars captured me heavily, but I think if I had to name the biggest inspiration for me within music it would be Bowie, without a shadow of a doubt. The way he managed to chameleonize and reinvent himself, I think was a big thing that inspired me.”

WORKING IN ANALOGUE TIMES AND HAVING THESE 24+ TAPE TRACKS THAT YOU RECORDED ON, I WOULD IMAGINE YOU WOULD’VE MESSED UP SOMETIMES, WOULD YOU SAY YOU LEARNED A LOT FROM THIS? “Oh yes, I did defiantly mess up once in a while, your best teacher is yourself and therefore when you start learning from your mistakes it will benefit you immensely.

All of a sudden, you’re in situations whilst working with bands and you were not quite sure what you’re doing, but you still just had to swing it. There were situations where

I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE AT BIMM ASSOCIATE YOUR NAME VERY QUICKLY WITH STEVIE WONDER SINCE IT’S ONE OF THE BIGGEST NAMES YOU’VE WORKED WITH, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN AND WHAT OTHER NAMES HAVE YOU HAD THE PLEASURE OF WORKING WITH?

After

a

while Pete Smith became engineer at Utopia.

an

“The Stevie Wonder thing was one of those things where you sit with at the edge of your seat and try to be ready to follow his flow. I would normally guide people through the studio and tell them if I thought they’d be able to deliver something better. But with Stevie it was something completely different, I started working with this guy called Pete Warsh and he taught me the importance of immediacy. This benefited me a lot when Stevie came to the studio, because first he would go off to the keyboard, then to the drums, then get the girls to sing a line and THEN he would get them to sing a harmony.

I did some engineering with him, and this was truly a baptism of fire, especially being a young boy at the age of 19/20.”

I also talked to Pete about his relationship with Sting, which started with him getting his luckiest break so far at Utopia as he called it and that was being chosen to record Stings demos for The Police’s last album synchronicity. Pete said “Uh okay, I’m actually in the studio with a hero. The Police were and are one of my favorite bands in the whole world, and I’ve been chucked in at the age of 22 after thinking a few times that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do this as a career because it was so volatile and so up and down at many times. But I did it and I am so happy to this day that I did.”

He talked about the legendary record that we’ve all most defiantly heard many times and had a few cries over, and that is off course “every breath you take” and Pete Smith recorded Stings backing tracks and was the first person in the world to actually hear it.

“I had no idea what the melody was like because we had a backing track setup, I was just this young naive engineer, in Sting went and sang it in front of me. I remember after he sang it, and obviously I knew what was going on I had goosebumps up my arms, as he walked out of the booth, he came to me and said: that should do it actually… that should do it.”

Pete and Sting became friends after this and this also ended up being a significant connection between two great mus

cians, because Pete ended getting a phone call late at night at Utopia a few years later and it was Sting calling him to ask if he would be down to work with him on his first solo album. At the time there was here say that Sting was talking to Quincy Jones about having him to work on the album, but Sting was open and honest with Pete when he asked why he wasn’t running with Quincy, the answer was short and sweet “Quincy Jones was too expensive, and I can get you for next to nothing and we just laughed in the telephone.”

JUST TO WRAP IT UP IN A NICE WAY, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHY YOU CHOSE TO BECOME A TEACHER AT BIMM INSTEAD OF STAYING ON AS A FULL-TIME PRODUCER/ENGINEER? “I’ve had my fingers on a lot of great records with a lot of industry Giants like Joe Cocker, Squeeze, Gary More and many others, and then I’ve also worked on a lot of records with not so famous people or huge names that I am just as proud to have been a part of. I think it just got to a stage where I’d decided that I didn’t want to be in the studio 12 hours a day, every day. There was a life out there and it was a life I wanted to get involved in, and that’s when I came to live in Berlin.

I had some friends down there that wanted to do some work together, so I came to here, and a friend of mine Jake Shillingford, who I’d done some records with, told me he was trying to set up this college in Berlin and asked me if I would be interested in teaching production. I had never given it any thought, and I have to be honest, at first, I was pensive about it because there’s a great difference between doing and teaching. But I said yes, and I started when the college started here, and I enjoyed it immensely, seeing the progress the students were making. I started developing a certain teaching style, and this was just meeting you guys on the same eye level and also making sure that you understand what I am trying to teach you. What that did for me and my career, it freed me up to do other things and I still make one album a year which I make in the summer.”

This is one of the goals of many a people, to get that comfortable reputation and skill wise that one can start choosing the projects they want to be a part of instead of having to be a part of projects just to get by and pay next month’s rent.

Pete still enjoys teaching us at BIMM and goes on to say that he will do it until he stops enjoying, which won’t be any time soon, as far as I could see in his eyes and facial expression.

“All that experience that I’ve had, good and bad, you can bring into the classroom with you, and you can turn around and tell people, look, I’ve had these breaks SOME of it was luck and SOME of it was skill, but when you’re given the luck, think about how you behave in the studio apart from the technical side of it.

If I can inspire and drive you guys to the right place and feel your hunger for improving and grabbing the Bull by its horns and saying this is what I what to do, I get a lot of pleasure out of that and this also what fuels me.”

`Awel We Msh Akher Marra `

Whilst Pete was lying there on the sofa in Studio 2, with a cheeky Fritz Soda in his hand that I bought him, looking like the most relaxed guy in the world.

I couldn’t help but feel blessed by being in the presence of such an established person inside the industry and still being so humble about some of the legendary stories I got to hear and now share with you guys. If you see Pete Smith in the hallway or on the street, be sure to greet him with a smile, because you’ll get the same amount of smile right back.

First and not the last time

ELLIE MADELAND We always listened to music in our I eventually decided to study Vocals at home. My dad taught me guitar and BIMM London. During that time, I piano when I was a kid. I was also founded another band called Emergent extremely mesmerized by artists on Minds. I really found my sound when I MTV, Idol, and stuff like that. Completely met producer Gentle William online. glued to the TV, haha. I then eventually We are still working together up to this started listening to The Cure, and they today. I am now doing my 3rd year stole my heart, man... in Berlin and I am loving it!

However, I didn’t start my music journey until 2018. I tried to avoid it for as long as possible for fear of failing. But, as I am sure a lot of people can to catch up with you.

I started doing open mics and wrote songs a lot more. I had my released a bunch of songs. It was fun.

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‘Mother Mother’ was inspired by a collec tion of letters between me as a child and my mum after my parent’s divorce. I found the letters in the attic during lockdown last year. Reading them triggered a lot of emo tions in me. The song is about loss, iso lation, depression, abandonment issues, and desperation. But also all the other times in my life where I have felt similarly.

I am trying to let all of this go through this big, cathartic, emotional release at the end.

is almost like a sequel to ‘Moth er Mother’. It is about coming out of that drowning feeling, falling in in other people, and in myself.

I will be releasing more music with Gentle William. We are currently working towards an album release, and we have a few songs in the workings already.

There might be some rumors So stay tuned!

I also have a gig in Berlin on the 21st of April. I am opening the show at Marie Antionette, come and show your support!

SPRING

2 2 0 2 S D SOUN IN

SOLIDARITY

WITH

THE

UKRAINE

S

pring Sounds 2022 is a new and exclusive charity event that we are organizing as part of our MA course.

The Festival will take place at Badehaus on Monday 11th from 7pm.

Alien Grace - the intercontinental sensation.

to help the victims of the Ukrainian war. ants to th er we can create a space of sharing and raise awareness for those who need help the most.

ACT 1

Gunnar Lines I am Gunnar Lines from the Netherlands and I play a blend of psychedelic reggae. I like to compare myself to Sticky Fingers, Bootleg

purpose” - Gunna Lines.

that brings good vibes with energetic reggae.

The goal is to make reggae mainstream in Berlin. This year, we aim to grow an audience in order to meet you people as we plan on recording a live album to bring our energy from the stage onto a record. You can usually

Johnny Kulo

ACT 3

Skin On Flesh

ACT 2

Skin On Flesh is a rock duo formed by Michiel Sybers and Laura J. Alvarez. They started writing songs together to vent out their frustrations during the panPunk, Skin on Flesh will blast the listener into their world capturing them in personal stories expressed with loud guitars and intense vocals.

Johnny Kulo is the India-born, Berlin-based artist who is sure to melt a few hearts with his sumptuously groovy style Inspired by personal events, Kulo candidly admits to his past mistakes but in a way that says “hey, we are only human”.

SKI

N

FLE ON

SH

ACT 4

Alien Grace

yet tenderly entertwining voices along with soaring melodies and rhythms that shake you.

From Scandinavia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Malta, the band and to the East for their spice.

Waffeê

ê e f f a W

20% and crepes from Tuesdays to Fridays Is it Spring or Winter? The weather is driving me nuts, but one thing I am sure about is that a warm Coffee and a good Waffle at 4 pm make everyon happy.

Still in the same area, if it happens that you have space for a dessert it should definitely be at Waffeê.

Here Abdu will serve you the most garnished crepes and waffles you’ve ever seen. The discount starts May 1st and ends August 31st.

A DELICIOUS DISCOUNT FOR ALL BIMMERS!

WAT IS’ MIT VEGAN? You know the area, nice terrace, friendly benches, even the sun sometimes blesses us with holy rays.

We started the journey, here, at the Family Vegan Food Truck. You will be hosted by a lovely German couple who take time to chat and answer your questions.

I admit I didn’t know you cold make Vegan Burgers, Kebabs, Curry Wursts, or Nuggets.

It was surprising, delicious, and healthy. I am personally still going to eat meat, but you’ll see me queueing there more often!

NOW t for oun c s i d S 10% MER M I all B

GET WELL SOON FRANCESCO! This week, our personal in house top chef Francesco sadly fell ill to Covid.

Locked and wrapped up in the comofort of his bed, Francesco still managed to serve us up a heap of easy steps that we can take to prepare a meal à la Francesco. This time we prepare Parmesiana, a hearty pasta dish to warm us all up in this cold April. Eat up!

d i v o C Due to

COOKING WI TH FRANC

a n a i g i Parm

ane di melanz

“

Ingredients for 4 pe

ople

This edition’s recipe is a MUST, the perfect dish to celebrate friendship and feast together, the Sunday queen, ladies and gentlemen: Parmigiana.

Eg gp la nt s (1, 5 kg ) Tom ato sa uc e (a bo ttl e, 75 cl or 1l)

”

I don’t know where the name comes from, as we all know Parmigiano is a cheese,

end of the day.

M oz za re lla (5 00 g) Pa r m ig ia no ch ee se (u se all yo u ha ve , th e m ore th e be tte r, re m em be r, it’s ab ou t LOV E) Eg gs (6 /7 )

Flou r (2 00 g)

Ba sil

, at the

O live O il

Sa lt

THE RECIPE 1) Start by preparing the tomato sauce, it should be cooked for about 20 min with oil, salt and some basil leaves at low heat.

7) Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees (don’t worry if at the end it seems burnt on the top, it isn’t, trust me), then garnish with some more basil to add some color and contrast.

2) Cut the Mozzarella in small cubes and let it release the water using a colander.

8) You’re done! You’re now ready to astonish your friends and change their lives for a day. Enjoy!

3) Cut big slices of eggplant, they should be long and thin. Then prepare two bowls: one with flour and one with beaten eggs and heat a large pan with olive oil (not too hot, otherwise the oil will squirt directly into your eyes when you put the eggplants, and it is painful, however, if you like BDSM put on max heat, you’ll have fun).

Delicous. Always.

Always.

4) Here comes the EGGPLANT SPA: take a slice, dip it in the flour, then in the eggs, then put it in the frying pan. Depending on your pan, you should be able to fry 4/5 slices at a time, turn them around, and when they have the right golden color, put them in a plate with kitchen paper to absorb the residual oil, then put another sheet of paper on top of them, ready to welcome the next round.

Keep going like this until you finish your eggplant slices, it’s also a fun game to do together with someone, just like an assembly line.

Please note: you might have to refill the flour, eggs and the oil in the pan during the process, just make sure you don’t f*** everything up burning the oil. I know it’s a messy and tiring procedure, but the final result is definitely worth the effort, you’ll see my friend.

5) When you have fried all the eggplants, leave them in the plate with the paper for 10 min to release oil and cool down a bit. Put some salt and eat some of them, aren’t they amazing?!

6) This is the fun part, take your oven-friendly dish, put some oil on the bottom, and start building the magic cake, in no particular order: tomato sauce, eggplants, mozzarella, Parmigiano. Just like a lasagna.

Fill all the layers and admire the beauty of it. Make sure that on top you will put a lot of mozzarella, basil, and literally kilos of Parmigiano.

“These weeks have been tough for franc the cook, I actually got Covid and it was impossible to cook for the guys of the magazine as we always do. They were really kind all the time and helped me get through this. Now that this bad dream is over, I realize that, sometimes, the right people around can be more important that you would think.”

SYNTHESIS WITH PROF. ALBUS Alright lads, you all know German with prof. ALBUS, now get ready for SYNTHESIS with prof. ALBUS!!

Today, I will be teaching you how to import a custom waveform into serum (a great synth plugin) and cre-

To do so, we will use a random voice message of noises I recently sent to someone and import it into the DAW. The next step is to zoom in until the waveforms are visible and cut out a single sound wave.

This is exported as an audio file and saved in a folder.

Now, open up a new Midi Track with Serum on it and drag the waveform onto one of the oscillators.

After importing two of these into your two oscillators you can start playing around with the envelope filter, LFO, and effects to create a bass, chords, Pad, or Pluck Sound.

I will now show you, how I made my pluck and my bass: The unisons are set to 7 and 9 with the detune taken down a notch.

I added a low pass filter, chorus, ping pong delay, and a reverb to make the sound more soothing. Finally, I controlled the ADSR with envelope one (fast attack, fast decay, zero sustain, and fast release, here you can play around until you like the sound).

SYNTHESIS WITH PROF. ALBUS For the bass, I chose a lower unison amount, a more aggressive high cut, and set Oscillator 2 down an octave to act as a sub-bass.

I linked LFO 1 to the two oscillator’s volume controls and set the rate to 1/16 so that on a held note the bass will sound like repeatedly triggered 16th notes.

The final touch was adding a good amount of distortion to make the bass cut through the mix and enable it to deliver some energy.

And there you are! By building your own synth instruments you can find new sounds that might inspire you in your creative process. A good reason to tune in for the next episode, where we will be discussing an exciting new way to make Pads!

That’s all for this time!

Click the bee to listen how it turned out!

See you next time.

ACHTUNG! IT IS HERE! BIMM BERLIN’S OWN PODCAST! THE FREQSHOW IS A BRAND-NEW PODCAST SERIES FROM BIMM BERLIN STUDENTS. EPISODES ARE RELEASED ON A REGULAR BASIS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, FEATURING INTERVIEWS, MUSIC, NEWS AND MORE. The FreQShow exists to showcase BIMM talents, build community among students, create new innovative ways to inform each other, and share experiences. Each episode includes interviews with artists, bands, or creatives discussing their current projects, inspirations, and processes.

The FreQShow offers listeners not only the opportunity to get to know what their fellow students are up to, but also serves as a platform for anyone to share their new releases or projects via the podcast open calls.

THE FREQSHOW TEAM Recording & Creative Production / Akhil Kodamanchili Scheduling & Project Admin / Annika Fahland Hosting, Hot Takes & Content Creation / Ford Kjellberg Hosting & Artist Interviews / Marina Pharis Social Media / Mattia Brignoli Guest Booking / Terezie Kvetonova

Students are invited to submit their music or promote their upcoming projects and suggest relevant topics they’d like to hear being discussed.

The FreQShow: Episode #1 For our pilot episode, we’ve invited two BIMM Berlin collaborations, hot takes, and more.