Producer

PRODUCTION TOOLS & PROJECTS

I spend most of my working time writing and recording for motion pictures, touring the world with electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre as well as producing production music tracks. But I still make time for very special projects like Mongolian singer Okna Tsahan Zam, a top 10 best world music album in the UK or with Electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre whose Electronica album I co-produced was nominated in 2017 for a Grammy.

PRODUCTIONS

Every once in a while, there comes a project I simply cannot not take on. To date, these have been for great artists from Africa, the Mongolian steppe, or the mountains in Tibet."

PRODUCTION SUITE

Located in Paris, off the banks of the river Seine, a few minutes away from the Eiffel Tower, I have set up my own production suite and project studio: Studio 124.

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INSTRUMENTS, OLD & NEW

Whether it’s synths, guitars, mics or Fx, the thing that characterizes my gear is that I have selected over the years a collection of old and new, a mix of vintage and hi-tech.
It’s so very nice to have the right tool at the right moment, depending on the project. To illustrate this here are a few of my favorite and most useful “toys”.

Even though I did a lot of live stage work as a guitarist as well as a few thousand studio sessions I now work almost exclusively from my own studio which is why I’ve made some purposeful adjustments.

AMPS

Here is a selection of old and new that covers almost any situation:
An original Black Panel 63 Fender Deluxe Reverb considered by many as one of 3 best amp ever made, my “go to” amp.

That 75 Boogie is one of the first ever made and is perfect for sweet sustain and crunch.

The Matchless preamp is great when going direct into a preamp and ProTools. As for the Kemper it’s so incredibly flexible: modelling and profiling give access to all kinds of iconic amps though the Rig Manager app.

PEDALS

Depending on the project I can switch pedals but these are my basic ones.
I have 3 pedal boards:
#1 is my “go to” board to sketch ideas, my emergency board
#2 is more complete
#3 is used for more vintage or experimentation projects, I can also add a Kaoss pad to. I'll complete this line up with a Roland BeeBaa fuzz, purchased for $47 in Boston in 79 :-) with a few other relics from the 70s-80s for fun!

FX

Roland tape Chorus Echo RE-301, KORG rack SDD 300 and WEM tube Copicat for vintage echo, and Microcosm granular for a more modern feel are some of my favorites.

SYNTHS

Hardware Synths:
Here too I have a mix of vintage and high end instruments. For practical reasons I limited my gear to be used with 8 preamps so it means that at times I may sometimes have to unplug some, but here is my main rig.

MiniMoog, 2 Russian synths, Juno 106, Prophet 600 (my first MIDI polyphonic), Yamaha An1x for its great arpeggiator, Korg Micropreset.
They’re all unique and I use them for special projects hard to reproduce in VI… and they have real knobs ;-)
I use a Jaspers 4 tiers stand: synths some are permanent: Virus, Moog Sub37, Hydrasynth, Vermona DRM1and Korg Wavestate. Then depending on the project I adjust. Arturia MicroFreak and Soma Lyra8 not featured here most often used. Not forgetting some “new” old stuff: Modular! My Eurorack which is great for sequencing with a BeatStep pro.

Virtual synths:
there's a long list of VI I use so I’ll list the most significant ones: Spitfire and Vienna for Orchestral, NI for the incredible choice they offer in any style, Diva, Omnisphere (of course), UVI Falcon, Serum, Arturia synths, Dune, Plugin Alliance, Cherry Audio...

52 Telecaster

Les Paul

68 Telecaster

Gretsch

Magnatone

GUITARS

The ones I use the most: Fender Telecaster 68 is my workhorse, alongside a 64 Fiesta Red Strat for its iconic vintage strat sound, Les Paul 1960 gold top for blues-rock, Gibson 1956 ES TD for jazz.

When playing acoustic, the 4 guitars I use the most are a 63 “Country & Western” Gibson (strumming), A 58 Martin 00-18 (blues-folk), a O-28 VS Martin (folk) and a nylon string Takamine.

56 Gibson
125 ES TD

Stella

PRS

Weissenborn

Gibson C & W

64 Fiesta Red Strat

And for more ethnic instruments: Dobros, 1927 Weissenborn, Weisner Pedal Steel, 1938 National New Yorker lap steel, various banjos, 12 string, Egyptian oud, mandolin, moroccan gimbri...all sound fantastic.