IN THE STUDIO WITH RYBO: 5 ESSENTIAL PIECES OF GEAR

If there’s anyone who knows how to throw the dance floor into complete mayhem, it’s Los Angeles-based DJ, RYBO. The young, up-and-coming house prodigy has been a staple member of the Desert Hearts family for the past three years, taking part in not only the festival itself, but also a number of one-off parties, showcases, and City Hearts tour stops.

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This was always my dream synth especially after borrowing an original Tonus model from a friend. I finally got my hand on this one when Korg reissued it as an exact clone of the original 2600 only with a few modern features like midi and xlr out. This synth has a wide range of things you can do with it like fat warm bass sounds, squelchy mono leads and trippy arpeggios to name a few I enjoy using it for. Not to mention that its semi-modular making the possiblitys virtually endless.

I got this as my first analog synth from a buddy who found it at a flea market for $75 which is the steal of a lifetime. He was also was so nice to give it to me for the same price he found it so needless to say this is one synth I’ll never get rid of. When I received it she was pretty banged up so I sent it out to synth spa to fully refurbish it. I really love this synth for the pure simplicity of it but don’t be fooled its a real power house. It ranged anywhere from dreamy pads, lush chords to thick buttery basses. Chances are you’ve heard this synth in some of your favorite tracks.

This mixer is the mainframe of my studio. All of my instruments are connected via patch bay which feeds into the mixer then directly out of the mixer into my audio interface thus being able to capture my recordings. I really like having an outboard mixer in the studio because I use a lot of outboard fx, it has a nice eq and adds a bit of warmth when running anything through it.

This is definitely on of my favorite synths, I use this probably more than any other pieces of gear in my studio. If I could only have one instrument on a desert island this would be it. It has a really cool chord feature on it plus a really good arpeggiator and sequencer. You can basically get any sound you want out of this thing, you name it and it will produce.

I always use this for my core drums then I’ll use my drum machines for percussion and fillers. I really like the MPC 3000 because its a 16bit sampler and it gives a nice bit crush distortion adding a nice punch and crunch allowing for the sounds to cut through the mix. Also you can’t beat that mpc swing!

This is a TB-303 clone is made by a French company called Cyclone Analogic. I love it because its very similar to the original 303 but with midi and a few other features making the sequencer more user friendly. I got this synth because I’ve always been a sucker for a nice 303 sound. I try to incorporate it all my productions wether it being a short synth hit or an acid baseline or lead. You can hear this synth on my latest EP I did for Desert Hearts Records ‘Survive’ being on both the A and B side tracks.

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Desert Hearts Records · [DH110] RYBO – Survive EP (incl. Eskuche Remix)