For many people the practiced profession or a job, factually spoken, is a gainful employment. That’s it. A means to an end. Working in order to earn money.

Marco Minnemann has quite another attitude towards his “gainful employment”. He belongs to the people who found their profession in their job and this made him a worldwide know drummer.

However, he first made his way via other instruments which you wouldn’t compare with drumming at first sight – organ and guitar. And yet: the organ gave him a first feeling for playing with hands and feet, the guitar shaped his dexterity. When he started with drumming, he was driven by the idea to play an instrument where he could use hands and feet equally. Thus, he challenged himself by playing those notes by hands which were meant for the feet and vice versa. As a basis for practicing he took, among other things, textbooks and orchestrated for example George Lawrence Stone’s book “Stick Control” that originally serves as a workbook for the snare. But quickly he reached the limits of his possibilities with his drum set. Therefore, he started expanding his standard setup little by little, first with a second hihat, then a kickdrum, another gong-tom. Thus, he developed an extraordinary way of playing. Rather unique at that time of his career, but the beginning of his until today excellently played 6-way-independence-style.

„Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced.” At least that’s what wikipedia claims it to be. 

To Zino Mikorey, mastering is much more than that. To him, mastering is the last creative step in the process. The last chance for the artist and the production team to make changes to the songs – both, sonically and emotionally. 

As a former music producer and mixing engineer, Zino developed the ability to listen to the final mixes from a musical as well as a technical standpoint. His focus being to find out what a song needs in order to make it shine. Sometimes it needs a lot of treatment and sound tweaks, sometimes you need to go back to the mix or the production state. Sometimes it is already where it’s supposed to be. In each scenario, it is the ability to sense the artists vision for a song, allowing him to make decisions that help the project. 

In addition, his musical background helps communicating with artists on a very effective and enjoyable level. Which, among others, might be the reason why artists like Nils Frahm, the Parcels, Olafur Arnalds and many more trust Zino to master their records.

Icelandic music has never been this present: Artists like Ólafur Arnalds, Björk and Sigur Rós -just to name a few- established a style of their own and gain massive impact. Due to the small popularity, there are only a few places musicians, producer, composer and engineers meet. One such place is the famous E7 studios in the harbor of Reykjavík.

Icelandic songwriter and composer Ragnar Ólafsson kindly takes time off recording his next solo album in his studio room in E7 to share his view on music creation and making a living as a musician under the special circumstances of Iceland’s rather small music industry.

He took us on a ride around his hometown, sharing his favourite places and the beautiful nature of Iceland.

Sandhausen, Germany. Berlin based live and session drummer Felix Lehrmann stops by for a session at the alte Zigarrenfabrik Studios. He chats with us about the importance of sound, in the studio and live, and how he chooses instruments that complement his style of playing.

Late 2018, Felix visited the Paiste factory in Nottwil, Switzerland. He had the chance to see how his favorite cymbals are crafted by hand and gained a better understanding of what it takes to build a high quality cymbal.

Planning a live show is a very complex matter. There are all sorts of different aspects to pay attention to: Technical things like sound, light, effects as well as setup and tour organization in general. Not to mention the psychological aspects of managing a team in stressful situations. Sometimes there is only a short time frame to setup the stage before a show starts. Thus, a well-coordinated team and structured processes are necessary.

We had the chance to accompany Glasperlenspiels crew in a venue called Kammgarn in Kaiserlautern in order to get an impression of the work that takes place before the show starts.