Henning Svoren, Ocean Sound Recordings (update with music samples)

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 Welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking Your World of Creativity. And today we're gonna fly and we're gonna take a ferry. We're gonna go over a bridge. We're going out onto an island called Giske off the coast of Norway. And this is the home of a terrific recording studio called Ocean Sound Recording. And my guest is Henning Svoren of Ocean Sound.

Henning, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you. A pleasure to be here.

Representing such a beautiful setting and inside is technology marvel for recording music.

You, you built it as a studio from the ground up.

And it's also different. I'm still, not in competition to any of the studios in the cities. So I think we are still I'm a little bit acquainted with the pre owner of Mayfair Studio, which closed and it follows us on our Instagram and it's no bad blood. But yeah, we came out of like maybe lots of studios closing, but we tried something a little bit different and.

it seemed to work. . Yes.

And we, we could do retro sounding stuff. We also, it been, it's been important to us to follow the trends and right now I'm sitting in our B studio, which we've installed Dolby Atmos system, which is the latest, greatest thing.

Yes. Yeah. So it's important to have Cutting edge, digital stuff as well as old tubes and warm goodness that we all love so much. .

Yes. And the warmth certainly. I imagine that there are artists who come there for, the peace, the quiet, the isolation and inspiration.

But you worked with all genre. There, there's not really a a specialty of somebody who comes there just to do smooth, soft, spiritual, acoustic recording.

We've actually been, I'm not sure if it's happened yet, but we've been we're supposed to have what's it called?

Yeah, music for re or just speech for relaxation, like mantras. And I was gonna record a week of lady from Arabia, Uhhuh

like meditations and as sm R ,

I don't know. Didn't happen. Yeah. Maybe could think. Uh, But yeah, we've had all song roles in the beginning. We we came out of Or environment of maybe sixties pop like a bit retro kind of pop music aesthetic or something.

But what we kind of didn't expect was to be of place for urban music. So we had for example, lots of German hiphop. , very hard hiphop in German. For some reason they seem to like it a lot here which we didn't expect at all. And yeah. So it's very diverse. And we also do quite a bit of jazz at the moment.

There's Italian artist there, or Quinte from. . But they came here because they love the maybe Scandinavian, jazz the sound tradition or something. And , of course area and stuff. Yes. And maybe the stuff we had leased of this. Black metal actually, . Yes.

There's always a chance.

And I think we imagined the, board engineer or something, being the silent partner. Hey, just push the button, run the board, make us sound great.

But what is indeed though your contribution to the whole creative

effort? Yeah. I hope, but trying, I'm fighting a little bit. engineers to be recognized as creative people because I think most of us are in it for yeah, we're in it to make great music, not to turn knobs,

Turning knobs itself is not the reason why I'm working here, if and but it's also a great opportunity for us as With the outside perspective for the musicians to be someone who looks, who is not that close to the project and have a bit fresh ears and fresh perspective.

And we also are trained in or looking at the big picture of the song and we're a musician who is playing a part or something might be stuck on the details of the how to play it or not necessarily thinking about how it relates to the vocal or like the big, what we're trying to achieve.

I think we, as engineers and producers easily take that role of helping them to Realize the whole vision of the song .

Yes, certainly they have a vision. Yes. And you're there to actualize it for sure. Yeah. But there's also plenty of stories in music about, a random guitar riff or some sample that was just off on the corner that somebody says, wow, we never expected this.

Or you put a tweak on it that we hadn't heard before. , what about those light bulb mo moments?

My guest has been Henning Svoren of Ocean Sound recording in Giske, Norway and Henning as we close. I'd like to come back to this idea of the part or the role that the studio and the engineer can play. Obviously the band has talent. The band wants to capture their vision.

B, besides being the drummer, the guitar player, the vocalist, the basis what role does the studio and the engineer play in executing that mu musical vision?

I think I think a good studio and like environment and recording process can take something good to amazing, or the sky's the limit cause it's an integral part, of of yeah, making music.

I think because in the end the music is coming out of speakers. It's a technical process, but it's it's also a creative process and or

yeah. Yeah. I love that. Henning Can't, thank you enough. I've really enjoyed our conversation getting to know you better and the studio. Better. Thank

you.

It's been a really. I'm touched by your enthusiasm, both for the music making process and our studio. So I'm really happy to be here.

Thank I'd love to include Giske in my travel itinerary, get outta oslow and get out of Helsinki and Copenhagen and see the, see where the real creativity is.

Yeah.

Yes.

Very good. Listeners, you can connect with Henning and his team at Ocean Sound dot. NO. And as Henning mentioned, they have a great Instagram it's Ocean Sound recordings on Instagram. Henning, thanks again for being on the show. Thank you. And l and listeners let's continue our worldwide travels.

We've stopped off at the fjords of Norway at Oceanside recordings today. Check out their website, beautiful photographs. It'll really inspire your creativity just to see what's going on there. But let's continue our travels. We'll continue to talk to creative practitioners of all kinds.

We love talking with singer songwriters and producers and illustrators and designers, architect. Restaurateurs, anybody who is putting their creativity to their craft, we love to talk to and get inspired. So until next time, I'm Mark Stinson and we're unlocking your world of creativity. We'll see you next time.