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"I'm creatively greedy," Leon Vynehall said with a grin when we met at his cosy North London studio in October. Since adopting the alias just over a decade ago, he's covered most bases in underground music, branching out from DJ, producer and live act into radio and, most recently, label management. He's also established himself as a sought-after composer for major clients in TV, film and fashion. It's a trajectory that makes sense given the cinematic quality of his work, from the soaring soundpieces and textured downtempo tracks of his acclaimed 2018 album, Nothing Is Still, (which he toured with a live band) to his deep, rattling club cuts, like this year's self-released Rosebud / Black Dove–euphoric and lofty in equal measure.

His ability to straddle these disparate worlds is partly what makes him so impressive. Yes, he's scored a Dior campaign and won an Ivor Novello award, but he's also sold out all-nighters at local clubs like The Pickle Factory and Venue MOT in London. "I try my best to fit it all in," he said, with a quiet confidence.

Before his career in electronic music began, he grew up playing in bands, and these early foundations still resonate. He has a sharp ear for sound and a penchant for collaborating, and he's drawn to the tangibility of hardware and instruments. Accordingly, the shelves in his studio are stacked high with gear, from poly and modular synths to FX units.

In partnership with music gear marketplace Reverb, we caught up with Leon Vynehall to talk about the evolution of his workspace, the importance of drawing inspiration from beyond the screen and how looking backwards can help you move forwards.

Pictured: A Wurlitzer Spinet piano, the SOMA Pulsar-23 drum machine, the Vermona DRM-1 MKII drum synthesiser and various modular synths.

Can you tell me about your current studio setup?

My studio is humble in size, but it's big enough to house all of my equipment, trinkets and things I usually pull on for inspiration. I've tried to make it feel a bit like a front room. I spend a lot of time in here, so trying to make it as comfortable as possible, outside of it being a space to be creative, is really important.

In the middle of the room is the monitor section, where I sit when I'm editing or flicking through software synth presets. In a way that's the heart of the studio, where its pulse comes from. I've tried to make all of the instruments arm's reach from me because I'm only really interested in the physicality of music. I grew up playing instruments, so I associate sound with a physical movement. To the right is where all the synths I use a lot are stacked. I've put them on this side of the room because I like to be away from the screen when I'm playing or working through sounds. I don't want to be distracted by something visual, I want to use my ears, not my eyes. Then I have two racks of gear either side of me, my piano is off to the left, and on top is a modular rack system.

And then there's my records and books. They're not instruments but they're equally as important to the creative process as a synthesiser or guitar would be. There's [Salvador] Dali and [Marcel] Duchamp, and sometimes I look through a book and think: 'you know what, that idea I had isn't stupid, I should actually just do it.' Sometimes you need to get away from the screen, you need to get away from sound in order to find whatever it is that you're looking for. It might be a line in a book that inspires you to write the next passage of music.

Pictured: Universal Audio UA Apollo 16 audio interface, Klark Teknik 76-KT compressor, Empirical Labs FATSO compressor, the Overstayer Modular Channel, Tube-Tech CL 1B compressor, Eventide HS3000 D/SE effects processor, an AMS RMX digital reverb, Pope Audio BAX EQs, the Neve 1073 preamp and KRK 9000B monitors.

You've been producing for more than a decade. How has your studio evolved over the years?

My "studio" when I first started was a laptop, a MIDI keyboard and a pair of headphones, in my room at my mum's house when I was around 17. When I moved to Brighton, I was playing more in bands so I didn't really have a studio per se, I would go to rehearsal rooms. The first proper studio which felt like my own was shared. It was a tiny box room. You could just about fit in a small desk, a chair, a pair of speakers and a computer.

It's grown step by step since then. I've bought and sold things along the way. As human beings, we all change as we move through our lives and things that used to serve me well don't any more. I don't like to hoard, but there's a few things that have stuck with me, like my piano. I don't think I'll ever sell it. I'm sure that if I was still in this room in five years, it would look different.

Pictured: The Lovetone Doppelganger pedal, an Electro Harmonix Hog guitar synthesiser, a Chase Bliss CXM 1978 reverb effects pedal, a Microcosm granular effects pedal, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man pedal and the Danelectro Back Talk Reverse Delay pedal.

You mentioned the importance of taking yourself away from the screen. What is it about hardware that you value?

I think you can get a lot of happy accidents with hardware. I also value the time it takes to learn the piece of equipment. That's not to say that it doesn't take time to really hone your craft with a certain plug-in or a soft synth, but there's a sense of respect that you approach gear with, because it's physical and it's literally in front of you. I also think the price tag of a lot of these things lends itself to the philosophy of: I'm going to master this.

Is there a bit of gear that you return to time and time again?

I've had my Prophet 6 synth for maybe nine years, I think it was one of the first big poly synths I bought. It's got a knob called Slop which basically makes the oscillators go in and out of tune with each other, as if it were a broken piece of vintage equipment. I think that's a really neat parameter to have on a synth, especially because a lot of my music is not in tune with itself. Everything is always slightly out of tune, not so it's audible, but so you feel it.

I've thought about selling it a couple of times, but I've never quite been able to make myself do it. I've spent hours sat at it making patches. It came on tour with me and the band when we did the live show for Nothing Is Still. It's kind of chipped in places–it's got its scars from the road–but I suppose there's a sense of nostalgia in a lot of pieces of equipment. In a way, all these things become an extension of you. You can get really attached to them.

Can you tell me about the piece you got from Reverb and how you plan to use it?

It's a Dynachord Echochord Super 76, a 1976 tape delay module from Germany. What's interesting about it is that the tape head is on a slider. This one only has two tape heads–one it plays into and the delay–but you slide it along, so you can play it like an instrument. There's no fixed point for where the next tape head will go; it's not like I click it into place, I can move it around freely. You can get some really interesting and obtuse sounds from it that you wouldn't get from a "normal" tape delay machine. To my knowledge, there's only two like this: this one and the HH Slider Tape Echo, which is what many dub reggae producers used to use. I love tape echoes and I bought this because it's a beautiful unit.

You can use it in a few different ways. You can use it as a slider echo, or you can run audio signals through it, like a drum machine or a synth patch. You can really distort, push it and saturate the sound through the tape, which sounds really great. When the slider is all the way to the left, the delay time is really short. I think I'd use it for vocals, having that kind of slapback, you know like John Lennon? But I'll also experiment with it. That's the great thing about hardware. These pieces can be used outside of their remit. You can push them and use them in ways that they perhaps shouldn't be and get something really interesting out of it.

Pictured: The Dynachord Echochord Super 76 tape delay module.

Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited about at the moment?

On the computer side of things, one thing I've been using a lot is a soft synth plug-in called Pigments by Arturia. It combines granular synthesis, analogue emulation and audio samples, and I really love that because it sort of puts everything together into a really malleable synthesiser that you can really mould to what you like. The interface is really easy to use.

Arturia is really good at making presets. I have no shame in saying I flick through presets. I find something which is close to what I want, then I go in and start changing things. But this one has excited me a lot. And it's fairly inexpensive, too.

If you're interested in any of the equipment in Leon Vynehall's studio, he's compiled a list of lower-cost, similar pieces that are available from Reverb. To browse Reverb's wider collection, visit the website.

Yamaha Reface series

Arturia Microfreak

Arturia MicroBrute

Electro-Harmonix Pedals

Vital

VCV Rack (great for learning modular synthesis before buying hardware)

What is your creative process like? Do you have any rituals?

It depends on what my objective is for the day. If I'm scoring, I usually get a coffee, sit down and start working because I'm on a deadline. If my only focus is to write my own music, or just to be creative, I'll sit down at the piano, or at a synth, and spend half an hour to an hour on that. It might be learning to play a song on the piano, or making patches on a synth I haven't touched for a while. I think it's really important to learn more about the instruments around you, and hone your craft before you come in and go: right, now I'm going to write a song or a beat.

With the album I'm midway through at the moment, there's a narrative behind it and it's thematic, so I know what each song needs to be. In that case, I'll come in here with something in mind and try to get to the point where I'm hearing what I can hear in my head out loud. I try to do the admin work before I get into the real creative thing too, like editing anything I made the previous evening.

Leon Vynehall's collection of guitars includes a Silvertone 1478, the Fender Duo-Sonic, Fender Precision Bass and a Gretsch Jim Dandy.

I think there's something to be said about being creative in the wee hours of the night. When my brain thinks I should be sleeping, it goes into that magical surreal dream world that I can pull things from in a far more creative way than I could do at 2 PM. I could happily spend 20 hours in here. If I'm following something, I don't want to leave. But at the same time, if I've been throwing spaghetti at the wall all day and it's just not working, I'm out.

You also often work collaboratively, whether that's with vocalists, musicians or clients. How does that compare?

When people come in to work with me, we'll spend the first couple of hours just sitting here chatting. I need to get to know the person. After that, the process is quick. One piece of advice I give is if you're setting up a room, make sure that the time between the idea, the sound generation and then getting it into the computer to record is as short as possible. That's especially important when you're collaborating. Perhaps you're with an artist who doesn't play an instrument, they're a singer or a rapper. They don't want to be waiting for you if you say, "just give me two minutes, I need to plug this in." You want your shit snappy, so that if you hit something and they go, "Oh that sounds cool! What's that?" it's there.

Pictured: Technics 1210 Turntable MKII, the Aphex Aural Exciter for audio enhancement and an SPL Vitalizer SX 2 processor.

Finally, what is it about vintage equipment that you're drawn to?

There's a huge industry within music production that's about trying to emulate old gear, and nine times out of ten, it's done incredibly successfully. But there's still something about having a tangible piece of equipment that you can physically move and push to its brink that you can't really emulate, and that's what I love.

There's also a lot of history in these things. Who knows what has been recorded on the tape inside that machine? You're putting your little stamp on a historical thing and I find that fascinating. I think there's something really beautiful about having a connection to the past before you, to help you move to a new thing in the future.

Revisit the previous editions of Studio Digest with Cinthie and Steven Julien.

Yamaha Reface series Arturia Microfreak Arturia MicroBrute Electro-Harmonix Pedals Vital VCV Rack (great for learning modular synthesis before buying hardware)

Yamaha Reface series

Arturia Microfreak

Arturia MicroBrute

Electro-Harmonix Pedals

Vital

VCV Rack (great for learning modular synthesis before buying hardware)