Uses This

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Tom Phillipson, and I'm an Australian living in Berlin, Germany. For the most part I work with video, mainly film clip production for musicians and artists. Labels I have worked with include Trapez, Traumschallplatten, Thoughtless music, Klasse, Terminal M, and I've produced clips for Deepchild, Dominik Eulberg, Piemont, Sacha Robotti, and Noah Pred to name a few.

I also perform as a VJ in clubs and festivals. Some of my recent bookings have included (DE) Fusion Festival 2011, 2012, 2013, Tresor, Week End, Cookies, Ritter Butzke, Tacheles, Asphalt, (AUS) Peats Ridge Festival, LadyLux, Civic.

Aside to this, I also produce work for gallery shows/installations.When I have spare time, I produce music, but that is more just to keep sane when everything is getting too much.

What hardware do you use?

My hardware for video is pretty straightforward - I use a Canon 5D Mk III and a Canon 7D, with 16-35mm f2.8L, 24-70mm f2.8L, and 100mm f2.8 macro lenses. Depending on the shoot and what it requires, I either use my Redrock DSLR Cinema rig with a 7 inch Marshall monitor or the Glidecam HD-4000 stedicam.

Editing-wise, I just use an 27 inch iMac i7 with 16 gigs of RAM. It's not the fastest when it comes to rendering, but for editing and audio it does everything nicely. Also the 27 inch screen is lovely. I have a Matrox MXO2 Mini hooked into it for when I need to do some HDMI capture.

Performing I just use MacBook Pro i7, an iPad running TouchOSC as the controller and a Benq 3000 lumens projector.

Although music and audio production is really just something I do on the side, it has always somehow taken up the most resources and space in my studio. I have been buying synths and drum machines since 1997, always making sure if I sell something I put that money back into more hardware. Anyway, my current studio consists of Protools Digi-002, Yamaha HS80 monitors, Allen & Heath ZED-18, TLA 5060 Compressor, Roland SH-101, Roland TR-707, Bassbot TT-303, Moog Minitaur, Moog Slim Phatty, Moogerfooger MF-105 Murf, Moogerfooger MF-102 Ring Modulator, Nord Lead 2, Access Virus C, Access Virus Snow, Waldorf Blofeld, Ableton Push, 2x Technics 1210, Vestax PMC 5 Pro, Zoom H4, and a Røde NT2.

Back in Sydney I also have a Waldorf Q Yellow Keyboard and a Yamaha O1V mixer in storage.

And what software?

I have never really been one to rush out and upgrade software or move to the latest operating system... it's not that I don't like change, I just don't like having to take something that's working for me and change it all to things which often won't let me do the same things. To that end, I am still running OS X Snow Leopard, Final Cut 7, After Effects CS5, VDMX 5, Quartz Composer, Cinema 4D, Ableton 9, and Reason 4.

That said, I never have an issue with any of it. I know one day I will need to move up, but for now I'm happy, it's happy, we are all happy.

What would be your dream setup?

To be honest, my current studio is my pretty much my dream setup. It's a 5 minute walk from my house, it's really cheap and really big.Plus I received a grant from the Australia council to set it up, so for the last 12 months I haven't had to pay rent either.

Also it's located inside a huge contemporary art centre, which has a club in the basement... so when I get bored or need a break at night, I can just wander down for a beer and there's a party already happening. This is also handy when I want to work really loud - there are no neighbors or noise complaints.

I guess if I had to make it better, better sound treatment of the studio... and maybe a bar fridge.