Ben Pearce: Desert Island Kit

After his ever-present ‘What I Might Do’ launched him into booths all over the UK and Europe, Ben Pearce has re-launched his sound with his new single ‘Fireproof’, bringing his keen ear for melody to the radio as well as the dancefloor. We spoke to him about his favourite bit of studio kit, what tracks he’s used it on and why he can’t live without it. 

 “I’ve owned the [Dave Smith Instruments] Prophet-12 for about three years now and it’s been one of my go-to bits of kit for almost every project I’ve started since. I bought it mainly as an upgrade from the Dave Smith Mopho – my Prophet is actually signed by Dave Smith himself!"

“The first tracks that you’ll have heard it in are probably ‘Crescent’ and ‘The Middle’ from my ‘Ascension EP’ back in 2017 – the Prophet 12 pretty much provided all the synth, bass and arpeggios on those tracks and definitely helped shape the overall feel and sound of the EP itself. In terms of sound, the Prophet creates this really warm output that is so great to work with; the modulation and effects features on it are amazing and if you can spend hours playing around, you can get some incredible sounds out of it. I particularly like the arpeggiator and sequencer features which are great when you’re trying to find an interesting melody or just wanting to get something down quickly."

“When you put all these features together in one bit of kit, it makes the Prophet 12 a really easy way to get solid track ideas down quickly – I love just jamming on it and it’s definitely been the source of some of my favourite track ideas.

“The Prophet was an integral part of the process when I started writing my new single, Fireproof – it actually played a much more prominent role in the original version, which used lots of pads, and the underlying synth sound; these elements aren’t actually featured so much in the final released version outside of the intro and breakdown, but it was that version that Tayla wrote the vocals to so it could have resulted in a really different track had I not used the Prophet to get the initial ideas down.”