Chat Nasty with Producer HUGO GT

In our continuing quest for wisdom we asked producer Hugo GT some questions about his work. We share his opinion of banjos and an overwhelming urge to buy new guitars.

You produce music for a range of artists. Is there a “Hugo GT sound” someone that works with you can expect, or is every project a fresh start? 

I don't know yet if there's a sound defining my mixing, I would say I do spend a lot of time on guitar tones. I'm a guitarist myself and I'm after the eternal quest of finding the perfect guitar tone! (insert epic music) 

I also find myself using a bunch of my favorite samples to enhance songs for background ambience or drum oversampling - so if you pay close attention there's probably some samples that come back from mix to mix in my work! 

We understand you live with bears and worship guitars. On a cold winter night would you sleep with a Les Paul or a Stratocaster? 

If I had to choose between those two it would probably be the Les Paul, now if the question is what is my top guitar, well the answer is lengthier! 

I'd start with a cheap 7 string probably from Jackson with a bolt-on neck, hipshot bridge and double humbucker setup. Then I'd get that cheap neck off, get a badass neck built from a luthier to replace it, put up some Gotoh hardware or equivalent to replace the cheap hardware, then some Seymour Duncan bridge pickup and a Dimarzio neck pickup - with push pull to have access to single coil sounds! 

I need a minute to calm my urge of buying a new guitar now... 

What got you into music production? What’s your ambition? 

Back then I was in a band called Taos Hum (we released our farewell album recently that I fully produced and mixed!). There's always some dude/dudette that gets the role of doing the recording and it fell on me - I started with a horrible setup and free softwares like Audacity and made my way through better setups, Cubase, my own studio space and basically where I am now. I guess I went this route cause i love the mix of technical sides of production and mixing and also the artistic side of it cause in the end its music and music is art! 

What drives you nuts when you hear it in a song? Do you have a pet hate? 

Banjos. Those things should be firewood and nothing else. 

In all seriousness, I can understand that to each their own and for me banjo is definitely not my thing. I also find myself skipping 99% of country music, I just don't have any appeal for it! 🤷‍♂️ 

Does Quebec have a good music scene? Where in the city should we go to catch something interesting? 

Quebec has a very varied music scene. There's a lot of interest for rock/metal/rap/folk/country in Montreal and Quebec City (i don't know much about other cities) 

If I'd have to recommend a place for a show it would be one of those 2 cities! 

Where can people find out more about your work, and if they want to collaborate with you, how can they get in touch? 

You can find all my latest work on my portfolio website www.hugogt.ca, there's links to my social medias on there as well (I'm @hugogtmusic everywhere). I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook so if you wanna share your hate of banjo with me or follow up through what i do, it would be on either or those! 🪕

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