RSR517 - Ulf Blomberg - DIY to Pro Swedish Punk and Black Metal

Recording Studio Rockstars

Lij Shaw

Music

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 126 minutes

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Summary

Ulf Blomberg is a Swedish producer, engineer, and musician known for his deep roots in the DIY scene and his work in punk, death metal, and black metal. He joins Lij to talk about running his own studio, recording techniques, the power of real amps, and why clear communication and artist comfort are critical. Ulf also shares the mission behind his band Agenda, which blends hardcore punk with political and social awareness, and discusses building his own gear, training interns, and what makes a studio truly inspiring.

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My guest today is Ulf Blomberg, a Swedish producer and engineer with a strong DIY ethos who has been making underground metal and punk/hardcore records for 20 years. He started playing guitar as a teenager and quickly fell in love with recording, experimenting with a portable cassette recorder before ever stepping into a real studio. In 2004, he co-founded HoboRec, a studio and punk label, eventually becoming the sole owner and going full-time about six or seven years ago. Having toured extensively—once playing 45 shows in 47 days across 22 countries—he deeply understands the struggles and dedication of independent bands. Known for his organic, acoustically rich productions, Ulf has recorded hundreds of albums, including Danko Jones and Wolfbrigade. He also shares his knowledge on his YouTube channel, HoboRec Recording Studio, with DIY projects like How I Made My Own DIY Ribbon Mic. Thank you to Chris Selim for the introduction!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Recording Studio Rockstars is brought to you by Isotope, native instruments,
0:06.7	Adam Audio, and S-A-E Institute. You're hearing my voice right now mixed through isotope,
0:13.4	ozone, and velvet on atom audio monitors and headphones. Make sure to get my free mixing course
0:20.0	at Mixmasterbundle.com,
0:22.3	and please check out our awesome sponsors
0:24.6	using the links in the show notes,
0:26.8	and please like and subscribe to this YouTube channel
0:30.0	because it's a great way to help support this show.
0:32.6	Now, get ready to rock.
0:34.7	How do you build a DIY ribbon, Mike?
0:36.8	I mean, I got into the DIY stuff in the beginning
0:39.2	because I didn't have the money to buy all the fancy stuff I wanted to have. And I was like
0:45.8	right before Warm Audio and all those companies starting to releasing those clones. So I built,
0:51.8	I have a blue stripe 1176 from Hairball Audio that I built.
0:55.0	I built a couple of LA3A's, some SSL bus compressors, like U-87 mics, FET47 mics.
1:03.0	And then I found some stuff here about building ribbon mics. And I thought that was very interesting because you actually make the whole microphone.
1:10.0	You don't buy parts and just put it together.
1:23.4	Welcome to Recording Studio Rockstars.
1:26.4	I'm Lid Shaw and this is the podcast created to help you become a rock star of the recording studio.
1:38.1	From synth to strings to studio guitars, Complete 15 has it all.
1:44.5	Native Instruments flagship bundle gives you everything you need to create pro music in any genre,
1:50.5	with cutting-edge instruments like Contact 8, MassiveX, battery, guitar rig, and session guitarists
	...

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