German Bou

Spanish musician from Valencia, legend of the genuine 'Sonido de Valencia'. Sound Engineer and music teacher.

Germán Bou Viguer (Valencia, July 9, 1957) studied electronics and industrial mechanics. His father's great fondness for electronics reveals a path totally linked to music, between amps and tubes, building effect pedals and amplifiers for guitar and hi-fi in his spare time since he was sixteen years old.

In the 70s he went through various groups (La Orquestina Pescadilla, Sonatina) and various styles such as pop and symphonic rock and even salsa and swing, but his professional dedication will focus on the design of automotive circuitry.

At the end of the 1980s he returned to music, and immediately took a professional turn. At the beginning of 1990 he left his electronic work for someone else and built his first studio, Rager Estudios, focused on recording in general and commercials, with an Atari 1040STFM as a brain running Steinberg's Pro 24 III and controlling synthesizer modules such as the E-mu Proteus/1, Korg M3R, Roland R8R, the Akai S950 sampler and the Ensoniq VFX keyboard, together with a Tascam 520 console, an 8-track Fostex tape recorder and a 2-track Tascam 32 for master, a synchro and some microphones.

He presented his first electronic music demos at the Pirámide Musical, a record store in a famous shopping center in Valencia, obtaining good reviews. Later he contacted the record company Área Internacional, where some songs from the so-called “Sound of Valencia” were released. His first title was The Grail Saint. Espiral and the well-known Así me gusta a mí would come later, in 1991.

In 1992, the Nezcabel sub-label distributed by Megabeat Records was created, from which titles such as Achtung, Fever Sax, Mutation, Tinieblas, Apocalypse, etc. would come out. Later, with his own label, Roses Records, the song Let the party go on sees the light. Between the years 1992-1995, he also composed and produced other songs for Chimo Bayo, such as Bombas (1992), a great success that reached number 1 in Japan and Israel.

Between 1993 and 1995 he would work in other productions such as La Tía Enriqueta, Nocturnal Animals, Movidón or Espacio Exterior. In 1996 he made his last foray into electronic music with his last album to date, Lovely Melodies, a record with sax melodies reminiscent of Espiral and Fever Sax.

Another of his vocations is teaching; he developed a sound course for people with physical disabilities, Adapt Music, focused as a therapeutic, cultural and work option. He is currently immersed in electronic design, especially in audio, whether it is hi-fi or dedicated to the recording studio. He also flirts with audio plugin development at gbSoundlab.