Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I got into composing truthfully because we had to when I was at school. In the UK, we do these exams when we’re 13-14 years old or so called GCSEs, and one of the requirements is to submit some compositions. I played a lot by ear when I started playing the cello, before I could properly read music, so was happy enough improvising, but really enjoyed putting those ideas down on paper. I got really into taking things further when I was 15 and met a guy called Philip Sheppard. He had this crazy electric cello and some pedals and made weird sounds; I was hooked! We kept in touch, and a few years later, I went to the Royal Academy of Music in London to study with him! I suppose my first piece of gear was a cello, but a less annoying answer would be a laptop with a dummy keyboard. I’m a terrible pianist and have atrocious handwriting, so really getting to terms with Sibelius (the software, not the Symphonist!) was immense!

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I’m a low requirements sort of person. I wrote my previous album in Studio Mute, with some of Daniel Miller’s legendary synths and delicious outboard, but I then wrote my score to “A Little Chaos” between my flat and a tiny room in Soho next to the editing suite – I had my laptop, Pro Tools, and the same MIDI keyboard! It was during scoring ALC that I bought myself a Minimoog, so that joined the party around then, but it’s really simple. I now work on a lot of big Hollywood style movies, often recording the solo cello parts remotely and sending them off to the mix, so my requirements have upped somewhat. I share a production room with a fabulous mix engineer called Joe Rubel at Tileyard in London; it’s a 5.1 room with some tasty outboard gear, some twinkly lights, and an overworked kettle. My writing rig, however, fits in my rucksack. I’m very low maintenance; noise cancelling headphones, 2 external hard drives (for samples), an iLok, a punchy powerful laptop, and a teeny weeny USB MIDI keyboard. It’s exactly what I use in the studio to write with, the only difference is I don’t carry two extra displays and a full size keyboard when I’m travelling.

Talk a bit about your favorite cellos.
I was very fortunate to play an astonishing Techler recently for a week in New York. It was just astonishing – the C string was like a sports car revving its engine!! If money were no object, I’d have bought it on the spot, but I’m not sure I could afford the insurance premium! My own cello, a 1987 Colin Irving from England, is fabulous. It’s the best recording cello I’ve ever played; it’s so even and natural sounding. I love it!

Besides the cello, tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
I just bought a Bricasti M7 reverb unit which, honestly, I can’t say enough good stuff about. It’s incredible – just so fresh sounding, and makes everything sound expensive. Besides that, I’d have to say my Minimoog. I love it and all the weird crazy sounds you can crank from it!

And what about the software that you use for production?
Because I work with a lot of other composers, often very late in their writing schedule, it’s just practical for me to work in whatever software they’re working in, so most weeks I’m flitting between Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, and Live. It’s actually quite straightforward once you take the time to unify all the keyboard shortcuts, but when I started, it was a total nightmare, like, “how do I do this again?!” Crazy. Right now, though, I’m on a project which means spending a lot of time in Cubase, but I’m most comfortable somewhere between Logic and Pro Tools. Ultimately, they all do the same thing; you either have a musical idea, or you don’t.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I know you asked about one piece of gear, but I’d like a Prophet 5 and a CS-80 equally, so if it’s not too much to ask, I’ll have both thanks.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
It’s actually very limited. I like creating as much as I can with the cello, exploring various different sul pont / sul tasto effects (bridge and fingerboard, respectively), harmonics, bow effects… they all work wonders and sound really expensive, especially if you run them into some funky tape delays or something. Once they’re into the computer, you can stretch, shrink, trim, and edit to your hearts content! Otherwise, cranky noise switches on synths can really pull the room together! On “Touch”, it’s all ‘organic’ sounds: that is, they’re all either made on the cello, or from the synth. There was no computer sound design or editing involved in making those sounds.

How did you connect with Sono Luminus for your latest release?
I’d known Collin since his days at Naxos – we met at SXSW when I was there promoting CELLO MULTITRACKS, which Naxos distributed. We kept in touch over the years, met up in various cities, and drank some beers. He called me a few days after “Lights In The Sky” was released, about a week after he’d accepted the CEO post at Sono Luminus, and said “we should do a record together”, and that was that!

Tell us about the themes explored on your new album.
I love the idea of taking really simple ideas, be they harmonic, melodic, or textural, and “zooming in” until there’s nothing left to explore. Really close mic techniques, really simple harmonic structures… it allows so much performance space, so much room for interpretation for both the performer, and the listener. As I think I said in the programme note, this album isn’t explicitly about anything, but if it’s about anything, it’s about resolution. Summing up a period in one’s life, personally, creatively, professionally, and trying to draw a line under it.

What are some of the new techniques that you tried out on “Touch”?
The major breakthrough here was how we treated the synths. They were “re-amped” back into the hall when we were tracking the cello solos, so all the sounds were intermingling. It also meant I wasn’t wearing headphones, and was actually performing with something. Often, tracking a solo album is by definition a very dry, artificial process. This felt like performing music all of the way.

The whole album was conceived to be recorded in 9.1 surround. I wrote the music for it, and we set the studio up to record it, but realising that sound world was incredible because obviously we only have two ears, but in the natural world are so finely attuned to perceiving space, depth, and speed by sound alone, that it was really terrific to explore that through music.

We also kept the cello sound really simple, and to my ear, it’s the best recording sound of my cello yet. It’s so natural, so easy going. It’s not a recording of my cello, it’s just my cello on record, and I love that.

Describe the recording process at Sono Luminus studio.
They were very, very long days. It was meticulous, and working with Dan Shores, Dan Mercurio and Collin was a rare treat; they were closely involved in the months leading up to recording as I was writing the album, so we were kind of A&R-ing it as I wrote. It also meant when I turned up, they knew the scores as well as I did, so we could hit the ground running, which was just as well because we have 52mins of music to record in 5 days!

We started with the synths, tracking and placing them ready to be amped in the space (see photo above). Then, awkwardly, we moved onto the piano. Now, it should be noted, I’m a terrible but enthusiastic pianist. I love to tinkle, but wouldn’t ever be asked by anyone other than myself to play..! So, an entire day was spent recording my very simple piano parts, and John the wonderful technician from Steinway came to Boyce, VA, and prepared and maintained the piano while I bashed through!

Once that was sorted, the string players arrived from the wonderful Inscape. If you’ve heard the record in surround, you’ll know there’s a string ensemble at the front, and one at the back. Well, it’s all the same people! We set the room up with the violas to my left (I was conducting), violins in the middle, then cellos and bass to the right. The idea here was to fill up as much of the stereo image as possible, and as it was tracking up and up, not get too heavily skewed with the tune being opposite the bass.. hard to tell how it would have sounded otherwise, I’m sure it would have been lovely, but in “Touch” (track 6), I think that’s where the real oomf comes from, it’s the fast violin figure slap bang in the middle, and everything else evolving around it. If they were on the far left, it would be a lot lighter and Baroque sounding.

Finally, we recorded the cello solos, and spent a few days on that… after all, it is nominally a cello record! As I mentioned earlier, we were amping the synths at the same time, so a lot of care had to be taken not to make too much noise or too many mistakes! For me, this was certainly the most satisfying way to record the cello, because it really felt like chamber music. Granted, there weren’t other performers playing the synths as I played the cello, but just the sounds dancing around in the same space, that was enough. If nothing else, I’ll be happy if people can hear the freedom and musicality in this album, not how strictly it adheres to the click track!

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
Everything I use on stage can be bought from an Apple Store, or, in the case of my cello mic, from a decent guitar store. This is simply because I’ve had custom electronics fail one time too many, so I stripped it all back down to a laptop and as much running in the box, as lean and simple an interface as I can find, and a cello. I use Altiverb on stage, but with the same presets as I have dialled into my Bricasti M7 in the studio; my live setup is thin and simple because my live requirements are simple, and have no desire for day long line checks!

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Well, my studio doesn’t have any windows. On one hand, this is quite good because it’s really well soundproofed and has no distractions. The downside is… no natural light! I’d like to think I could get my work done with a window, but I think I’d just stare out and watch the world go by.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
Despite admitting I’m a hopeless pianist, I normally start writing at the keyboard. Nothing fancy, no elaborate writing template chock-a-block with samples or anything to confuse me, and I start there. Obviously you need to be aware of what the piece is for, the context in which it’s being performed or recorded, what instruments it’s for and suchlike; that informs so much. In film, you’re often replacing a “temp” score, so there are those considerations… but with album / art music, it’s a blank canvas. I start with a bass line and build up from there. Like anything, sometimes it comes quickly, sometimes it comes slowly. Sometimes you need to put a piece away and let it sit in the dark for a while before pulling it out and seeing where to go; other times, it’s quite straight forward. There’s no point rushing things, if it’s there it’s there, and if it’s not, it’s not. With deadlines looming, sometimes you need to rely upon “craft” to get it done, rather than waiting for *that* Eb to pop out of nowhere and solve the puzzle. I don’t think a piece ever “sees the light”; there are various shades of grey, you always want to tinker. That’s just natural!

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I take them for a walk. I plug my headphones in and walk around my neighborhood. If I don’t feel sick on my way home, I know it’s not going too badly.

Talk a bit about your score for A Little Chaos. How is composing a soundtrack different from a studio album?
Film music’s super interesting because, unlike the music we were talking about above, it isn’t just for its own sake. It’s in a bigger narrative hierarchy, and has to somehow ‘listen’ to the movie. Tempo is so, so crucially important in film music, so I spend a lot of time finding a tempo to work in the cut of the picture. Of course, this changes as the picture is edited, but good editors are very musical people, and tend to cut in time, at least in my experience they do!

A Little Chaos was a real treat; there was no temp score, and I was able to work on it from the start of the edit with a tremendous amount of freedom to explore ideas. That said, writing an album is about creating the narrative structure, whereas in a film score, it’s about complementing the narrative structure. The music is another voice in the film, not the centre of attention. Learning to interpret what directors and producers are saying, how they describe music, how they respond to music… that’s the job. Writing a nice melody is not the hardest thing; having a thick enough skin to walk into a meeting and present a cue which you believe is the one, only to be told it isn’t emotional enough, or orange enough, or slow enough, and to turn around and say “you’re absolutely right, I’ll do it again”. You have to learn how to pick your battles!

I guess it’s not far off A&R-ing a pop record, where someone else is guiding that arc. “Touch”, for example, hardly felt like it was being A&R-ed because it was a soft, ongoing process. Ultimately, music in any situation has to tell a story. It either does, or does not, connect. Writing music that connects with people is a daily, yearly, lifetime struggle, whether it’s for the concert hall or the screen.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
I spend the majority of my time thinking of the fairest way for me to have a dog. Ultimately, if it weren’t for travel and my horrendous work/life balance, I’d love to have a black lab and then I’d really get nothing done. So, for now, I watch YouTube. Also, the reality of living in London is that everything takes ages, so although there are 24hrs in a day, there are actually only 16 useable London hours, so it’s prudent to make use of them!

What gets you inspired?
I love visual art, and go to as many galleries as I can, as often as I can. I’m an obsessive walker so love getting lost in new cities, or rediscovering familiar ones. I also listen to all sorts of weird and wonderful music, from far flung world musics to the Top 10, to Bach to the Beatles, I’m not fussy. I love anything that’s well produced!

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I’m painfully optimistic and think everything’s great. I’m just excited that I get to do this for a living!

petergregson.co.uk | sonoluminus.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
Initially I started recording sounds on an old tape recorder I think my older brother owned when I was about eight years old and I remember sitting under the kitchen table recording family parties for some reason. I then began to explore the soundscape outside, bees and wildlife, and I guess my fascinations began then. I took guitar lessons at about twelve years old and I wrote a song when I was fifteen that I sent to an independent label called Sarah records. They offered to put it out as a 7″ but I’d just started drumming with my band The Charlottes so I didn’t take them up on the offer. It was written on an old cheap Woolworths electric guitar I’d bought from working on Saturdays in a burger bar. In terms of relevant gear I’ve made solo records on I started with a Compact desktop PC and Sony Acid music software as I wanted to learn how to make music on a computer. I began sequencing, recording via a Yamaha interface and investigating various audio plug-ins from Native. I then upgraded to a MacBook, bought an M-Audio interface and began using GRM tools. The real breakthrough came when I bought an Apogee Duet, with its great analogue to digital converters, to record into Logic and decided to build myself a huge looper pedal in MaxMSP. I suddenly found myself able to realise all the ideas I’d had since I started composing on a computer.

What software have you used for your production?
I’ve used ProTools for a few tracks several years ago but I find Logic Pro so much more intuitive and spontaneous to write and experiment on. Some of the audio plug-ins are nice and I find it stable for using on the move when I’m touring. In MaxMSP I often improvise with the software and have audio buffers (buffer~) where I go deep into micro sounds, loop sections and record them and then drop them into my buffers and continue this process of slowly building up a track. I also use banks of distortion, delay and reverb but I find the patch I’ve created can also be used to create a controllable sampling software environment for improvising with because it takes segments of incoming sound (field recordings, percussion or guitar) and using the matrix object I can steer these sounds around the stereo field to compose and perform with. I’m no expert MaxMSP programmer so I guess I would say I’d love to get more time to delve deeper into my patch. It’s nice and simple but I could always use new objects to work with. I’m also wary of having a balance of analogue and digital so I’d be happy to start using a new guitar if I found one that felt right for me.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I like the Lexicon PCM series. They have a very nice analogue sound, great effects and I’m super choosy when using reverbs and I am on the hunt for a PCM 70. I also really like Sennheiser MKH microphones (a 30 and 40 together for my acoustic) but I don’t own them (or the 60) yet. I use a beautiful mahogany guitar that is a Westerly Guild acoustic, back from the early eighties when they were based on Rhode Island, and consider it an important piece of gear.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I always begin by using a field recordings to compose and create. Since 2010 it’s been consistently The Fens in Cambridgeshire where I’m surrounded by a subterranean landscape that fascinates me, and I generally work with these audio segments in MaxMSP. It’s endless in terms of compositional possibility so I’ve stuck to The Fens as a sound source and I actually don’t want too many options so I haven’t started using some of my field recordings from further afield yet. Right now I like the framework I’ve built for myself in Max and the limitations of just using environmental recordings from my small corner of the world, but I sometimes do need to simply just compose if I am working on a score or other project that isn’t a solo record.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I was experimenting with compression on ‘insomni’. Focusrite, Joe Meek and Kush are a few of the audio companies I investigated to push the sonic possibilities. I also wanted raw acoustic guitar and minimally edited field recordings, to contrast with the more processed digital tracks on the album, so I had to learn to play some guitar techniques, such as finger picking, for this record. Simple equalisation was also important so I tended to record sound sources with more intent than previously.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
Sometimes I’ll use acoustic guitars, fx pedals, a Teenage Engineering 0P-1, tuning forks, Sony Walkman and MaxMSP. Other times, such as at my recent US shows with the Touch label, I’ll just use field recordings in Max and the venue acoustics will determine the set and what processing to apply. I do use a laptop, as I can’t afford to bring extra musicians along but never for a whole live set and I try not to rely on it too much. It’s tough carrying loads of pedals around too so the laptop helps enormously when touring. I improvise a lot so I usually have my Electro Harmonix 2880 with me to create a bank of loops out from Max or in from a direct signal.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I live out in the sticks so I am lucky to have a great studio view, lots of inspiration outside and plenty of space to really immerse myself in my work. I’d like to be able to afford a good acoustic architect to help improve the space but I am happy in here and use various systems and locations to mix and check mastering etc.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I use portable speaker to mix outside so at that point, when I think a track is almost complete, I go out into my sweet sounding location in The Fens and set up microphones to capture a mix being played out into that environment. It works for my music and I love the collaborative results from doing this. So much sonic information is chance and I have had so many lucky moments when various ontological occurrences transform a piece and finish it. ‘Holme Fen’ was created in this way and you can hear the wildlife and the track dancing around each other. Hearing a finished track in an alien environment is really profound for me. I encourage the album is on to be played in locations that add a new characteristic to it, such as in a noisy city or within a car on a country road, and listeners almost always never sit in studios with top quality speakers to hear their music collection. Of course it would be marvelous if everyone owned high end Genelec speakers but people can’t afford those. To answer your question directly, if the emotional tone and narrative of the track is diluted by a final mix I’ll start it again. It’s key to my work and if I am not feeling the music I’ve created I won’t release it.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
No I think there aren’t enough hours in the day! I try to keep several projects up in the air to work on continuously as I think solely focussing on one thing can suck you too deep into the process and it can lead to lack of creative focus. If I need a day off I usually sketch or cook.

What gets you inspired?
My local landscape and the endless creative possibilities of field recording are deeply inspiring to me. I was born here and my children are now here and view the seasons changing. Also travelling and experiencing new cultures and meeting new people too. I read, enjoy photography, visual art, cinema, other people’s music….so many things! I am inspired by technology too but I am adamant that it won’t dictate to me how my music will be created. I created a great Max patch that I can get inside of and control and it always inspires new ideas. I need to feel the emotional narrative of a piece of music I’m creating so I blend analogue sounds with processed digital sounds and this balance creates results that inspire me to keep on developing my music.

simonscott.org

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I first “composed” some music for a girlfriend around 2000. I was enamored by the use of computer software to layer guitar parts. I was emulating the things that inspired me… which at the time was a lot of Metallica, to be honest. However, I ended up bending toward a much less aggressive sound naturally. I got a ZOOM 505 guitar pedal and did a lot of triply phaser type stuff that just droned on and on. I even messed around with this “Delta Noise” generator and made a sleep track. None of this was even close to anything pro level and, it actually sounded like shit, but it was the start of my love for recording. Beyond that… I went many years NOT doing any recording at all because I had to focus on some other things. Eventually I started gigging / playing guitar for people which inevitably brought me to working in the studio and creating my own music.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I typically work on Slow Meadow at my apartment. It’s pretty much all digital music and made “inside the box” except the strings, brass and occasional ambient room type sounds. Usually I track guitars through amps because I’ve always preferred that but for the SM record I even tracked them in the box (as did Marc and Andrew). No amps. I’ve gone through a just few very simple setups. Right now I’m literally just setting up in a corner in my apt. I have a few preamps, a couple of mics, some decent speakers and a lot of software.

Tell us about that software.
Mostly ProTools. I’ve used Logic in the past and plan to use it more in the future. Tons of plugins and samples. I’ve been collecting samples of that my friends have made of their actual synths. It’s always more satisfying to be given or make something unique rather than buying a well packaged product… Although I find those just as useful at times.

And what about your favorite piece of hardware.
I’ve had the opportunity to use some pretty cool gear in the past while working at other studios. An old Neumann U47. A Trident 80B Desk. One of my favorite mics is the Coles 4038 (Duh). I don’t own one currently but it’s in the queue. I’d also like to own a pair of the older KM84s.

Besides the mics, is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I can’t think of one single piece. If I’m “Dying” for anything that I don’t have it’s an isolated space where I can make a mess and blast loud noises all night.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I’ve taken old dialogue, iPhone recordings, even songs from old projects and messed around with them to fit them into a new piece. It’s sometimes a cool way to start writing. Reverse and/or stretch something enough and it starts to infer all these chord changes that aren’t REALLY there but your mind’s ear hears. I will just fill in those swirling, nebulous gaps with something very normal like piano chords. I may even end up ditching the manipulated audio and just keep the new elements.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your album?
I’m always expanding my playing and recording knowledge. There were several things I tried. I got into arranging strings a little. I messed around with more synthesizers. I used the guitar in a much more abstract way.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
I’m still figuring this out. For shows I plan on using Ableton and a few midi controllers. I haven’t decided if I’ll use an actual guitar amp and pedals or go all in the box just yet.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Isolation and treatment.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
These days it’s me sitting at a midi controller and play piano chords with some sort of texture underneath. I sort of hum a simple melody and see where that takes me. I’ll also take a film I like, mute the audio and pretend to score it. Sometimes ideas are born because I want a certain “mood” and that’s the only idea I pursue. Other times a melody dawns on me. They mature only when I’ve decided to organize them into a cohesive body of work. An album… a film score… etc… They see the light when both Hammock and I feel it’s right to share them.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I listen on whatever medium I’ve been working through. Sometimes it’s just my in ears because I’m traveling. While I’m at home it’ll be several places. I have some Dyna Audio BM6as that I use to mix at my desk. I have a few sets of in-ears. I listen in my car. I’ll also bounce various incarnations of songs off of a few folks, including Hammock.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Yes… Mostly watch Sam Harris video these days. Eat food. Take a walk in my neighborhood if I’m at home.

What gets you inspired?
Feeling like I’m part of something outside of my small world. Feeling like I’m taking part in a community of art and artists and giving back to it. Listening to music on vinyl with friends and trying impart the experiences I’ve had with songs to them.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think there are things that annoy me about it but I don’t think I’d mention them because I don’t trust that they’d be totally fair. I think there is just so much music out there that I can’t really keep up. I think the fact that it is so easy to create and share new music is great and it’s exhausting. Overall I’m optimistic about it. Technology can be seen as this amazing tool or this thing that is taking over our lives. I think tech only has the power we give it. I’m glad I can listen to music on Spotify anywhere I want but I think it’s very important to turn that shit off, sit and just listen with other people.

slowmeadow.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I started playing acoustic guitar when I was about ten. I met a musical soul mate who was playing in the streets of the town where I lived. Since then we started playing together almost daily for years. We didn’t talk much, but just improvised with two acoustic guitars in strange tunings. We often looked for outdoor spaces with good acoustic qualities and interacted with the sounds that surrounded us. It was a very pure, communicative and learnful introduction to music. I’m self-taught music-wise so I still consider this an important part of my musical education. The same ‘naïve’ curiosity brought me to composing / arranging.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I recorded my very first demos with my parents hi-fi installation and their headphones used as a microphone. When I was twelve I got a Tascam 4-track recorder. This was a total revelation for me : finally I could combine instruments and broaden the palette and make up an ‘imaginary band’. From then on I experimented more and more with self-made ‘instruments’ / ‘sound objects’ and prehistoric ‘samplers’ (I used a diy system with small ropes to loop short bits of vinyl). My fascination for the recording process grew and I bought some decent microphones. And over the years the computer replaced the 4-track and hardware sampler. But especially my collection of sound objects and instruments ran out of hand. They allow me to approach music in a very physical way. So it’s important to have all these sound sources around and microphones set up properly all ready so I can record impulsively.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
I definitely prefer acoustic ‘hardware’. But because a sound has the most impact when you hear it for the very first time, my favorite sound always changes. For now I’m very fascinated by an old barrel organ I found secondhand. I like the odd sound and the old-skool, ‘hands-on’ approach of cutting music out of paper.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
A similar barrel organ with more notes would be cool (the one I have now only has whole notes).

And what about the software that you use for production?
Well I prefer cutting notes out of paper then drawing them with a pencil on a laptop screen. The most interesting and rewarding things definitely happen before the computer. All these plug-ins make everything sound so digital too, so I try to postpone and limit the use of software. But it’s definitely a great tool for arranging. I started with Cubase, but turned more and more to Ableton because of its playful and real-time approach. For film and specific sound design work I return to Cubase or Protools sometimes.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I’m fascinated by the confusion that arises when sound and music are combined. For that reason I like to integrate film-sound-techniques in music. To trigger the listener’s imagination I use a lot of foley : when the sound source is unrecognizable, the listening is somehow more intense. It’s also fascinating how (barely hearable) room tones or ambiences can give music space and depth. They are great to create an imaginary scenery for a musical story. Sound design for me is not a digital plugin affair, but a very analog, physical thing. I love to investigate the microphone as an instrument and explore acoustic phenomena (such as resonance, transduction, …) in the studio and in the outside world.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
There are some new colors in the upcoming Kaboom album that also required a different recording approach. I worked a lot with vocals – starting with vocals is a totally other way for me to start composing. I did some interesting recording sessions with a great guest singer and an old fisherman choir. I also recorded an octobass which was quiet a challenge, because it’s such as a low, deep sound.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
The big problem is that I’m not an octopus, so combining the instruments I play on an album is impossible. And it’s also hard to combine a fishermen’s choir with an octobass on stage, so live I have to take in account some practical limitations. So my set-up is more sparse and my approach more organic for live sets. I use my acoustic guitar (with a c-ducer contact microphone), a daxophone and wooden soundboard with foley objects (picked up by a handmade hypersensitive transducer). I also trigger samples with a SoftStep foot controller. I can loop, mix and manipulate these sources. For live sets nearby I have a bit bigger setup and often work with guest musicians.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I like to work a lot, so I need a studio in the house where I live. My living room was my studio for many years. Now I have a separate studio room and it’s important for me that it’s a room with a view. I also like the sound of it – it’s an old house with high ceilings and a wooden floor. The most needed and urgent improvement is more space.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
It depends, making an album is a very different process then scoring a specific theater/ film piece. The starting point is already different : in theater there’s already a whole universe created that inspires you and dictates the instrumentation and approach. For albums I need to make up my own universe and imagine how it sounds, looks, feels. I totally love that freedom, but it takes more time to experiment, to think, to read, look for artwork. When I’m making album it’s also important to have the artwork in the very beginning. (It’s going to look great for the next Kaboom Karavan album!) Once the universe gets more or less clear in my head, I assemble a palette of colors and instruments I’d like to explore. It’s good to have restrictions here and these first sounds organically tell you how to proceed. For theater I need to work pretty fast, mostly there’s about 6 weeks. This time limit is a good thing because it forces you to decide fast and act impulsively. But making a Kaboom Karavan album takes me about 3 years. I need more time in between then, to let ideas rest and have a necessary distance.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system ?
It’s important to listen outside of your studio, both for artistic and technical reasons. I listen in the car, in a theater or on any other system I come across, but especially bike rides (with temporary versions / mixes in the headphones) are important for me. It creates a state of mind that’s perfect for listening. But I don’t really wait until things are finished to do this. Mixing is not just a technical issue to fix at the end for me, it’s part of the entire creative process. So when a track is finished, I really did what I could and consider the mixing finished too. From that point on I just got too close to the material to judge. I’m really happy to have people like Nils Frahm and Erik Skodvin then who take care of the mastering. After that’s done, I usually only listen once or twice to check.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
I think procrastination often has to do with doubt. And I have doubts sometimes off course, but I learnt to see this as something to cherish. It’s not an obstacle but a driving force for the creative process. And there’s so much to explore that procrastination would be waste of time. There are so many different aspects in a music making process, that it never gets boring too. So I make music pretty obsessively, I can’t imagine going on holiday without a mini-studio and some instruments.

What gets you inspired?
Lately especially books. Because they’re silent, you can only imagine the sound or music. The past two years I’ve been reading loads of travelogues from old sailormen and explorers. They didn’t know anything about where they were heading, how many years their journey would take… And every single thing on their way (the landscapes, the food, the sounds, the people, the animals, ….) was a first time experience. Therefore it’s such an intense and inspiring read. The upcoming Kaboom Karavan album will be very much inspired by these stories.

kaboomkaravan.wordpress.com

Talk a bit about the new environment that you’re in — the New York suburbs are very different from your Seattle life. How does that affect you and your music?

I’m not entirely sure I’m in the ‘burbs per se, as I live in a rural area. There is no tract housing around here, which I think is the most recognizable aspect of suburbia. I think the Lower Hudson Valley is considered an exurb of NYC. Of course, a lot of people in the city erroneously refer to this area as “upstate,” since it’s very rural. I don’t, I always refer to it as “the woods.” It certainly is not upstate, as most people from like Syracuse will tell you! Anyway, it’s an entirely different pace than Seattle and West Coast life in general. When I first moved east, there was no love lost. I thought the place was filthy, overcrowded and filled with self-absorbed assholes. Once I moved out of the city and settled in the woods, things started to feel a bit different. Isolation was a good thing for me, specially out on this side. I still think of the east coast as a very strange place culturally. Finding a descent cup of coffee if always a challenge (or more of a long drive down to Gimme Coffee in Brooklyn).There are however many things I enjoy of living out here. For example, I live only about a 40 minute drive from North America’s largest minimalist museum, the Dia: Beacon in Beacon, NY. I visit frequently, love walking around the little town. Can’t beat that!

In Seattle, as you may remember, I had a fairly large community around me, built mostly around the Substrata Festival. When I first moved out to the woods, I thought I’d be very isolated. As it turned out, I actually live about 15 mins from Taylor Deupree (who’s an amazing artist, mastering engineer and label boss of 12K). So we see each other quite frequently, hang out in the studios, test gear, etc. I’m actually borrowing his iconic TR-808 (from Prototype 909 days) while he is out on tour in Japan and using it on my new The Sight Below record. And of course, in the city I’m close to the Ghostly family. I visit the city quite often and hang out with them whenever possible. They’ve been fundamental in getting me back to work and have nothing but kind praise for them.

How long has it been since you’ve been rebuilding your new studio and how do you feel about the progress?

It’s been a little over a year, filled with many bits of progress and some crushing letdowns. It’s part of the process of adapting to a new environment and the learning curve that comes along with it. But overall I’m pretty satisfied with the progress made. A studio is never 100% “finished” anyway, it’s always in a state of flux. Since I’ve been in the new room, I’ve gone thru a least five iterations – it’s been changing around every couple of months or so. You probably would notice immediately from the last time you visited the studio.

Tell us about your overall vision for the rebirth of the Black Knoll Studio.

In Seattle, the studio was tailored towards composing, songwriting, and recording my own music, with a little bit of mixing and mastering thrown in there. The bulk of it however was creating my own music. A large portion of my catalog comprised of stock music which I’d license for different projects. That catalog, unfortunately, doesn’t exist anymore, as it was lost along with everything else.

Here in New York, I decided to focus on mixing and mastering for an assortment of logistical reasons. I’ve been fortunate enough to build a very solid roster and discography credits over the years. Artists and labels trust my judgement, and thus far worked on some really amazing albums since the studio became operational back in February. I’ve done tons of work for Ghostly this year, they have consistently kept me busy every month and I’m eternally grateful.

In terms of an overall vision, I’ve said this on my studio website: “I’m extremely selective on the material I decide to work on, as I do not work on music I do not believe in or enjoy. How can anyone do a good job if they do not genuinely enjoy listening to the material they’ll be mastering or mixing? I’m not interested in just taking anyone’s money, while yet helping unleash another atrocious album into an already saturated music environment. There’s a level of integrity and social responsibility in what I do, and I want to make sure my work doesn’t contribute to the problem. I require to listen to the material before committing to the project. If I do not like the music, I will not work on it. Period.”

Since you had to start from a clean slate, was there a particular approach you applied to the design as opposed to just accumulating gear?

Yes, absolutely. My approach has been rather modular, acquiring bits and pieces of gear as I go along, whenever I find need for a new piece of gear. Everything I own today serves a very specific purpose and gets used, for the most part, on a daily basis. For example, I didn’t buy a microphone pre-amp or a microphone until I actually needed one for a project with a singer. I scored an LA-610 on eBay, so I’ve kept it and plan to use it on my own recordings moving forward. I’d say I’ve gotten better at identifying what exactly is needed in order to acquire items more effectively. I’ve built good relationships with a few manufacturers like Eventide, Moog, Radial, etc – all of them have kindly sponsored equipment which I’m proud to showcase whenever possible.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what are you still trying to improve on?

My current workspace is a critical listening environment. The first big investment I made was painstakingly correcting all the room acoustics. That took a lot of time and resources to get it right. I eventually had a company work with me. The person who designed it had mastering and mixing work in mind and all the decision-making was based on that criteria. This makes my room fantastic for doing really precise technical work. I can, for example, listen to a track, and almost instantly identify which element is poorly EQ’d, overcompressed, artifacts, ducking, or out-of-phase – in some cases, I’ll get dizzy listening to out-of-phase content. But having such a clinical setup also comes with a few downsides: it makes it almost impossible to stream music off the Internet. Everything sounds just terrible (as you probably are aware, being an audiophile yourself). It also limits your ability to enjoy music without focusing on the technical stuff. Therefore, if I’m listening to something for pleasure, I usually do it in my living room.

All that said, my current workspace is rather sterile for writing music. The room is much smaller than my previous one in Seattle (though bigger than most studios for Brooklyn standards). That size doesn’t leave much space in there for bringing in large instruments like a piano, amps, and the sort of thing that occupies a lot of space in a room. Eventually, as time and money allows, I’d like to build a bigger room out here in the woods. I’d love to incorporate a lot of those composing aspects I used to have in my Seattle studio, be able to record and write music in the inspiring setting I have in my backyard, surrounded by trees and woodland creatures.

Is there a piece of hardware that you now own that you don’t think you would have otherwise acquired?

Yes, actually, but not due to the robbery. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to buy a pair of Barefoot MM27 monitors from Taylor Deupree. They are amazingly transparent monitors, and I love working on them. That said, I probably wouldn’t have gotten those had Taylor not been selling them, given me a really good “friend’s deal” and accommodate me to pay for them in a very relaxed way.

Is there still a piece that you dearly miss?

A piano would be fantastic, along with a few synths, microphones and amps that I used to have in the Seattle studio. I still have a long list of gear to reacquire since I’ve focused on mixing and mastering gear, as opposed to all the songwriting tools I had accumulated over almost 20 years. Not necessarily gear, but of all things, I think I miss my record collection the most. Lots of great memories tied to it.

Is the overall approach in the new studio more slanted towards mastering (work?) or composing (play?) or both?

Right now my workload is about 65% mastering, 25% mixing, and 10% composing my own music. This week for example, I’ve been mastering the new Xeno & Oaklander album, while the rest of the time I’ve carved myself some space to write the next The Sight Below album. But that’s not usually the case, as there’s been weeks that I’ve had zero time to work on my own music. And that’s fine too, after all, I’m doing something I love and working on music I enjoy.

How do you approach each piece when you are hired to master it?

I don’t really have a set formula, it really depends on the piece of music. The most important thing is I need to like it. That’s crucial for me. Afterwards, I’ll take a first listen and get a ballpark on what needs to be corrected before I can enhance it. If I find elements that can be corrected at the mixstage, I’ll work with the artist and engineer who mixed it, make suggestions, get things fixed. See, mastering is all about subtle, small improvements, not large, sudden changes – that’s something you’d do at the mixstage, where you have control over the individual elements of a track. My goal whenever I master a recording is not to just make it LOUD, but make it sound nicer, fuller, cohesive, with a certain distinct sonic character, to make them sound “like a record,” as the saying goes.

I don’t believe you master your very own work—can you talk about the reasons behind this decision?

I relish having that extra pair of ears listen to my creations, opine, and give me some feedback. I think of it as a system of checks and balances. I enjoy having a conversation on how my music should sound with people I trust.

Having a fresh perspective always helps. That’s why I’ve built close relationships with a few engineers I respect, and welcome their feedback. I find this more important than owning super expensive pieces of gear. I wouldn’t want, for example, the same engineer who worked on the latest EDM atrocity touching my music – it just wouldn’t be right for me, no matter how great their studio might be in terms of equipment.

What would a Black Knoll Studio offer to a musician that no other mastering house could?

I like to think of my approach as slightly different. I build a relationship with the artists, labels and engineers based on mutual respect and offer a dedicated, one-on-one approach. I coach clients how to produce better, how to correct common mistakes at the tracking or mixing stages and how to avoid the pitfalls (phasing issues is a big pet peeve for me). I offer clients who request tracks “louder” a different perspective and explain why louder is not necessarily better. In the end, it’s all about creating community around you, around others, around your work and the work of others. As you probably are aware, there is a plethora of online mastering and mixing services available these days. Navigating and finding the right one for you can be a very long and time consuming process, a bit overwhelming really. I offer very affordable rates, as my overhead expenses are fairly low allowing me to be flexible. That said, I’m not in the business of undercutting anyone or taking up anyone’s work. I’d like to think that people would hire me because they like what I do, my aesthetic, my perspective, and not because I’d work for less than X or Y studio. That’s why I don’t bid on projects. I don’t believe in competition, but rather collaboration – whenever I’m not suited for a project, I’ll pass it along to others. I’d like to think others would do the same. It’s very easy to feel jaded when one has been overlooked and felt an opportunity should have gone to you because you were better suited. That’s the wrong way to see it. As I’ve been proven over and over again: something else ALWAYS comes along, something that will suit you well. There is space for everyone. Just let the quality of the work speak for itself.

What particular new techniques did you try on A Fragile Geography?

I used a lot of harmonic distortion on this album. In fact, Lawrence English added some extra layers of grit to it. We both felt the ugliness & beauty of overdriven circuitry was a good contrast to the very calm and pleasant passages in many of the songs. A sort of duality: an anxiety that mirrors my personal troubles and overall state of mind of the general American public in these very trying and tense times.

Looking back at everything that happened, do you still feel as if it was an unnecessary tragedy, or somehow an opportunity to start over that made you stronger and better in some way?

As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. It put a lot of things in perspective, brought me closer to people I care about and helped me weed out of my life others that brought negativity. Showed me who are truly friends and who wasn’t. Of course, there’s not a single day that goes by when I think about this stuff. Simple things, like, oh, I thought I had this or that, only to realize you don’t anymore. The things that are most painful are the irreplaceable stuff, the things you cherish cause they remind you of a loved ones long gone, and now there’s only a faint memory. For those of us who enjoy documenting life (as I do with music), it’s always challenging to come to terms. But on the positive side, it has made me grow as a person, artist, musician. I used to think you needed things to be creative, and as it turned out, I’ve managed to make work with whatever resources I had at hand. This has always been a key part of my creative process (turning a limitation into a possibility), and this only served as a reminder to put it to use again, return to the basics and remove any unnecessary clutter.

What are your thoughts on looking ahead into the future?

I look forward to working everyday, learning, creating and continuing building a community out here. I’m in the process of writing the new TSB album for Ghostly. Hoping to finish it on time for a 2016 release. Aside from that, I’d like to collaborate with more artists and invite people up here on a regular basis. There’s a long list of people to invite over, starting with Benoît Pioulard. It’s been long overdue!

blackknollstudio.com | irisarri.org

Let’s start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I played bass guitar for years, and always hated the band aesthetic. Getting 4­-5 guys on the same page was too difficult. So I wanted to do it alone. Electronic gear offered a vehicle for this. I got a Juno 6 in the early 1980’s and a brand new, factory sealed TR-­808. Later, I picked up a mint Prophet 5 for $350. Back then, the analog stuff was being given away. Everyone wanted DX-­7’s and D-­50’s.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Really, only a couple of iterations. The old one and the new one. Honestly, I really really hate synthesizers. I like to see music produced, not twiddle knobs. So I’ve really grown to love the Zen of a computer for music. It’s really the most efficient tool for making music. In the time I would patch things up in hardware studio just get ready to record, I could make a whole track on a computer. I do have a recent fascination with vintage samplers, but that’s really about it for hardware. Anytime a synth company creates something truly interesting, no one wants it. They just want repackaged 1970’s technology. Like Electribes and Aria’s. So I stopped supporting them. In 2015, there is more interest in synth technology than ever before. The eurorack phenomena is massive right now… which is good enough reason for me to not use it. I like to buck the trends and do things differently.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
The Casio FX­1 is beautiful. I use to like the Matrix 12 and Prophet VS quite a bit, but they’re just dust collectors today. I went through a big Linn / Forat 9000 phase and had 3 at one point. I liked the Sequential Studio 440 years ago. But don’t use that stuff anymore. I do enjoy playing with cheap samplers. Anything that you drop into them sounds completely different when you play the sample back. They’re especially nice when you combine them with external analog filters and FX. Synths just can’t match their beautiful, grainy sound.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I like Steinberg Nuendo because I’m familiar with how to use it, but they all really do the same thing. Software recorders just replaced an analog reel­-to-­reel for me. I use to spend $70 on a 2500’ reel of analog tape, and ran the machine at 30 ips. So it got too expensive. I don’t know where to go to get tape anymore. Probably eBay. I really like using mostly looping devices like the Looperlative LP­1 or Lexicon JamMan. I only quantize percussion and bass, and use loopers for everything else.

So is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
Not really. I had everything I wanted to try, and really, I thought most of it was disappointing. I got a NED Synclavier system, and thought that would be the thing that changed my life. I honestly prefer a Akai s900. Mike Schommer, the guy I started DC with 15 years ago (and still a good friend today) had a Waldorf Wave that spent a lot of time in my studio. I didn’t think it was a big deal. It made a good stand for my Yamaha SY-­22. Honestly, all this stuff comes with huge expectations, and they rarely deliver. I prefer junk when it comes to hardware. Like electro-­harmonix pedals and Casio CZ­-101 ’s.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I’m really about the atmospherics in a recording. This is what I always start with. The kick drum and bass are incidental and least important. I like distressing sound. Stretching things to the breaking point. I look for audio with emotive vibes, and recordings of places with an ominous feel, then massage those into some kind of audio lifeform. What I do is really more akin to what a sculptor does rather than a musician. I don’t really consider myself a musician and really don’t have much in common with them.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
Not particularly. The process is similar to other albums, but I think the sounds that I used are a little different from past projects. Instead of using recordings of places that I love (as I have in the past), the focus on this one was more about the etheric. Revealing the unseen, using obscure shortwave transmissions and weird psychoacoustic sounds that you don’t realize that you’re hearing until they’re gone. This one was influenced by otherworldly elements rather than worldly ones. This album investigates (sonically) the air above geography that was represented in the older albums.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
I’ve really embraced the computer in recent years. Most of the old hardware that I used in the past is either stored in the closet, or sold. My studio is more empty than it’s been in 20 years. And honestly, I like it better. It’s basically a bright room with a big table, and on the table is a mixing console, computer, and stack or 3­4 old samplers. I still use an Eventide Orville and Lexicon PCM­-80, but those are about to go. The computer is honestly so efficient and pleasant to use, I could never return to all hardware. I like the Zen of having less. I want to put my studio in a desk drawer so you don’t even know it exists. This being said, I’ve only used a software synthesizer one time. It was on the SYNTH 1 record (Mike Huckaby’s label). I just got a SND SAM­-16 sequencer and wanted to test it out, so I synced it to a Jomox X-­Base 09 and connected its midi out to a computer running FM7, and the SYNTH record was the result. That was the only time I recall using a soft synth. I mostly use samples that I made of hardware that I no longer use.

The live setup is becoming increasingly stripped back. I actually just go out with a laptop and midi-­knob box nowadays. 5 years ago, I traveled with 2 big cases of stuff. Analog filters, multiple guitar pedals, a Jazzmutant Lemur, Pioneer RMX­-1000, etc. But that stuff is heavy, expensive to transport, causes a big hassle at customs, it’s delicate / breakable, and the only people in the audience that really care are the two guys with Moog T­shirts. The other 998 people in attendance couldn’t care any less. They just want to hear the music on a big PA and dance. I found ways to accomplish the same thing within the laptop, and use the knobs on the controller. My life is much simpler.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Keeping things light and airy is vital. I like working in a big clutter-­free white box, with very little in the room. I like big windows with no drapes and a view of the lake. Only improvement I might make is burning more expensive incense.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
This is somewhat difficult to answer because I purposely try not to figure it out. I’m under the impression that if you figure out the creative process, maybe it won’t work anymore. It should be a mystery. Artists are blessed with an unusual way of seeing things. I don’t like to question it. I feel like a conduit when I’m working on music. Channeling whatever I need to make sounds… and from wherever it comes from. But I don’t know where that is. It’s a really metaphysical thing. Many times, I record music, and listen to it a month later and don’t even recognize it. I like to work fast and not subject myself to “analysis paralysis” in the studio. If things go too slow, you lose the idea. As a general rule, I always start with ambient elements. I try to make a drone or simple pad arrangement. Then add some kind or pulse to it to keep it moving forward. I like swirling clouds of sound. Sometimes I’ll let these simple elements run for hours. If it still sounds ok 6 hours later, I’ll try to fit in a kick or bassline.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are your reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I use to make a cdr and audition the new stuff outside in nature, but haven’t done that lately. Sometimes I let it play in the studio, then go to my bedroom and take a nap. If I sleep well, it’s ok. In both of these cases… I play versions without the bassline or kick drum. I usually find myself in a trance when recording, and don’t even recognize what I made when I hear it days later. It’s very strange. I prefer hearing my stuff on high­end home systems rather than large PA’s. Most PA’s aren’t capable of reproducing the subtleties. I have a few “high­end audio friends” that like to spend as much as a car costs on home audio. It’s good to take a cdr to their
place and give it a spin.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Of course! Too much! I go pack a pipe full of tobacco and go sit by the water and smoke.

What gets you inspired?
Beautiful places. Terrible weather. Storms. Night. Long drives into desolate areas. But I’m not inspired much by music honestly. A singular sound is more inspirational. I find listening to modern music more frustrating than anything.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think it’s awful. The last good record that I heard was 8 years ago. This is why for the past several years all I listen to is 40’s & 50’s music, field recordings, Fushitsusha records, or The SWANS. Best electronic stuff is probably the Kompakt Pop Ambient series. I bought them all. Hyperdub is an amazing label. They push boundaries. But (most) dance music seems to be stuck in a rut. I think it stopped being an evolving art form around 2005, and just settled into a state of complacency. Back in the 90’s, every record was trying to push the boundaries. I don’t hear a lot of pushing boundaries today. Everyone likes their “Berghain sound”. Clicks and cuts, devoid of pads or lushness. Most of it is very hard on the nervous system. I can’t take too much of it. It’s way too harsh nowadays. It destroys the chakras. Some of the L.I.E.S. stuff is nice. That has been a label that I like. I really like Terekke.

somarecords.com

like a suppressed or unconscious trace of invisible relations

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?

i really got into making music, in the more strict sense of the word, by singing and playing the guitar when i was around 12 or 13. it always was a very intimate moment when i would do something and i could only very rarely have someone listen to it. everything was improvised and sung in some sort of semi-language – it sounded like english, but i didn’t knew the words. while this was kind of good for me, because i didn’t have to lyrically define what i would want to express (but could look for what was the emotional reaction to the music i was playing in the moment) it made it totally impossible to recreate or repeat anything i was doing. so a major turning point for me was recording these moments.

i started with using a tape voice recorder with a small stereo clip-microphone my father used to have lying around for recording bird sounds and weather situations. the first 4-track tape recorder i had then introduced a more experimental attitude, where i would use all sort of sound sources to add to the guitar and the singing. i think by this experimenting with the recording itself music grew closer to the visual art i was interested in simultaneously. both had certain aspects in common i increasingly focused on: a trace of matereality (a certain realness beyond just reality), a layering process (where reflection and thinking is like smoking a cigarette on a chair in front of what just happened), a fascination for the difference of intention and outcome, a postal directivness, to be able to give, dedicate, send the products, and the in-commensurability of this transference.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?

it looks like a mess, i guess. i don’t really have a studio like a professional musician, but my whole flat is like a workshop with different areas for different stuff, that grew with projects or ideas. working in this “workshop” and working on it often is kind of the same thing – it is what i like to call the archival aspect of my art, where you would go through all the disregarded but kept material and recreate, reposition, record. when you would turn a deck of papers sometimes the things then on top (which have the longest distance to the present times) look as foreign as something new, but you also have the time in between, with all the other papers in the stack, thus an organic relation and an estranged viewpoint to the products of yourself at the same time.

for music i still mix and produce mainly on my 2 phillips ak141 hifi speakers i have since i was 10 or so. they have a tuned bassport speakersystem (they state), which is really shit and difficult to handle, but would prevent you from defining to much in the low lows, where with really great studio monitors they attract you to the outer areas, because they can. i also just know them really well and i tend towards the attitude to produce on what i listen to music on the most. but i also have an extensive speaker collection, mostly found objects, like a discarded loudspeaker from the auditorium of the university of bielefeld. so i use a lot of different listening situations. it is like this painter-trick, where you use a mirror, standing backwards to the painting, to see the composition from a fresh perspective.

for me it is really interesting not to see these different speakers as a correction-facility for the production, but also as addresses. it is amazing how subtle the surrounding and the means inscribe themselves in the production. this “music-production” context often has this strange subtext of everything should be the best, the cleanest, the most common, but also the least individual sound, while the most interesting aspect of sound really is its singularity, it’s personality which partly derives from the specific circumstances of their formation.

for me the “setup” of my studio kind of is a setup of realism – i have a history with all these things. it is tempting to set up a production site for the pure joy of their potential, but for me it is more important to have them connected, melted with the things that concern me.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.

well, as i have kind of a fetishist relationship to all the things collected and gathered i won’t be able to pick favorites. but recently i had a nice moment with a spring reverb i removed from my first guitar amp that broke down after 15 years. it was an interesting moment to have the digital music looped through this device and touching it, changing the current, the tension, as if the music would somehow momentarily be able to float through non-ephemeral real space. other than that it would only be fair to say, the computer is still the most fascinating piece of hardware i have.

And what about the software that you use for production?

as i’m very slow with things i just recently discovered the max-for-live envelope follower which is an absolutely lovely tool to get things to interact with each other. you could use it like an alternative to a lfo to affect things secondarily, but you could also have this imidiate dynamic interactions – it doesn’t really replace dynamic eq’s or compressors, but on the other hand you could use it as such in a much more literal and direct sense.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?

i dream of a well-in-shape bechstein grand piano. i won’t be able to afford it in the foreseeable future, but maybe, who knows, one day i just sell everything including my soul and move to an empty space with just the piano.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?

the time you have on sculpting the sound is the time you have with the piece to befriend yourself with it. i still do it like in a painting. i very rarely go back or delete. i add one eq after the other and each one of them is like a step of correction or enhancement of the previous one. of course it is maybe the worst thing you could do, but it makes the sound more yours, or better: it crystallizes what your relationship actually is. that’s what i like about electronic music production – it isn’t said that in the end the trumpet-sound must resemble the original trumpet. after everything it could sound more like drums or like a piano.

no system or thought is flawless. and so the individuality and the “so dangerous” digital artifacts (ruining the production) coming to live during the process of shaping are in a very intimate conversation with each other i think. like a suppressed or unconscious trace of invisible relations.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?

i used a lot of “drawing restraint” technique on the album. i would do a track and then do it again starting with automating the global bpm massively, so that i had to think about the rhythmical structure completely without relying on the grid of a sequencer. also with this all the machines (which are synchronized with the time-signature, often in the background without telling you) sometimes screw up in a very frantic way. because they can’t keep up with the changes, the processor workload would jump to 400 percent in certain places inscribing something like a trace of this specific machine – it’s ability, it’s limitations, it’s point when it needs to give up. i guess this strategy also had something destructive and self-reflective i wanted to analyze more closely.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?

i only travel with the computer and a controller (with some faders, buttons and knobs). depending on the visual set up i have a second pc for that and/or an interactive object. for the travel i like to have a small portable recorder, some paper, pencil and an interesting book with me.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?

hmm, let me think. my neighbors are very patient and kind. the area (kreuzberg near the spree) is still very empty. monday nights i love going for a walk and pretend i’m in nature, alone just with the buildings that appear as massive stone-trees. improvement? space.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?

hmm, very difficult question. sometimes i don’t have ideas at all, but an abstract desire to do something musically, so i just start somewhere and be guided by what happens. sometimes it’s just a small idea, like a gag: what if you connect this with that, where something else grows out of. sometimes it is a sort of archival work, to re-listen to old stuff from the perspective of the present and thinking, what if i would change this and that or this to that and so on. in a second step in arranging, and composing the tracks more reflection grows towards it: what would fit to what, what is still missing with this one, what is it all about, why are you doing this silly stuff and so on and so on.

i think ideas never mature and as they are bathing in the light they’ll never be able to see it themselves. so it never feels like finishing something, or realizing an idea really, but more like compiling by a present thought.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are your reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?

there is no rule to that i’m afraid. i sometimes like to hear the piece i made on my headphones walking outside, or in a car to see how it reacts to randomly appearing things. but most importantly i like to listen to the new stuff with a friend – what they say, if they like it or not. this really defines if it is worth something. i love the sound-check playing somewhere still very much. to listen to your stuff really loud on a big speaker system is great of course and very interesting also, while every speaker and every system reacts differently.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?

oh the usual stuff really – wandering through the internet, watching a documentary or a movie, sleeping. i try to sleep as much as possible in those moments. sometimes it works to just give up and fall asleep and then have this procrastination as extension of your dream, kind of sliding into the necessities, instead of bumping into them. also the different desks or workstations i have help a lot. when i see that i’m really stuck with one thing i could change to another table, to another project, another thing, another technique.

What gets you inspired?

oh, this is way to general. i don’t know. i think the art/the music should communicate that, if something. the rest is a secret (necessarily).

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?

you know, it is this typical present times divergence. i somehow miss a sort of attentiveness towards a specific modulation or materialization of sound, where like in click’s and cuts back in the days, it seemed like an event to hear a high frequency-sound or whatever. on the other hand today it seems to me very much more clear that electronic music is not only an abstract idea towards or of technology but an intimate, very individual expression.

in a way the term now really seems outdated, no one really needs that difference anymore, doing electronic music doesn’t necessarily mean you must reflect on the electronic aspect of it – like you wouldn’t call blues guitar-music. the music has (in its present) always the possibility to be “just” music, i guess. you can use strings, and piano and fm synthesis and sampling manipulations all at the same time – no big deal. it is more then ever a question of negotiating between two symbolic systems – the one your language is build from and the other your own world is organized by.

but on the other hand i’m kind of missing this historical organisations, a plight, a binding with this symbolic dimension. i’m sad that there seems to be no really good way to have records more appreciated anymore. in relation to live representations they fall back as being just a reference. sometimes i’m afraid that this great modern achievement of letting some dilettantes like me still do some art retards back to an artistic, circus like show-off, where it is the greatest thing to see someone juggling the mpc or maschine or whatever super fast, tight and skillfully, or to be impressed by the sublime intelligence of some production, that in fact is just some sort of baroque tragedy, that intends to keep the normal circumstances of living outside, because all the main characters are aristocrats (or robots).

but in the end i think, it is important to see the tension of the present, it’s political and ethical notions, it’s implication on what you want to say, rather than having this dialectics play out as a verdict.

grischa-lichtenberger.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I started writing music a long time ago, I think I was around 12-13 years old, I don’t remember precisely. I didn’t have any gear back then, just a bass guitar and a pc pentium 120. I remember that automatically installed in the pc there was a music composition software called, if I remember correctly, Acid Music. That was my first journey into multi-tracking and looping, sequencing and recording! I guess I loved it so much. My very first studio gear I think was a Roland 16/80 digital multitrack recorder. It was an ex-demo my bass teacher sold me for 800 mila lire (the equivalent of around 400 euros), loads of money back then… It was a sort of fully equipped portable digital studio, one of the first ones. I’ve learned pretty much all of the basics about the recording process thanks to that fella. I might still have it somewhere… will check.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Not many really. I always had a quite simple set up, just the essentials I need to put my musical ideas into action. What I need is a good DAW, a good reel-to-reel tape recorder, some nice pre-amps, a few useful outboards, some good microphones, all the rest is pretty much extra.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
At the moment my Revox B77. The must have in my current set up. It’s simply the most useful gear, it’s perfect for warming the sounds, re-amp, make mixdowns and even for recording directly.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I use Cubase as a Daw in my studio. I know is not the best one, but I just got used to it over the years. It’s simple, reliable, and does the job. I was thinking to change to a Pro Tools based system at some point but I gave up for now. It’s all cabled and ready to go so I can just sit and record right away.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
Too much at the moment, I just moved so I’m building up my studio again with some improvements… there are 2 Neumann preamps I would like to put my hands on, another reel-to-reel, a Studer. Then for sure there are several mics I’d like to have, ribbon mics are my favs at the moment, they have incredible depth and sensibility. I’m also considering to build up something from scratch (not alone, with some help), I would need an echo/reverb that does a specific thing but sadly the market is not providing it…

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
Well sound design is certainly a big part of the process. Very often it happens that I record a sound, could be a field recording, or a guitar or a simple piano note. Then the process starts, trying to create a certain unique sound. So I run it through pedals, tapes, effects, until I find the right formula. Sometimes it can take very long, other times I immediately get what I am looking for. It’s just a matter of patience and devotion I’d say, and experimenting is part of making music in the first place.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I don’t think there is nothing particular new in my way of working. But for The Blue Hour I was looking for something that could reflect a certain mood of contrasts, ambivalence, hesitation… and I found the key creating layers with the piano, and using different ones too. For example there could a baby grand which is making a looped melody on the high range together with a small pianette playing chords on the bass range, and so on… Otherwise different layers with the same piano but with a different miking set up.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
It’s just me and the piano basically. On the piano I put several things for the live electronics. I have 1 hypercondenser mic plugged inside the piano and a tube preamp for it, and all goes into a loop pedal and a delay pedal, then I have another small contact microphone in the piano that goes into an iPad, then 2 samplers, and a small mixer to make a mixdown myself. Is a very simple and effective set up, and is balanced in a way that I can focus more on performing rather than on turning knobs all the time.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I believe I developed, over the years, an idea of sound, and the studio now is reflecting that idea. Everything sounds quite exactly how I want. I gotta say that I never had much money to buy much expensive tools and gear, so I’m probably also stuck with what I have. But somehow, all these things became my sound and it’s difficult to change. And overall I think that, if you really want to, music and creativity always find their way, even if you don’t have much. And that probably, creates a certain uniqueness.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
It can be anytime, around 7-8 pm drinking a good glass of wine while plonking away on the piano, or during a walk, or while asleep… Usually when I have an idea for a piece, I start playing it, all the time, for days, weeks… then naturally the moment comes when I record it and start going deep into it. Then I start to listen to it, a lot, and every time I could add something, take something out and so on… Usually, the awareness that the piece is complete comes really sudden.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
Well, I have of course several different speakers which over the years have represented my reference such as the headphones and my car. As I toured a lot with that car I of course listen to a lot of music in there. It does not sounds good at all but I kind of know now how a record should sound in there. After I’m satisfied with all these references we can press. Later I quite hate to hear my record in other contexts, I prefer to avoid it if I can!

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Yeah I do. Sometimes it happens that the music is not coming along quite all right… so, even if it’s difficult, it’s better to leave it for a while and think about something else, listen to other music, watch films, walk and so on… I find moments of creative crisis quite useful overall, I usually come back to it with more awareness. I also attempt not to be a workaholic and I try to take some good time off when I can.

What gets you inspired?
Everything really. There is nothing specific, it could be a film, a painting, a book… or the daily life, a dream, a simple idea, a walk, a trip… Sometimes there’s something that triggers my creativity, and my way to describe it is music. My new record. The Blue Hour, for instance, describes a moment of transition. I was emotionally feeling myself in a traditional state when I was writing it, and in the same time I was totally impressed by painting of Magritte, The Empire of Light, that gave the key to describe that transition, and I was reading Goethe, Celine, and I was also remembering certain moments of my past. It all ended up in there.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think is quite amazing nowadays. You know, before there was sort of only one way to make electronic music. Now it looks like all is combinable, techno with ambient, classical, EDM, drone and so on… There’s a lot of incredibly interesting stuff going on out there. The only real issue, I think, is the fact that people give less importance to a project then before. Everything is so fast and there could be the new hype thing lasting for a few months and then the next one comes.

federicoalbanese.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
Everything started when I starting writing music with Sara Lov and we formed our first group Devics. I started playing bass and guitar and bought an old Tascam 4 track. It was my first attempt at recording… and i was immediately hooked. I still love the sound of these old machines and of analogue tape. These were really my formative years of music learning to trust my instincts and a time of discovery. It was not until I moved to Italy that I started working on my solo piano work which really let me into composing.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I have had a few incarnations of my studio… each one slowly progressing to a more professional situation. But I really started in a room in my flat… then eventually had a dedicated space that was more a glorified closet. I realized pretty early on that I needed to start collecting recording gear and learn about it if I was going to find the sounds I heard in my head, so over the years I have collected a lot of vintage mics and pre amps. When I moved to Italy, I again worked out of my house and recorded both of first piano records in the living room with old tile floors. I eventually moved my studio into an old farmhouse in the country side in Italy where i had my first dedicated studio set up. It was really special space… an old animal stall that I treated acoustically but kept the old curved ceiling… it actually sounded great and it was dead quiet all around me. It was still a working farm so each day when I would show up to work I would have small chats with the local farmer.

When I moved to Berlin I had a set up in a separate room and then moved into a great studio space in Kreuzberg in an old factory loft… where I have some friends next to me like Johann Johannsson and Hildur Gudnadottir. It’s my favorite studio space I have had… nice acoustics, tons of light, and really inspiring people around me.

What is your favorite piano?
I became really attached to this old swiss Sabel piano from the 1930s that I had in Italy… so much that I brought it back to Berlin myself! but I think if I could afford to have any piano I would love to have a Fazioli. It’s an incredible instrument that is soft and full and has the most incredible bass. Or a Boesendorfer Imperial piano!

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
I’m always experimenting with different pieces of gear… tape delays, pedals, compressors. But probably the one piece of gear that I will always use on every recording is 1072 neve pre amps. Nothing sounds as warm and smooth as these… they make everything sound the way I want them to. But I also don’t try to get too hung up on gear… I just try to work with what I have and make it sounds interesting.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I have been using Pro Tools for ages. It has its limits but I just don’t have time to learn anything else… I’m getting too old!

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I think I would prefer a Boesendorfer Imperial piano from the 1950s above all pieces of gear… or a Fazioli piano. I can work pretty low fi sometimes which I think is always something I try to hold on to. Even if I buy really high-end monitors… sometimes recording something on a cheap old tape recorder is the right sound.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
This is something that constantly evolves. I do a lot of sound design elements created running through my pedal board. Right now my favorite new pedal is the red panda particle delay… it has a lot of unexpected elements and it’s hard to control… which I like. I love being surprised by what comes out. Also the Strymon Big Sky is a beautiful sounding reverb pedal that sounds amazing… I will also run a lot of things through my 2 tape delays, A Roland and an old Echoplex… as well as running analogue signals through my ARP synth filters. On the last AWVFTS album we used some GRM sound design tools to manipulate audio… these are great.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new work on Transparent?
The palette of instruments is pretty minimal… piano, harmonium, bass, some guitar, glockenspiel. Mostly it’s just recording on the right piano. Either my Sabel or my August Forester… or a Blunther grand. So it was not really a lot of new techniques as it was using a lot of piano miking techniques I have learned over the years.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
Right now I’m mostly only doing AWVFTS concerts. We rent local pianos for the concert… and my computer set up is running a lot of my own samples off of Ableton and using a controller with a lot of internal processing. I have a Princess Analog delay routing through everything to add more warble and effects, and I’m using a 12 step foot controller that triggers a moog minitaur for my bass sounds.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Light for me is vital. I can’t work in a dark studio space. I really need windows… to be able to open them, have fresh air… and see the natural light. I could definitely improve the acoustics of my space… it’s something I would really like to work on.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
It can really happen in so many ways. Most of the time it’s sitting at the piano… spending time improvising. Sometimes I’ll record small parts and come back to them… so if something resonates with me it’s usually worth going back to… But if an idea really stays in my head than I usually know I need to follow it. But I’m always trying to change my process a bit so I don’t get into musical ruts. I recently worked on a film score that was all electronic and this was a really intuitive way of working as I was really recording ideas and collaging them as I did it… it was less about structure and more about sounds and instincts. I was mainly using a vintage ELKA SYNTHEX which is one of my favorite synths. Sometimes when I know I really want to craft something it will take more time… working on strings arrangements and carving them out… using the piano and Sibelius to get it down in notation. But it’s really at the recording process that I understand if it’s all working.

How is composing music for film and television different from your studio albums?
Writing for film is really a different process than writing for my self… but somehow they both inform each other. Ultimately working on a film is a collaboration with a lot of different people… directors, editors, producers… and sometimes all seeing it a little different. So you have to navigate this and find way to keep pure what you do. You rarely have the luxury of time when working on a score, so you really have to follow your first impulse which is also a good thing to learn. But when I’m writing for myself it’s a much slower process and more about digging for the deeper ideas. I like to resonate on things and make sure they feel timeless. I have a lot of material I have never released as I’m waiting too long… and now I feel the moments has passed… or they could not stand up against the great purifier of time.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I use to audition my records on all kinds of sources… different speakers, car speakers, home. But lately I have really learned to just trust my speakers and let it go. You can really lose your mind always searching for the perfect listening situation, but it’s something you can’t really control. Everyone will have their own systems and a lot of times they are just listening to MP3s on a computer. So I just try to get it to sound good with what I know and let it go.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Email and the internet are great for procrastination… I think it’s a really bad habit and I’m trying to make sure I make time where I’m unplugged. If I’m not feeling inspired it’s always better to use the time to study something or better yet read a book!

What gets you inspired?
I think I’m inspired by everything… music, art, books, life, love… it’s all in there. It comes and goes and the best thing you can do is just be in the right place when it comes!

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think it’s a great time for electronic music. A lot of gaps are closing and the lines and types of music are getting so blurred… especially in electronic music… it still feels vital. I think the advancement of audio manipulation has created a whole new world for electronic music… it is not longer just about synths and beats. It crossed into sculpture almost… I’m finding a lot of inspiration these days in it.

dustinohalloran.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
Probably since forever, we had a piano in my childhood home and I loved playing strange gibberish things that I just made up. Sometimes I actually thought it sounded quite good. At the age of 8 or 9 my parents signed me up for piano classes and I hated it. It was so rigid compared to when I was just noodling on my own. I think music classes have many instances killed off the naïve and childish fascination with playing that most people are born with. I just loved playing around on our piano and I didn’t want it to turn into homework. So I was allowed not to go to the classes and even though they threatened to sell the piano, they let me have it. It is actually that same beat up piano I still have.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Back in the beginning of the nineties I had 4 track cassette recorder. I had a lot of fun with that machine, flipping the tape to get reversed sounds, manipulating the tape speed to try and recreate the sound of My Bloody Valentine. During the recording of Settlers I found this old box full of some of these tapes and I decided to give my former self a gift by integrating a few of the sounds into the ending of Transformation. I think my 20 year old self is smiling about that somewhere now. Later on a friend and I cashed in on an 8 track Roland digital recorder. They were a fortune back then so we shared it, often working together. It was a nice portable system and we could bring it out to our rehearsal space and record some actual drums and guitar amps. My current studio is very humble. In an old storage shed, I have set up a leftover stationary PC with an audio device from TC Electronics, an SM57, an MD421, a pair of Oktavas and some more obscure mics. I consider it more a room for my musical instruments than an actual studio.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
Being more of a musician than a technician, I’d probably have to choose my acoustic guitar. It’s an old seventies Yamaha and it isn’t worth much in the sense of money but it has this incredibly warm and rounded tone that I really love about it. It just goes really well with my playing style.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I use an antiquated version of Cubase. Honestly, I haven’t bothered to look into newer, more sophisticated software since I know my way around the one I have and I mainly use it like a tape recorder with the option of a little editing. It seems to me that updates tend to focus on clever features that I have no real use for. I don’t work with midi and softsynths anyway, and apart from EQ, I rarely use more than a touch of reverb or echo effect-wise. Sometimes I’ll run a track out through a tape machine for saturation or those sweet self oscillating echoes. I also reamp the occasional track through an upright piano for the reverb effect or run it out through an old spring reverb.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I have nightly dreams about mellotrons and vibraphones, nice old ladies whose husbands left them a box of vintage mics that they want me to have. Studer tape recorders and Neve preamps… Oh well. In the waking hours I can’t really justify spending such amounts on studio gadgets in any near future.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
In a way it’s funny that my music often gets labelled as electronic since most of the instrumentation is just acoustic. I do however really enjoy layering acoustic instruments as if you were arranging a more electronics piece. I find that interesting, like a clash of styles of sorts and it makes you think differently about your playing. Most of my sounds are just hand played and I have this idea that the main instrument (which is often the guitar) shouldn’t have to go through editing. In that sense I’m probably a bit of a purist. I do edit atmospheres and supportive instruments to make them fit into a track. I think of their role as a way to set a mood or a create space for the main melodies but sometimes they trick me and take over.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
One thing I’ve had both a lot of fun with is using a looper without monitoring. It has given some mind-blowing experiences! Obviously, sometimes the results are complete gibberish, but at others some strange magic happens that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I also invited environmental sounds into the studio. Since I work under sub-optimal conditions I’ve often struggled with outside noises creeping in. A few times I actually opened the door while recording. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear my son’s canary birds, the cat, an owl. The track “Garden” I decided that the crickets from outside had invited me so I recorded that under an apple tree without overdubs. You can hear an apple fall about half way. It sounds almost like a drum roll that falls a little bit behind.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
Touring is too big a word for my few and far between shows. Honestly, I’m struggling a bit with arrangements for some forthcoming shows. Until now I’ve mostly focused on solo guitar stuff which is great, quite challenging really because you can’t hide behind anything and even the slightest mistakes becomes rather obvious. But there’s something honest about it that appeals to me. For playing the songs from Settlers, I want to be able to create some of the more drony atmospheres. Dragging the harmonium along is just too impractical, so I’ve been prepping some tapes with different chords and textures that I can fade in and out between and try to respond to on the electric guitar. I would hate having to rely on a computer live, I need to have my hands on something physical.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I guess the most important thing is that I have the studio at home. I often get an idea out of nothing and being able to recreate it immediately while it is still fresh has been priceless. Inspiration is such an elusive thing. When it is there, I usually work very fast. It’s often a matter of hours before the track is done. From a more technical point of view, being able to catch a great drum recording would be really nice, but that is a bit further out in the future.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
A composition always starts with the hands on an instrument. I’m not one to start by a melody in my head, it radiates from the hands. I find that the less I actually think about it the more open and interesting to my ears it often ends up. I guess it fits my world view rather well. I like things that bloom without supervision, things that take a path of their own. That being said, all ideas obviously aren’t good in a longer time frame. The making of Settlers has been a long process where the best things have matured underway while others didn’t stand the test of time. I believe time has contributed a lot to making that album so much of a whole.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I burn early mixes to CD so that I can listen to them without having to be confronted with the computer screen. It changes the way I listen when I don’t feel I have to interact with the music technically. I like listening in my car and I can tell from the sympathetic vibrations from its door that it’s tuned in D.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Too much, probably… it isn’t always a bad thing though. I often find myself playing my instruments without any purpose of recording. Just playing and making songs that live in that brief moment. I like to think that it seals the pact in a way. Music doesn’t have to be rational or end up with a final product.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I like the fact that the borders between the different scenes are becoming more blurred than they used to be. We see a lot more musicians collaborating across borders that were more or less uncrossable before. I think that’s kind of beautiful. Music is just music and genre labels are just search engine optimization material. We all have a million things to learn from each other whether we come from a background in rock, noise, jazz, electronic, classical or whatever.

westernskiesmotel.bandcamp.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I have always known that I wanted to get into music, and I always had a preference for instrumental music. My mom would play “the shadows” a lot and I really liked that when I was young.  My brother is a couple of years older and he bought his turntables when he was 15. I was 11, so when he was not at home I would sneak into his room and spin some records. At a later stage he bought an Ensoniq sampler and I couldn’t resist messing around with that as well. I can remember I was working on a track called “spatial convolution” for the Funckarma output we released together. One day I was working on it while he was away, and he walked in on me when I was working on it. He was mad and impressed at the same time :).

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Not that many, the heart of the studio are my monitors, and everything is always built around those. The monitors are big and they need the length of the room for the bass to be a bit steady. I have 2 desks: one with my computer monitors in it and the speakers besides it, and another desk with my laptop and a couple of hardware controllers.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
I really like the The RSF Kobol. My friend with whom I made the Legiac stuff with owns it. The kobol was a French synth company’s first compact keyboard synthesizer, certainly inspired by the Minimoog. Its sound is one of a kind and it sounds like nothing else. It is used a lot in the Legiac stuff.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I did the conservatory, a direction that is called Sonology, and all computers there (all Macs) were running Protools, so I just got stuck with that. It really has something to do with how Protools handles audio. I just like to cut and shuffle with audio parts the same way you would do with MIDI. I just like the straightforward approach of it. When you render audio with plugins you immediately see the result in the waveform and so on.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I would love to own a Kyma synthesizer one day. Kyma is an unbound environment for creating sounds that have never been heard before. Kyma’s effectiveness arises from its unique set of algorithms, the ease with which you can create endless combinations of those algorithms, and the unprecedented degree of real-time responsive control over the sound parameters.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I always do and always have done micro edits in the sounds. I really like to divide all measures into 64 parts and juggle around with them, so no measure sounds the same as the other. Protools makes this stuff quite easy. Also I have the tendency to EQ out some bands in the mid section of the music I make, I like the low and the high aspect of sound, but the middle part is always the most difficult to keep pleasant-sounding on different systems.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I did a big package for Twisted Tools for their beat-generating plug-in called Ultraloops. I used a lot of my own patches generated by this piece of software. I recently bought stutteredit from Izotope which I really like. Also, I discovered Sugarbytes, they make nice sound manipulating plug-ins to quickly alter sound and patterns.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
For live it is Ableton and a bunch of Novation controllers: Launch control XL, launchpad and the little controller. That is what I bring. I also do DJ sets and then I use a Traktor S2.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I need to be able to look out of my window. I didn’t have that for a while and that really threw me off, so now when I sit behind my desk I can look at the sky. This is also the element to improve on, I would like to see even more sky and not look at an ugly building at all.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
Most of the time, it is one certain element that triggers the starting point to work on a new track. This element can be a sound I made or that I have found, from some old music which I would like to sample for instance. I always listen to music, always analyze everything I hear, so ideas are created every moment of the day. I need to really focus when I’m in the studio, because in the right moment the creation of a track can go quite fast. I produce like 95% of the track in a couple of hours the final 5% will take a couple of days.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I often send it to a bunch of friends and ask their opinion, plus I work as a sound technician in different venues, so I always play it really loud over there to hear how it sounds.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Sure! Vape weed, drink beer or play the PS4.

What gets you inspired?
Music, clouds, weed, alcohol, my mind, the rain, animals and my dog Mystro.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
It is awesome! There is so much good music out there, its flabbergasting! Nowadays it is really coming from everywhere. To mention a few names: Rival Consoles, Generate, Ard Bit, Eedl, Floex, Bersarin Quartett, Syl KougaI — if you never heard of them, look them up and give their stuff a listen.

roelfuncken.com | funckarma.com

Be sure to check out Roel’s latest Iridium Flare which is available at “name your price” on his Bandcamp

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
The very beginning is too far! Hahaha. So, I remember I was trying to compose some little melodic lines with the spinet or the dulcimer of my father (was really young). When I was a teenage boy, I was playing electric guitar in a band and after that, at university and conservatoire of Bordeaux I was expecting to compose some “minimal classical” pieces and after that some electronic… As you can see, I have trouble with consistency. I need to discover new music and try to understand how it works. That’s why you can hear so many different genres on the remixes of INSIGHT II… My first piece of gear was an AKAI S1000 Sampler. I bought it and never used it… I just bought it because it was beautiful and was sure to use it but, you know, when you’re a teenager… I can’t show it to you because it’s at my parent’s home for now.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I don’t know if we could speak that studios. It’s more “home studios” because it’s in my flat. It takes too much place and now, it’s my 3rd studio.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
It really depends of the moment. Sometime it’s a paper and a pen. For a long time, when I was playing in a pop band, I was using Kaoss Pad 3 for the infinite delays and playing little samples. Now, with the piano solo works it’s the AKGC414 & Apogee Quartet. I love them a lot. They are really impressive and definitely what I was searching for my home studio.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I use Ableton Live 9 Standard.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
There is a lot of pieces of gear I would like to try! In my dreams, I would like some physical compressor, limiter, delays, reverbs, distortions, eq… All in physical and all different gears for the different projects.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I’ve tried to change the place of the microphones but it wasn’t great so, I will keep the same ones for all INSIGHT’s albums.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
For the piano solo, I’m preparing the set live. What I will take with me is : nothing. I want C414 or KM184 for microphones and acoustic piano but the concert halls already have these kind of piece of gear. The less, the better.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
The qualities of the environmental aspect are also the default. Explanations: At home. It’s great for the coffee, the proximity, the “real life” but it’s not great because I need silence and I disturb my girlfriend Mathilde when she’s at home or I don’t want to make too much noise for neighbors, procrastination etc… And it’s difficult for me to be at home and at work at the same time. What I would like is: a big house with a big garden and a separated big studio in this garden. Like this, I could go to work, travelling through the garden, have something separated from my home and only disturbing myself with noises, sounds, exercises and music.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
For INSIGHT, every piece uses a different process. Sometime they comes from paper and pen, sometimes from improvisations at home or sometimes giving piano lessons to my students. When I feel emotions listening to a chord, a rhythm, or a melodically line, I try to develop it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The big problem with me is that when I’ve started a piece, I can’t wait for months to try and develop it. I think that we are always in movement in our heads and thoughts so, discovering new music will influence me and things from the past lose their primitive feelings.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I really don’t like to listen to my work once it’s finished but I need to do it for the mix and the master. I consider that the work is never ended and this is the fix, the end. But, to reply to your question, I hear it on my SC207 EVE monitors and on my old but so good AUDIOTECHNICA ATH-M50. After I burn it on a CD and listen in my living room. I also try to listen to it at works on GENELEC and DYNAUDIO.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Hahaha. Yes, a lot. But it’s kind of weird because I mostly procrastinate making some exercises. I mean, when I don’t work on my future release or compositions, I make some exercises, trying to find some new sounds or chords colors, rhythms… Sometimes I also try some “strict exercises”. With this, my goal was to create a kind of remix of my track INSIGHT I but only with the piano sound of this track. It was, in my brain, forbidden to use any other instruments or sounds. Once I was in, I was also searching for some new kind of rhythms and sounds evolutions etc… So, I procrastinate a lot but most of the time, it’s a learning process.

What gets you inspired?
A mix between emotion and reason.

marchaljulien.fr

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?

That was quite early in my life. As music and art enthusiasts my parents surrounded me with both these things from the very beginning. A lot of classical and also quite left field rock and also my brothers always showed me what they were listening to. There was something missing for me though – some element(s) or moods i wanted to hear did not come up in the music i was shown, mostly because i was not aware at this point, i was maybe 9-10 years old, that you could potentially twist and turn music in a million ways.

I discovered electronic music around this time too and it became crystal clear to me that the things i’m missing were included here – the idea to blend both of these worlds, the classical one i’ve been raised with and the electronic one, which was completely uncharted territory to me, was the only way forward.

The first piece of gear i owned and that took me a lot closer to this plan was an AKAI MPC2000… i’m still amazed how much this thing could do with only 1,9KB of RAM… I spent years (at least it feels like years) with it and without a computer or any other equipment which made me understand this thing very well and, in hindsight, tought me a lot about the miracle that limitation in composition is.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?

Not that many – it was more like a constant build and exchange of things. Since i’m no recording artist in the classical sense a lot of gear is not as important for me like i wish it was… preamps, instrument microphones etc…

I started with the MPC2000 mentioned above for a long time only and added some really crappy but gigantic hifi speakers as monitors, a ZOOM 1201 FX and a 4 track Yamaha MD 4S minidisk recorder.

I have to say that these were actually fantastic times – i didn’t know a lot about recording, mixing, programming or engineering and in this absence of knowledge was a great blessing really. I experimented and it was just a very unconcerned and uncomplicated process. I try to maintain this until today, however i’m surrounded by people that are very experienced and knowledgeable about gear and engineering and they help a big deal understanding the necessary technical parts of my work. My setup today is a result of remaining naive and at the same time adding functionality.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.

That’s tricky – most of my hardware is handpicked for very specific reasons so i really like all of them a lot. I’m a reverb addict and was looking for a stereo tube spring reverb (which seems to be rare and/or unaffordable) …which is why i was very happy to find Rerun Electronics, a small but exquisite studio in Berlin that builds custom gear of all sorts. He built what he called „The 235 Spring Reverb“ for me. It’s two sets of springs, one short pair (the 2) and a longer one (the 3) and the option to switch them in parallel (the 5) all run through a nice array of tubes.  From a small, metallic room – almost only a touch of room-y dimension, to a hellish cave – this one has your back. I love what it does and how it looks and feels. So this unit has it’s own pedestal but so do all there others.

And what about the software that you use for production?

My main DAW is and was Ableton Live (since version 2 i think…). I pair this with a lot of Arturia synths and quite a few piano and instrument libraries (from 8Dio, Spitfire and Izotope for example…) For mixing inside the computer (as opposed to analogue mixing, which i do depending on the material) i mostly use UAD plug ins and the really well made Flux plug ins. I think my main criteria for software is that it does the digital part (in sound and function) and leaves the analogue part to the outboard gear. For instance, the ePure EQ by Flux is great for real surgical and technical work on single tracks, while my outboard EQ brings back some depth and feeling back to premasters.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?

I really like the idea of having one dedicated piece of gear for every step in the production process. Right now i’m missing a rock solid outboard compressor – and since no one can stop you from dreaming, i’d say i could live with a Fairchild 670. The chances of owning one are next to nothing really but this would be what i dream about every now and then.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?

I feel the hybrid between digital and analogue helps a lot establishing an interesting sound. While i agree that most analogue gear really does sound wonderful and warm – sometimes it’s simply not better. Sometimes i really want the very cold, clinical ones-and-zeros digitalism of computers. An example of this hybrid could look like this: i needed the sound of fireflies for a project once. The scene in this project required the sound to be subtle but still quite isolated which again means the sound needed to be very convincing (even though i personally had no idea how fireflies would sound). I recorded the ripping of fabric and filtered everything but the very high frequencies and edited these recordings. The result was something like a constant but very gentle flight of sparks through the air.

Another example is that i reworked the recorded strings on both Gravity and also Spells very often into pads and plain atmosphere layers beyond recognition. I love turning a very direct and handmade source into an almost metaphysical new thing – that’s where digital tools of any kind can be extremely helpful.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?

Blending machines and human beings i’d say. This might sound a little vague but ultimately this was probably the core of this album. Most of the tracks are completely computer generated at first and needed to be interpreted by instrumentalists who changed the course and feel of the songs dramatically. I also really enjoyed the different ways we recorded the instruments. Some parts where recorded with me, others completely remotely and autonomous from my input – this gave some songs a fantastic twist to my original idea. Other than that i tried to oppose digital and analogue as good as possible, which means, most digital instruments would get an analogue treatment within the mix and many instrumental parts got the full digital effect treatment.

Talk a little about the piano notes for Spells – how did you record the sounds, sequence and arrange them?

These are all programmed by combining various libraries and editing all the notes as precise as possible. So i did not record the piano at all but utilized very well made libraries. I can play the basic chords of most tracks but to give the songs some of the human touch back i have to arrange and edit the piano takes a lot. This is easier when you get the recordings of the other musicians back which are obviously more organic.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?

There’s no live setup at the moment as i’m still developing this. I don’t come from a live playing background whatsoever (with the exception of a some DJ sets in the past… if that counts as live) so this is all very new for me. At this point I implementing my Sequential Prophet 6, my Moog Sub37 and the generated pads and synths from my laptop on my end but would depend on the live musicians to be there with me. That would be a drummer, a harpist and 1-3 cellists for now.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?

I need to feel at home and relaxed – which is why my studio is also in my apartment. The blessing here is also the curse – you are in a very familiar environment but at the same time you don’t get out that much and can’t unshackle yourself and your head from work – something that might change in the future but for now the pros outweigh the cons. I’m close to the coffee machine AND the synths – that matters to me.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?

Ideas are born all the time… while talking a walk, while getting to sleep, while doing dishes etc… The tricky thing is to make sketch and shape them right away. Often it’s very simple melodies and themes or patterns that go through my head… and very often i’m not in the studio when they pop up. They develop and grow on the way to the studio and once i have the basic idea drafted they can develop into an actual composition – which can take weeks hours, weeks or months – this is really different from song to song. There is a moment however when i know a song is done. There was a time when i had issues letting a song go or rather accepting it as what it was but over time i found great pleasure in the imperfections and possibility that writing a new song offers. The things you would improve on one song will somehow transcend into something new, keeping the motivation and compositional process in motion. In the end, the existing flaws of one one composition are the potential benefits of the next one.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?

The first step is to have at least 6-7 hours between finishing the song and listening to it again – that’s over night normally. After that i’ll have the mix downs or premasters on my phone normally – listen to them in every day situations. This not very hi-fi solution is quite important to me since i want to hear if the songs work outside of the controlled environment that is the the studio. This is the easiest way for me to focus on any mix or structure issues. This does not necessarily change the mood of the song but the atmosphere i’m in changes around it and adapts to it.

I use a pair of Neumann KH120 to monitor but that’s why i need alternatives of different kinds to evaluate any mix. I either listen on a Harman Kardon Aura in my home or on Audio Technica ATH R70X for both mixing and auditioning final mixes. The next time things changes quite drastically is in the mastering studio when i hear the song change – by then i usually heard it or them hundreds of times – and, in case i can’t be present during the mastering, when i get the master back.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?

Oh god yes… Normally any kind of dinner or food situation is always a good excuse for me to take a break. Also often do some impulse record shopping and coffee breaks and my character level in Fallout 4 is much higher than it should be… Basically enjoying life in company or solitude is key for both work and free time… procrastination, in my interpretation, is actually fuel for the next or ongoing project.

What gets you inspired?

Good stories in any shape and form. Personal experiences, things that friends and family experienced, movies, games… i should read more (or any) books but i found it very very hard to focus on reading anything for as long as i can remember. I know i’m missing out but i hope to overcome this insufficiency at some point.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?

This could fill a complete interview on its own actually. I’ll try to keep it short. I I find myself going back to the records of my youth when listening to electronic music. It seems they still have the biggest impact on me. I hardly find this feeling of excitement and these days. I don’t blame artists for this obviously – i’m sure my needs, experiences and listening habits just changed over time but i do feel a little disconnected from todays electronic music. The production and emotional standard is often not mine anymore so i begin to feel that I’m part of a different generation when it comes to my requirements of electronic music and any blend of instruments, elements and styles is much closer to my heart.

Photos by Claudia Gödke / claudiagoedke.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
my first encounter with creating electronic music was at my friends studio in the mid 90s where he had a roland juno 106, Moog Prodigy and Boss DR660. i would play around with them a lot when i visited and he eventually offered to let me borrow them for a while. from there i got obsessed with all the different sounds they could generate and wound up buying a minidisc four track to record these experiments and explorations. so i suppose the tascam minidisc four track was my first purchase. i eventually convinced my friend to sell me the juno, he wouldn’t let go of the moog though unfortunately. my first synth purchase was a nord lead a few years later.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
i think i’m on the tenth iteration right now. i would never say there’s such thing as a “final” setup as i’m always changing things around / swapping things out. i’ve become a minimalist when it comes to gear, very particular with what i have setup and that gear is always live and ready to go when i want to use it.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
my favorite is the eurorack modular synthesizer. it’s an endless source of inspiration and sound creation. there’s just so many worlds in there to discover! in fact, it’s all i use to make music these days. i create music entirely within the modular, mix on an rupert neve designs 5059 then from there the signal path goes through a BAE 500 series lunch box with eq and compression then finally it’s recorded to a stereo track in pro tools.

And what about the software that you use for production?
the only software i use is pro tools HDX to record the modular.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
ah there’s so much i wouldn’t know where to start… i’ve been really into different harmonic processing hardware with different transformer types so looking into more gear like that. figuring out what transformers are good for which frequency ranges and using different combinations for different spectrums to subtly bring forward various elements with warmth and color. i always have a long list of eurorack modules. there’s always something new coming out that can inspire creativity. too much to keep track of!

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
to me creating electronic music is centered around the design of each sound. that’s a big part of why i love working in the modular format, you can design each sound in your palette to have the right feel and cumulatively these sounds create a vibe that can more uniquely capture what you are expressing with whatever you are creating.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
pretty much every track i make is a document of a new technique. it’s a big source of inspiration just looking at the black canvas of modular and thinking “i wonder what happens if i do this?” next thing you know two days have gone by… that said, it’s easy to reuse the same techniques or repurpose them with other new ideas. i like to keep it as fresh as possible though, so there’s that creative energy of exploration while patching.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
right now it’s non-existent! i’m currently planning a setup that will allow me to perform multiple patches / tracks as i do on my album “system”. it’s tricky because the way i patch often uses a lot of resources for a singular composition, so i’m finding a balance between entire tracks with multiple parts that are programmable and performable as well as generative elements.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
my setup right now is really refined. everything is in arms length and ready to go when i want to use it. it’s really fast and there’s no obstructions in the way of being creative which is really great. i would love a window in my studio. i find the simple light of the day can be so inspiring. though its funny, so many years in a windowless room i’m not sure how i would react being able to see the outside world. it’s also important to me that my cats are nearby.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
i never really go in and say “i’m going to make a track today”. it usually starts with a curiosity of interaction between various modules and that spirals into music. generally when i make a patch it goes through a few phases. first i’ll get the overall main section of the track going. then i will refine the patch so i can perform the parts i want to control in real-time and leave other parts for the modular to have control over.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
after i record a piece i usually render it out and listen on my sonos setup around the house as well as on my phone in different environments. i love the process of listening back in different environments, especially when you play back for your friends etc as well. offers a totally different perspective which can go both ways. maybe you see the good in something you weren’t originally crazy about. or something you thought was really good you then realize is not so great etc.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
not typically to be honest. creating music for me generally happens during downtime while working on client projects though my post production sound design company jafbox sound. so instead of waiting around for client feedback or new picture etc, i’ll start patching to keep the creative energy going. typically once i’m in the studio i’m making stuff all day. on off days i rarely make music. prefer to do other things / gather inspiration and perspective.

What gets you inspired?
nature is a huge one for me. documenting feelings from situations and energy from family and friends is also something i tend to do. another big one is trying out new combinations of modules or workflow can inspire a curiosity to create a lot of times.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
an interesting thing historically with electronic music to me is that various movements within electronic music output as a whole seem to be linked to the accessibility to a new or new take on musically oriented technology. these days eurorack modular is spawning a lot of people from different musical backgrounds to explore the worlds that modular offers which is great i think.

datachi.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
When I was about twelve, I was convinced that the only viable career I could ever have and love was writing and recording music. I’m sure this conviction seemed crazy and unwarranted to my family and friends in rural Florida since I showed virtually zero interest in taking lessons, learning how to play songs that other people knew, or displaying any signs of focused potential aside from locking myself away and writing and recording my own weird little half songs any moment I could get.

In spite of not having any way to gauge if I was actually talented aside from the “interesting sounds” I was making with our family piano, my dad’s tenor guitar and banjo, and a karaoke machine tape deck, my parent’s were completely and unwaveringly supportive of me. When I was 13 they got me my first pieces of “gear” all of which I still own and use to this day; a 1980 Alvarez acoustic guitar, a Shure SM-57, and a Yamaha MT50 4 track. From that point on I pretty quickly became an unrepentant instrument monger and my instincts and tastes for recording, composing and studio experimentation gradually began to take shape.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I’ve been through dozens of studio setups that have changed rather dramatically from being in tiny mother-in-law houses where I’d sleep on a blowup mattress underneath my marimba to a giant warehouse space in Oakland where I was basically just hoarding free pianos and pump organs. Right now my studio is in an old converted chicken barn from the early 1900’s with about 800 sq. feet of space. It’s packed pretty tight, but I’ve tried to delay the goldfish syndrome by not taking in orphaned instruments the way I used to.

While I’d hardly say that this is a final iteration of how I’d like my studio to be, it does currently work really well for me and allow me to capture most any sound I would want for both my albums and film work without having to utilize any virtual sounds. For me to be able to create the sheer amount of music needed for my normal workload and do so within a similar time frame as composers that rely on software instruments or sound libraries to demo or build their compositions, it was vital for me to focus my setup on being really versatile and simple so that I can track out a large number and wide array of live instruments without spending forever fussing over which gear to use. For this reason, I get so much use out of ribbon mics and vintage Electro voice dynamic mics because they are just so damn versatile and the sounds they capture just seem to slot together in the mix in really pleasing ways. I also have several matched pairs of Michael Joly’s modded mics (his Rode Nt-1 mods, and two sets of his original OktavaMod overhead condensers) that were a revelation to me and changed the way that I thought about gear in general.

The core of my studios functionality is based around my “hacked” old Ramsa mixing console that I had the output section upgraded, Opamps replaced and recapped, and the EQ amps switched out and gussied up a bit. It has a got some beautiful colored dust to its preamps, but it also is super useful because each channel has it’s own direct out which allows me lots of routing flexibility. I also use my Pioneer RTU-11 Mastering Reel to Reel daily both for mixing/mastering and for recording bounce downs of rhythm, horn and String sections. Otherwise my projects can balloon to a 100 or more tracks for film score work. For Preamps I use either the Ramsa’s upgraded Pre’s, an AEA Ribbon Mic preamp, Chandler Limited’s amazing Germanium Pre’s, or for really gritty stuff my Roberts AKAI Tube Preamp Hack.

I try to avoid in the box delays, reverbs and compressors as much as possible and almost always print my effected sound to tape or my DAW. For delays I use a Roland Space Echo RE-201, a Watkins Copi-cat, T_Rex’s Replicator and my dad’s old Akai 4 Track reel that I modded to have varispeed. For reverb, I have several reverb tanks of different sizes and styles that I’ll feed and impedance match with my Radial spring driver and for the large reverbs I use my homemade 5ft x 8ft plate reverb that I drive with a little custom tube preamp and an Auralex aural exciter (the Auralex is such an awesome tool to make an amp or reverb out of piano, metal trashcans or anything!). For compression I either use my Ashly Blueface compressor or my RNC, both of which are very much bang for the buck workhorses. For EQ, I honestly really only the Ramsa board or Fabfilter EQS in the box. The rest of my studio is just a boatload of instruments and effects pedals and a few very well-loved amps and DI’s.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
This changes frequently depending on what sort of sounds i’m experimenting with, but right now I LOVE my ’62 Gibson Falcon amp. It has both line and mic level in’s and I’ve been using its ridiculously awesome sound (literally my favorite reverb and tremolo of any amp ever) for everything lately.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I use either Logic 9 or 10 as my DAW depending on if I need to utilize a 32 bit plugin or not.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
In truth I am always on the prowl for instruments and if I didn’t have the limitations that this studio space creates I’d probably find myself sleeping under another damn instrument again. At the moment, I’ve been thinking about all the ways I would use a celeste in my arrangements and it’s not very healthy since they are often 8-10k for just those cute little 3 1/2 octaves! I probably will own one at some point, but I’d venture to say it’ll be a very junky one though! I love recording gear very much, but unless it’s demonstrably and profoundly an upgrade over what I can get from simply modifying more affordable gear with good bones and personality then I tend to throw any big money purchases I make on acoustic instruments because of how they can transform the musicality of the whole room.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
As I mentioned in my studio setup description, I really love using transducers to turn other objects in amplifiers or resonance altering reverbs. For my latest album Ill Tides, I would often run my Jxp-3 through the transducer and use one my pianos or my harp as a sort of highly sympathetic speaker cone. This gave many of the synth lines a very spectral and acoustic quality that evoked sounds like an Ondes Martenot. I also very frequently play with varispeed with my tape decks and use it to change the range, timbre and character of my instruments. It gives me so many more possibilities to play with orchestration, that along with using ever changing tunings for my instruments makes my arsenal of sound feel much more vast than it is.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I discovered a few new performance techniques for the songs on Ill Tides using small handheld fans to play drones and evolving arpeggiated figures on the harp, guitar, Ronroco and piano. I bought several variable speed handheld fans and replaced their respective blades with different materials so that I could have felt, leather, fishing wire, cloth etc. as the material making contact with the strings. It made for some really otherworldly sounds that gave this album’s more ambient moments a very elusive texture that is somewhere between the song of cicadas and a synthesizer adjusting its pulse width. When combined with the other long sustaining instruments like pump organ, strings and bowed marimba it created the very kinetic and seething drones that defined much of the album’s sound.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
The last tour I did was a brief 2 1/2 week tour in EU last fall, but it was an incredibly clarifying and informative experience due to some some early technical problems that made me have to change my live setup on the fly. My step down 240/120V converter blew my portable mixer and multiple pedals/samplers I was relying on during sound check of the very first show. I had to very quickly rearrange my set and performance approach, since the setup I’d practiced with and performed with multiple times with was no longer possible. While it was definitely stressful in the moment! And it was pretty eye opening as to how I could pull off interpretations of my songs with a much more limited sound palette than I had previously thought possible.

My current setup revolves around guitar, voice, viola de gamba, an Akai MPX8 sampler to play percussion sounds and a few pedals. I play my 1959 Harmony Hollywood both as an acoustic and electric guitar (I put a LR Bagg lyric acoustic pickup inside) and run through two distinct signal paths so that with one guitar I can have pretty drastically different guitar sounds with their own unique effect chains running independently, simultaneously or intermittently overlapping. This was a big revelation for me since I was previous traveling with two guitars and was having to loop and switch instruments to create the same sort of complexity that I can get close to now in real time. My viola de gamba runs through the same effect chain as my acoustic and I use a Radial Tonebone PZ-Pre to toggle between the two and their distinct shelfing and EQ settings. For voice, I bring an Electro-Voice RE15 with me to run through a TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch for layering backing vocals and choir parts.

Right now the only change I would make between going on a tour that required flying and long travel would be to not travel with an amp, since it is a nightmare to tour with an amp that you really love and don’t want to see abused.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
This barn’s floor is made of thin redwood planks essentially act like a sound board. It is a very reverberant and live room. It is a joy to create and experiment here because sounds really move through this space and cause lots of instruments to resound. This quality is also its biggest downfall. I have had to live with the inevitable fact the floorboard creaks, outlier vibrations and other rickety artifacts will make their way into my recordings. Finding ways to temporarily tame the space for quieter recordings that don’t call for such rustic underpinnings is an ongoing project for me and one that I think could improve the quality of many of my recordings.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
In order for me to keep up with my workload I have to be composing constantly. I probably have to make somewhere around 30-40 completed, mixed and mastered pieces of music each month just for my film work. This rapid rate of production definitely changes the way you have to workshop and create compositions. Over time I’ve gotten to the point that as soon as I am singing a motif or rhythmic figure in my head I already have an idea of how I want to record or capture it, and the process between writing and recording has moved so closely together that they’re virtually simultaneous.

For me capturing the spark and intensity of a new idea is vitally important, and I’d much rather throw out more ideas I took the time to record that were half-baked than have fewer ideas recorded that I’ve potentially over invested in. That can play mind games with you sometimes and make compositions feel too precious and potentially overwrought. This auditioning on the fly approach works well for me since I don’t have one instrument that is my primary tool and I can simply just compose on whatever instrument a piece is calling for; be it saxophone, cello, percussion, keys, voice, etc. This removes a step that many have to take and allows me to skip the mockup or sketch phase and head straight into mic’ing and recording each instrument like it’s the only chance I get to realize the piece. I am sure there is a lot of wasted energy and effort in this approach. Yet, it’s the only methodology I’ve found so far that can produce the amount of music demanded of me, at the quality I expect of myself without having to bring in a large number of collaborators.

Though my thought process on orchestration and production of my film compositions are pretty comparable to the songs I make for my records, the steps I have to go through to see them to completion is quite different. When working with a film there are so many embedded parameters to take into account before even playing your first note and this makes the writing process be far more reactive than free composition would be. I most often see films when they are in a rough edit form. From there, I will begin composing a number of pieces just trying to hone in on the gestalt of the film. I spend this time trying to explore what the feel, instrumentation, production aesthetic and general vibe of the music should be to really augment and enhance the story. At this point, it’s a fairly tedious dance of making scene specific cues that are coherent and stand well on their own but are also cogent and intrinsically linked somehow to the rest of score. All the while, accounting for the frustrating reality that there will be possibly dozens of edits and changes that will each inevitably alter the timing and effectiveness of the music’s fit with the scenes. So, even though the cues have a very organic birth and thoughtful maturation, they generally draw to completion with a mad dash to some deadline set by a major festival or other often arbitrary date that forces you to do damn near impossible changes and tweaks to the score in order to accommodate the bevy last-minute timing changes that most every film goes through. While this most often works out just fine, and you soon forget all the stress and compromises you had to make, it rarely gives you the same resounding buzz that you feel when you know that you’ve finished an album. It isn’t really until you get to see a screening of the film, often times 6-9 months later, that you can really feel that sense of satisfaction of knowing that it now has a life of its own.

For making records, I often just have an overarching concept or “problem” that I try to explore through making a collection of songs. I often times will have multiple projects going that I chip away at whenever I’m in that train of thought or ruminating on one of their respective pieces until I have a breakthrough with one of them. Once that happens, I become total obsessed and will fixate on realizing what I imagine to be an “album.” At that point, I normally wrangle in Ryan Keane, the head of my record label Lost Tribe Sound, to bounce ideas off of him and share what I think is a roadmap to a record. From there he offers his unique insight and critique as someone that has known me and my work for over a decade and a friend who knows how to push my buttons in a way that I don’t let my most glaring habits, tropes and oversights get in the way of the ultimate goal. Which is curating the best possible listening experience. This normally takes the form of him pleading me to go back to the vibe and imperfect alchemy of the earliest mixes.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I try to take my songs into as many listening environments I can before signing off on a mix. The car, my stereo setup, computer speakers, earbuds and the like are all tested for my records. However as much as you test in a variety of locations, I think it’s best to trust your most familiar and highest quality setup to determine how good a mix or master is, since the range of potential environments listeners digest your music can be maddeningly varied and compromised…. and I prefer not to think about optimizing my mix to sound good off an I-phone speaker in a public bus.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
I am a dad now and I find that if I’m not in the throes of work (which is now often through the middle of the night) I am spending any and all free time playing with my daughter or cooking overly elaborate meals. These aren’t really diversions by any measure, but the last few months I’ve spent so much of my life existing in baby time that when my wife and my daughter are asleep I’m so hungry to make music that I have tunnel vision.

That being said, I certainly procrastinate on certain projects that just can’t seem to get their claws into me. If I’m working on a film or commercial piece that has stymied my creativity a bit I will often procrastinate by just getting lost in making a piece of music that is the total antithesis of whatever I’m having to make just to exorcise my compulsions to subvert an overly “safe” directive. I really love basketball and that used to be my #1 procrastination activity. When I was struggling to find a productive groove, and I’d be just empty minded shooting jump shots or looking up scores for NBA games and get lost in a brief trance until I’d catch myself like “shit I’ve only got 2 hours now to finish this stupid jingle!”

What gets you inspired?
Aside from the simple yet inexplicable vagrant moments of daily life which will forever be the biggest source of inspiration for me, the documentaries that I get to work on constantly turn me on to so many inspiring, depressing and beautiful stories. They often send me down rabbit holes of research to try and better understand a deeper context behind the film’s subject matter and that sense of curiosity these film’s stir up in me is invaluable for my creativity. I also try to stay pretty tapped into current global events and brilliant journalists like Amy Goodman/Democracy Now seem to always brings me to a place of deep concern or sickening disillusionment. It is easy to feel so overwhelmed by the mine field of complexity that most global sociopolitical issues are mired in, that all I can do is vent through music.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think we are in the midst of a particularly fertile time for electronic music. The power and scope of digital music making tools is virtually limitless and it has both greatly democratized the process of creating recorded media and opened a pandora’s box of sonic possibilities for composers and sound artists to create some very radical and novel works that simply were not possible until very recently.

It is also highly exciting and encouraging the resurgence of new businesses creating beautiful hand-made analog hardware that gives artists amazingly musical, powerful and reliable tone creating and shaping tools that previously were only available in vintage pieces where the components and schematics were far more difficult to come by and expensive to maintain. With all of the increased accessibility of such instantly gratifying compositional and sound modeling tools comes the need to really sharpen skills self-editing and restraint, but from what I can hear there is no shortage of shockingly talented people who in the face of such bounteous possibilities still find ways to sound as singular and inventive as the most recognizable artists of any other era of modern music.

williamryanfritch.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?

Ed: My first real instrument was an acoustic guitar, nothing special but it had a pretty nice sound. My background is the common ‘in a band at fourteen writing depressing (and bad!) guitar songs’ ! But then the drummer in the band (my good friend James) got a Korg MS2000 and I started using my old Boss digital delay pedal with no input; with feedback and synths everything started to get a lot more interesting!

Anna: I learned to play on an electronic keyboard, which had a really cheap, fake sound, a very uninspiring piece of kit! But then when I was thirteen my grandfather bought me a real piano (which is the one we used on the record) and it was a whole different thing, so nice to hear the notes ring out properly, this really got me started writing my own pieces.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?

Anna: ‘Studio’ is a bit of a strong word for any of the iterations we’ve had! Our first setup was in a bedroom, right behind the Iceland on Bethnal Green road, battling to keep the sounds of reversing lorries and sirens out of the recordings! Now we’re somewhere quieter the living room does just fine and it’s only the occasional bird that ends up on the tracks!

Ed: Our set up is minimal but does just fine for now, we’ve got a few choice bits of outboard, two pairs of nice mics and a decent AD converter to try and make sure that the recordings are as good as we can make them. We’re hoping to add more outboard for the mixing stage as soon as we can afford it!

Tell us about your favourite piece of hardware.

Ed: We’ve got these old 1950’s tube preamps that sound beautiful, they impart a very real, three-dimensional quality to anything you record with them. I couldn’t be without my various tape machines either, they’re all cheap, consumer pieces (sadly no Studers or anything) but for loops they’re perfect. Maybe it’s because they’re cheap, they give a familiar sound that anyone who grew up with walkmans would be very familiar with. I love how they shape whatever source you record onto them and give it an intimate, homemade sound.

Anna: The Juno is my favourite bit of kit. It’s so warm sounding, I really don’t like ‘lawmower’ square waves! This let’s you keep things nice and round! We didn’t use it that much on this record but will be using it live a fair bit.

And what about the software that you use for production?

Anna: Production wise we used Logic on the record. Not for any particular reason apart from that we already owned it and it saved us shelling out for any other software!

Ed: We’d love to have a nice desk and a multitrack tape machine but unless the used gear market relaxes a bit that’ll have to wait! We also used Max/MSP (I’m quite a Max nerd) and although, in general, we tried to keep the computer away from this record there were a few instances where some of the patches I’ve built helped us create some nice soundbeds.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it? At the moment I starting to collect a little range of pedal effects. A friend showed me the Montreal Assembly ‘Count to Five’ which is really interesting.

Ed: That ‘Count to Five’ looks nice! Thanks for the tip. I’ll add it to my list, which is very long and (mostly) very optimistic! I’d love a Siemens/WSW desk, which is unlikely to ever happen, as they’re very expensive! I’d also love some nice EQ’s, nothing too surgical, just something that can do broad strokes, some better mics would be nice too! Instrument wise my dream would be an ARP 2500 but this is probably even less likely than the desk!

Anna: I’d just like a nice Cello and some Cello lessons!

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?

Ed: We used Max/MSP patches (and some synths) for drones and the tape loops for other textural elements. We also daisy chained reel to reel machines to create a multihead tape delay. I really like working with tape, it’s a slow way of effecting sound but the tactility of the effect more than makes up for it and it’s lovely watching tape running around the room!

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?

Anna: Writing vocal harmonies and string arrangements are things that are pretty new for both of us. We’re actually thinking to move further into this direction for the 2nd record and integrate vocals a lot more.

Ed: We’d subject the tape loops to various different processes of degradation to so how this changed the characteristics of the source; from sticking bits of cellotape over the playing side of the tape to putting the loops in vinegar solutions and outside in the sunshine. We also experimented with driving the input of the tape machines quite hard, it gives a distorted and compressed sound that’s really satisfying.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?

Ed: Can we let you know in a few months?!

Anna: We haven’t played the new record live yet but Ed is tinkering with a few different machines at the moment that may or may not be stable enough to bring with us when we play some shows next year!

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?

Anna: The space that we have here is really important. We’ve got the ability to have the studio in the house and this gives us a real freedom to record at any time of day or night, which is really liberating.

Ed: I’d definitely improve the sound dampening! It’s a pretty reverberant room and this makes it hard to get clarity into recordings with fast transients.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?

Anna: It really varies with each track. Some tracks come out of improvising together with very little addition and editing (‘Falling In’), some are me writing parts to things Ed has worked on separately (‘Blooms’) and some are Ed embellishing solo piano recordings (‘Trills’).

Ed: We try not to have a default method of writing together as I think we’d both get bored quite quickly if each track was made in the same way. Hopefully there is still cohesion on the record, in spite of this!

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?

Ed: For me it’s always monitors, then some speakers in another room, then cheap in ear headphones and sometimes the car. If it works in all of those places then it’s done. Usually it’s a fairly endless process of tweaking which ends when Anna tells me to stop! I don’t ever really feel like a mix is finished but sometimes you just have to move on. Otherwise there’d never be a finished record!

And finally, what gets you inspired?

Anna: Usually I don’t know where my inspiration comes from; it’s from everything and nothing at the same time.

Ed: I find making music meditative, it grounds me in a way that nothing else does, that’s why I’m inspired to keep making it.

dead-light.com

Lets start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
I was introduced to classical music while taking piano lessons as a kid and I was fascinated by the sound of it. Listening and trying to play classical pieces such as Beethoven’s sonatas and Chopin waltzes, I was inspired to write my own music for piano although I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of my efforts. Besides a keyboard which I was using to practice my piano lessons, I had a Commodore 64 and I remember that it had a simple music software on it which I can’t recall the name but I loved it and spent a lot of time on it even though it was very basic and I had no idea how to put it into use at the time.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
My current setup is fairly simple an all digital. The only piece of hardware that I have and use regularly is my Zoom H4n recorder, which I use a lot to collect materials for my music. The rest is all on computer.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I’m running Ableton Live, Max MSP, Audiomulch and some plugins connected to few controllers. I started with Pro Tools and produced my first two albums on that system but I find Ableton faster and more fun. I still use Pro Tools but only for mastering. I have a small collection of soft synths which are responsible for lot of the sounds that you can hear on my albums. My favorites are Aalto and Kavio from Madrona labs and also Absynth and Reaktor from native instruments. Sound toys are also amazing plugins. They’ve been my go to plugs for years and I use them almost on every track I compose. I also use Soundforge for editing. I love the idea of transforming an audio sample to something completely different through heavy editing. By slicing the audio and moving the pieces around. Deleting parts, reversing them, slowing them down and applying impulses using Sound Forge’s acoustic mirror. It is a slow but very fun process with interesting results.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
There are plenty, I’m not quite sure where to start. My ultimate fantasy is to put together a completely hardware based setup and produce something without the use of computers. A nice modular system, some outboard pedals and processors, and a few reel to reels. At the moment there are two pieces of gear that I really love and hope to lay my hands on someday: a Nord Modular G2 and a Kyma System. Of course a faster computer, and better audio interface and studio monitors are always appreciated by a computer musician.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
As a computer musician, I think of sound design as a crucial part of the process. My pieces usually start with a single sound, something that I can build a track around, something that can prompt ideas. Therefore, designing that very first sound is an essential aspect of my work. I spent a lot of time working without any plans, just making all sort of interesting sounds and store them. I always start with a piece of recording. It can be a field recording or a sampled sound or a synth patch. I edit and manipulate it to the point that I feel like I have an interesting sound to work with. I also love the idea of recycling my old pieces, borrow some parts that I like and use them again in a new piece. Sometimes I try to transform them into a completely new sound or maybe simply bury them under other sounds. For example there is a single sound that you can hear on Unstable, White Forrest, and Homecoming.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I use convolution a lot for sound design. This technique has always produced great results for me, especially when I use unusual impulses, long pieces of recordings, field recordings, sounds of random objects and etc. It is always fun to capture tonal characteristics of one sound and apply it to another sound. There is a technique in audiomulch which I use sometimes by creating this huge and complex patch, starting with a looper device and run it through a long chain of processors. Then I put a few recorder devices in different parts of the chain and record them simultaneously, Finally I import all the sounds into an editor and comp them down to one clip. It is possible to recreate something similar to that in Ableton using live’s effect racks, creating different chains and switch between them in real time and record the results.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
My studio is quiet and has a lot of room which are the most important aspects for me especially the isolation, but I’m not happy with the design at the moment, I might make a few changes in future or maybe redesign the whole studio. The one thing that my studio really lacks at the moment is a nice view to the outside world. I like the idea of having a studio in bare nature.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
Well I don’t have a fixed method and each album and each track has a different story. I try to work all the time, record sounds, make patches, experiment with different plugins and techniques. I have a large sample library of all sort of interesting sounds so when I want to start a new piece, I go through my sound library and find something that I think I can use as a starting point, and build on it by adding instruments, small melody lines, field recordings and what not. I usually work on several tracks at the same time, going back and forth between them. I try to work on them for a few weeks and leave them halfway done and switch to work on another album or collaboration projects. This way when I go back and start again, I have a fresh perspective and new ideas. Most of the times I work without any plans but there are times that I have a complete idea of the album in my mind before starting, the theme, how the album is gonna sound and even the titles. For example on “The Garden” and “Arrivals and Departures” I knew exactly what I wanted and how the album should sounds like, of course they ended up sounding a bit different than what I had in mind but close enough.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are you reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I stop listening to the piece for a while, then I go back after a few weeks or so to listen and decide if I’m happy with it or not. Then I bounce down the mix and transfer it to my iPod and listen to it in different environments. The most important thing for me is to move away from computer once the piece is finished, and try to listen to the music from a listener’s perspective and try not to think of it as something that I can change or improve.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Yes, when I do I read or watch a whole ring cycle, which both are great sources of inspiration for me, so it’s not always a bad thing, sometimes you come back with really great and fresh ideas.

What gets you inspired?
Anything really, books, music, art, places, memories.

poryahatami.com

Let’s start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?

I discovered the ‘Oxygene’ album by Jean Michel Jarre when I was a kid and that blew my mind. It was so different from all other music I heard before. Years later I was finally able to buy a used Roland Juno-6 and started playing in a band. But that was not really my thing, I always wanted to make pure instrumental electronic music. After moving to Berlin in 1990, everything came together, techno, academic computer music, computer science, and earning some money to buy equipment. I never had any formal musical education, but I read a lot and tried to learn by doing, and I like the fact that computers allowed me to bypass virtuosity in some ways. I could code an idea and was not forced to play it by hand. My Juno got stolen a few years ago, and I really miss it. It was modified to do some special things and it was used on all early Monolake releases.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?

The first releases both as Robert Henke and as Monolake together with Gerhard Behles were produced in my small flat in former East Berlin. I had one big room which was a studio, living room, kitchen, and bedroom all at once, separated by a lot of plants. Then I moved to an empty office building right at Alexander Platz, together with a lot of other artists. It happened that Andreas Schneider became my neighbor next room, with the first incarnation of his modular synths shop, Schneidersladen. My studio was on the 9th floor with a view over the whole city and I loved that place. At some point, we all had to move out and found a new home in the former print shop of a newspaper. I got a total crisis there, I did not like the atmosphere, and one day I took it all apart and left. I set everything up again in my flat until I moved out to a larger place. Then I had a phase where I wanted to do it all in software. That did not last long, and I built a very small studio again. Recently I changed it completely as far as the layout is concerned, but my choice of equipment became more constant over the years.

I don’t want to become too much of a collector. I love technology and I admire machines that have a history or are important milestones of technical invention. But it makes no sense to own them all, it would not change the music I make. I have some Yamaha FM synthesizers, a few early digital keyboards including a Synclavier system, a medium sized modular rack, and a lot of hardware reverbs. The hub of it all is my desk with a large screen and computer. There is no mixing console, just a small mixer for processing and routing of outboard gear and a big patch bay. I have eight speakers in my studio, which allow me to either route the stereo sound to a specific place or working in surround.

The studio is only a part of my work, I spend a lot of time coding and I am doing this deliberately not in the studio, but on my office desk. I learned that separating the process of instrument creation, and of using them is very important to me. When I am in the studio I like to work on sound, not on coding. And then there is my work on installations or audiovisual performance pieces which often requires me to rent a bigger rehearsal space.

For a long time, I was hesitant to dive into modular synthesis, I was not convinced I would benefit from it, but I got into it via a detour. I bought a Linn Drum and wanted to filter the sounds and apply envelopes. I built a small modular rack exclusively dedicated to that. And then one thing lead to another. It took me quite some time to find the right modules but now I am very happy with what I have there and it adds new colors to my palette.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.

Nearly impossible to answer, I love them all. The ones I did not fall in love with are all gone. Probably my PPG Wave 2.3 is the winner, followed by the Synclavier. The thing with the PPG is that it sounds like nothing else, it looks like nothing else, and it has knobs to play with. It is complex with a lot of interesting detail, but simple enough to be intuitive. And I cannot get tired of its sound. It is the perfect mix of digital grittiness and analogue filtering. It is also connected to a few records, including ‘Exit’ and ‘White Eagle’ by Tangerine Dream, which were very influential for me, and sometimes I wonder if I like these records because of the sound, or if I acquired a taste for the timbres because of the records. The PPG to me embodies some sort of futuristic nostalgia.

And what about the software that you use for production?

For obvious reasons that is Ableton Live and Max. I write a lot of Max patches and Max4Live devices, it is part of my artistic practice, out of necessity in some cases, and for the fun of it in others. My laser works completely rely on my own tools, and for music production, I sometimes come up with small ideas which I then turn into a ‘special interest’ sound processing / generating device. The most prominent example would be my Granulator synthesizer which became part of the standard Max4Live distribution, and which I still use extensively. I almost never use plug-ins apart from what I create by myself or what comes with Live, which to a varying degree are also things I created. Operator is very much my child and I use it quite often, which is actually a surprise. It was created with the intention to provide a ’nice little FM synth’, and that was it. The reason why I am not diving into plugins that much in general is, that I enjoy the haptic side of hardware too much, and the combination of my hardware plus Max plus Live offers me far more than I ever can explore.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?

Not anymore. There are a lot of lovely historic instruments which I enjoy, but they are all on the same level of excitement for me: A Jupiter 8 is nice, so is an Emulator II, so is an Arp 2600, or a Prophet 5, and so on. Not a single one is totally above all the others, and having all of them, in my opinion, is the death of creativity. From a musical perspective, if I am looking for a specific metallic sound and I have a DX-7 and nothing else, I will find it quite soon. If I have 10 different synths with a similar concept, I might spend way too much time figuring out which machine to use, before even getting started being creative. The collector in me says I want it all. The artist strongly disagrees. Having a physically small studio helps.

However, I’d like to have a cathedral in my backyard, with a huge pipe organ. That would be nice.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?

I like inharmonic sounds and more dusty textures, I like the grittiness of early digital stuff. I don’t like resonating filters, especially when they sweep in a very obvious way. I like chorusing wide reverbs, and I don’t mind if they are grainy with a lot of audible reflections. Based on those preferences, there are numerous ways to achieve results I enjoy. I am a huge fan of FM synthesis, thus my collection of Yamaha FM Synthesizers, the development of Operator, and my love for the Synclavier, which offers a very different flavor of FM. The other big thing is granular synthesis for me, mainly for creating lush complex textures.

Some projects require a different approach, for my Lumière concerts, I developed a synthesizer which allows me to switch presets at audio rate, 44.100 times per second if I would push it that far. That created its very own constraints, which are reflected back in the results.

Perhaps worth noting is that I don’t find compressors useful at all. I really tried, and I end up each time bypassing them. Whatever compressors can do, I can do better with envelopes and volume automation. To my great surprise, I recently learned that Mark Ernestus of Basic Channel fame shares that notion with me.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your last album?

For the VLSI album, I made quite excessive use of my modified Linn Drum, which allows to dramatically pitch its samples. That in combination with filtering and envelopes from my modular rig contributed a lot. And I designed a specific synthesizer for the creation of dense layers of slightly detuned samples. That’s did contribute a lot to backgrounds on the track ‘Geometry Engine’. But the most important change was the fact that I mixed the album with a big console in a fantastic sounding studio together with Mark Ernestus, and that provided me with a lot of unexpected insights. I tend to do too many things alone, and collaborating with a person whose work I admire and who has in parts a very different perspective was an eye opener. It helped me to re-adjust my focus, and that already paid of for a remix I recently did.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?

The Monolake Live Surround setup is very straight forward: A laptop with Live, a multichannel sound card, a bunch of MIDI controllers. I wanted a system that I can setup and remove quickly, and that uses parts I can get pretty much all over the world, in case things break. It all fits in hand luggage. Lumière is the other extreme; three people traveling, lots of big heavy cases for lasers, computers, etc.

I always spend a lot of time thinking about what to control in a performance situation and how exactly. My favorite MIDI controller is an old Doepfer fader box. I learned to really articulate these faders, and if I assign the right parameters with the correct curves, I can turn that simple piece of gear into a very expressive instrument.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?

I need daylight. Working in a basement kills me. I also need a space that is clean and organized. That can be a cozy and personal space, but it cannot be cluttered. Every single item in my studio is there for making music. I’d rather compromise other rooms than turning my small studio into a storage space. I also spend a lot of time on work ergonomics, it took me a while to find an arrangement of instruments, speakers etc. which makes working fun and easy. I’d like to dive deep into my machines, and that’s impossible if e.g. a reverb is located in a rack 10cm above the floor. An example: I have an EQ which is routed per default to the output of my noisy Yamaha DX-27. That’s a killer combination, but I would not do it if I had to re-patch it all the time. The EQ is located near the DX-27 and that turns it into an integral part of the setup. Such things are important to me. By placing objects in physical proximity, I create a suggested workflow. It is like synthesizer design: if there is a nice know for filter cutoff, people will play it. Imagine a Roland TR-808 with a tiny display and +/- buttons for parameter adjustment…

What I miss is having more space and lots of plants. My bedroom studio scenario back in the days had that. In my dreams I have a very large good sounding room that works as a music studio, but also as a production space for my installations.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?

I have no single strategy here. Some works start from a conceptual framework, others emerge from toying around with the things in my studio. Often I have an idea, I try it out, and it does not do what I want, but on the way I find a detail that catches my attention. Then I try to move on from there. My work is full of detours. Finalizing music is, of course, the biggest challenge. I could change my pieces forever, I find it hard to make a definite statement. That’s were deadlines help a lot. Or a clear conceptual focus.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are your reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?

It is a painful experience very often. Hearing the work in a different context makes judging an already fragile construction even more difficult. But it is never the less quite important. I learn a lot from listening to my own music together with selected friends. Their presence alone changes my perception of what I am doing. My partner, Susanne aka Electric Indigo is a very helpful reference here. She is always spot on with here evaluations of my work. Playing my music to the wrong people before things are finished can kill it all. One wrong word and I discard everything. But getting feedback from people I trust, and who understand how to approach me in that fragile state is very helpful and appreciated.

I find it actually hard to prepare material for a live show after finishing a track or an album, I just want to move on and not being forced to reflect on what I just did. When I have to listen to my own music I am most of the time just super critical and tend to only hear the flaws.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?

I read too many newspapers, and I plan to stop that because it does not make me any happier these days. I’d like to improve my procrastination skills, though. Not less of it, but with higher quality. Like spending time with a cup of tea and a good book, or taking care of my plants and then go back to coding or working on music.

What gets you inspired?

Other music, mainly from a non-electronic context, concerts of friends of mine, going to museums, traveling, reading books, and still and forever my occupation with technology. My lasers are very limited machines of expression, they force me to think about what I want to achieve in a very specific way. That is difficult but also inspiring. I am also working on a project that involves learning a very limited and old programming language ( 6502 assembler ), which requires a totally different mindset than coding in high-level languages. Learning that involves reading computer books from the 1980s, and the funny part is, that there is a cultural subtext even in those technical descriptions. That provides inspiration on a very different level.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?

For a long time, electronic music was strongly connected to technological advances. New synthesis techniques became accessible to a broader group of artists, new interface concepts made it possible to create music in a different, faster, more intuitive way and that naturally shaped the result. We reached a point of saturation here, and technology as a motor for artistic innovation in the domain of sound lost its momentum. Envisioning a new genre emerging mainly from a tool perspective seems unlikely. The area where technology still provides limits is the visual side, and I guess the growing number of artists combining sound and vision reflects that.

Ironically the fact that selling music became much harder these days, could also mean one can stop thinking about it too much. I see a big chance in that evolution, and that’s a more introverted perspective. If I don’t need to worry about new technologies anymore, I can start mastering what I have. If I don’t need to think about sales, because they are so low that it is not big business anyway, I can focus on music which is very personal, instead of trying to copy what already exists and I can try becoming as good in it as possible.

And, times of apparent stagnation in history often turned out to be the moments before something new emerges out of known elements.

roberthenke.com

Let’s start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?
In the 90’s I was heavily involved in the midwest rave scene and did some DJing. Towards the end of the 90’s I started to get into the ambient and experimental side of electronic music, started to get more into DJing, and also started to branch out gear wise. So I guess my first piece of gear other than a pair of turntables was a BOSS SP-202 Dr. Sample. Shortly after, I had to sell everything to fund a move to Seattle and it took me until 2002 to afford a laptop, an iBook if I remember correctly. That was the first piece of gear that contributed to my current studio practice. Shortly after that I was invited to participate in a program called Super 8 that was part of the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in which non-filmmakers are given a roll of Super 8 film and a camera to make a film. I decided to score it as well, and that was the first public presentation of my work. Soon after, a coworker and choreographer was looking for someone to score her next full-length dance piece – she invited me and I went from having scored a three-minute experimental film to spending over a year composing a score for an hour-long dance piece. I guess you could say I got involved by hitting the ground running.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I have had at least eight different spaces over the years, always part of my living space, but I can’t tell you how many variations because I like to rearrange things quite often. My studio mainly changes due to my visual practice, either needing printer space, painting space, or projection space. My current iteration has probably had the most longevity, it has stayed the same for just over 2 years now. My audio setup has stayed pretty much the same throughout the years. It’s based around a laptop running Ableton Live, a mixer (currently a Mackie 802), an audio interface (currently an Apogee Quartet), some kind of MIDI controller (currently an Ableton Push 2) and of course a field recorder (currently a Zoom H6). In the last few years I have expanded a bit: slowly built a modular synthesizer over time, added a few pedals and this weird and wonderful little synth called the Drone Commander. I also have an iMac for my heftier video rendering needs. It is also tasked with all my administrative chores which is a gift when I am working with sound and don’t have to have emails and notifications buzzing in my face and ears.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
For a long time it was my Sony PCM-D50 field recorder, but after 10 years it had to retire and I have not had a chance to try its replacement. Because I have shifted away from field recordings towards modular synth I would have to say my current favorite is the Eventide H9 Harmonizer/Effects Processor. When I started integrating synths into my workflow it was really hard to wrap my head around their mono signals. Coming from using stereo field recordings exclusively, everything I was making with the synth felt dead and lifeless, one-dimensional. The Eventide H9 gives me the ability to place the synth in a stereo field and give it depth and space so it can sit more comfortably within a field recording. It also offers some really dense algorithms that can transform a synth or field recording almost completely. I have had it for just over a year now and I feel like I have only scratched the surface which is really exciting!

And what about the software that you use for production?
I have always used Ableton Live as my DAW, I have used Reaktor on and off for years, and different free things here and there as they appear and then become unsupported or outdated. I think software-wise, EQs are the most important tool in my studio. I use one or two on every track and on the master of pretty much everything I do. I used to use one called Periscope by Audio Ease that had 32 bands, but you could zoom in on a small part of the frequency range and that range would still have 32 even finer bands. It was amazing for getting really precise, but sadly it has been discontinued and became intolerably buggy for me about a year ago. At that point a switched to this beautiful EQ by Fab Filters called the Pro-Q 2. It has all the precision of Periscope without its severity. It’s amazing the kind of transformation that’s possible with just an EQ.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?
I am quite happy with my studio right now and even paring down the modular, but I have always lusted after a rack-mounted Eventide Effects Processor. I would love to give the Eclipse or the H7600 a go. I share a studio with my partner Robert Crouch, who has an Eclipse, so I know how amazing it can sound, but we both have really specific signal paths on our individual sides of the studio and I would be terrified to start messing with it only to find that he had it set up for a really particular thing he was working on. So for now, we keep things separate. I am happy with my H9 and if I can ever pay down some of my modular debt maybe I will go into Eventide debt instead. I have always dreamed of having a rack-mounted something or other.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
My process usually revolves around a single field recording. Each composition would use just one recording and I would render as many processed iterations and variations of it I could. Then when I had exhausted the recordings I would start combining those elements and build the composition. This is still very much a part of my process but now I do something similar with the modular synth, where I create a patch and record multiple variations until I have exhausted that patch, then tear it down and repeat. Once the dust has settled I go back and eliminate everything I don’t like and further process the things I do like, sometimes again making multiple variations. I also un-patch the modular between every project so it feels similar to starting with a fresh field recording. This process results in each project having a 15 – 25GB folder of files. Very costly to archive!

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
On my new release for Touch, Ornamentation, I actually did something pretty different where I went back through my archive of field recordings and used only my rejects. So I was using flawed recordings from different projects over the last 10 years, mixing multiple sources, locations, and recording devices. It became a total mess, but that was my intent. With this release, I really wanted to make it as hard on myself as possible, as laborious as possible. When working with one field recording over and over I don’t really have to worry about pacing or space because no matter what I do to the recording it always inherits a kind of DNA that will work with other variations. On Ornamentation I had to spend a lot more time pairing sound because one might loop really quickly and if a second sound had to close a loop they would create a rhythm, or maybe one was originally mono recorded on my phone and I had to simulate space for it – how would that sit with something naturally spacious? It became a jigsaw puzzle and I think the ending composition was the only way they would all fit together harmoniously. Now that it’s over I am really happy with the work I put in because I think it really spoke to the ideas I was grappling with in the piece.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
I never go on extensive tours, maybe 3 dates max, but my live setup is always the same. I have my laptop, an Apogee Duet audio interface and a MIDI controller (right now it’s an AKAI APC Mini), and a copy of my set on my keychain thumb drive. When I first started performing I never had a laptop beefy enough to do a lot of live processing, so I got in the habit of mixing rendered files which fits my compositional style just fine. I also can’t afford to upgrade my laptop very often so it’s often a little iffy (my current laptop has a mysterious vertical red line through the screen that comes and goes). All this uncertainty has led me to create a live set-up that could be easily duplicated if anything goes wrong. For instance, I now only use the built-in effects in Ableton Live if I need effects for a live set. I also chose the AKAI controller because it’s $100, so if it ever gets broken or lost on the road I can hit a Guitar Center or something wherever I am and get a new one. That is also why I have my live set on my thumb drive, so in a worst-case-scenario, I could potentially play it off any laptop with Ableton Live installed. It’s not a sexy answer, but it sure reduces a lot of travel stress when you are poor and traveling to perform.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Our new loft is huge – which I love because I don’t work very loudly, so I don’t have to worry about reflection or room treatment that much. The cool thing about the complex we are in is that it’s an old brewery and our particular building used to be the distillery, so there is a layer of cork on the large metal beams on the ceiling and on the concrete columns. I think it was used for keeping the humidity even? But whatever reflection there would be in a big concrete box like this is absorbed by the cork. I think the only improvement I could make is to figure out how to afford more time to work on sound.

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?
It varies from piece to piece, sometimes it’s a field recording, sometimes it starts with the visual component, other times it comes from an invite to exhibit or perform in a specific venue or location. Once the idea is there I usually circle it for a while and think about it before I try to work on it in the studio. I also have multiple jobs so I don’t have a huge amount of time in the studio, but that works out well because I like to let myself get a little pent up and excited about the idea before I let myself work on it, then I lock myself away until the idea is totally fleshed out and either finished or it’s in the garbage. There is a real ebb and flow of activity and what might seem like idleness, but it’s really a need to really sit with ideas and nurture them before trying to bring them to fruition.

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are your reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?
I consider a piece finished when I can listen to on a loop in my studio and not need to pick it apart. Then I enter the part I hate, where it gets played on lesser-quality speakers so I can make sure the mix is similar on other speakers. That stage is then done if I can make it through once on those speakers without picking it apart. Finally I need to walk away from it for about 2 months so I can forget how I made it and why I made all the decisions I did. After 2 months I can listen to it objectively, but during that two months there is a transitional stage where I kind of remember how I did things, but maybe forget why I left something in or why I made some that transition that way and I just spiral into a pit of insecurity. Thus the two-month rule – so I can avoid the spiral at all costs.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
I do, but usually not in any exciting way. Mainly I will work on my label (Dragon’s Eye Recordings), or work for a design client, or answer emails for the artist organization I work for. If it gets really bad I will start making esoteric changes to my website that no user would ever notice or care about. Procrastination for me is about avoiding making work because making work is when I am most exposed and vulnerable, so I look for tasks that keep my mind from that place. I also become a badass house cleaner when I am out of emails to answer.

What gets you inspired?
I read somewhere that a studio practice is like breathing, where your own creations are akin to the act of breathing out, and at some point you have to breathe back in. I think it’s a great way to think about being an artist and self-care. So for me, I get inspired from seeing others perform, seeing exhibitions, from altered states of consciousness, or even a simple night out with friends having a drink or a smoke and catching up on what they are doing. I think at its core, my work is about creating spaces for shared experiences and the best way for me to get inspired to do so is sharing experiences with others.

yannnovak.com

Photography by Christopher Wormald

Let’s start at the very beginning. Can you tell us how you got involved in composing, and what was your very first piece of gear?

ANDY: There are three key things. The first was Jean Michel Jarre whose Equinox album I religiously listened to on cassette as a kid. Equinox parts 5 -7 on the B side in particular – all those crystal clear electronic sounds, the way he strung the tracks together into one continuous piece, all those fantastic incidentals! I wish he’d left Part 8 off, though. The second was a seminal moment hearing Kraftwerk’s Tour de France on offshore pirate station Laser 558. Around the same time, the Street Sounds Electro compilations were appearing featuring artists like Newcleus and The Jonzun Crew – all of which sparked a never-ending obsession with electronic music and a gnawing desire to get involved and make some myself. Equipment wasn’t cheap back then so it was with huge excitement that I read about the SpecDrum, an affordable drum machine that plugged into the back of the ZX Spectrum which was a popular early home computer in the UK. This was the first bit of kit I bought, followed shortly by a Casio SK-1 sampler. Dom and I have been mates for years and around this time he bought a four-track Amstrad tape deck so we plugged it all together and made some terrible music that will never be shared!

DOM: Andy would do some mean body popping to Newcleus.

ANDY: I once moonwalked onto a wasp in my socks which, of course, stung me. The following contortions were described by a friend as “the best body popping I’ve ever seen you do”…

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?

ANDY: We’ve had countless iterations – a particular favourite being at the back of my parent’s garage in Kent where we had a PC running Cubase, a Kawai K7 and various other bits with which we attempted to make tunes after a night at the pub. We now work separately with our own studios but occasionally get together to jam. We’ve found a nice way of working together despite being in different places – sharing renders and being brutally honest / accepting whenever either of us shares something shit! Current set up is based around a Moog Voyager, Access Virus KC and a Nord Lead Mk 1.

DOM: That garage setup was such a man cave, but very hard to be productive in after a few pints at the pub. I remember spending the best part of an hour trying to diagnose a ‘ghost in the machine’ in the form of a Donald Byrd sample that was incessantly looping in our sampler… we were too drunk to work it out and came to the conclusion that we were haunted by Donald Byrd so we switched off all the electricity until he left us.

We later moved in together in London and started writing a melodic style of drum & bass. It was the first time we really took it seriously and cut our teeth with real tunes, up ‘til then it had been dicking about and writing parody tunes, which we still do from time to time, we are lifelong friends who regularly descend into childish play!

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.

ANDY: It would have to be the Voyager which I bought second hand around 5 years ago. I’ve expanded it with the VX-351 voltage control box plus the CP-251 control processor. It’s often too distinctive for lead lines so I like to drive it through plenty of stomp boxes and effects then bounce to audio for further editing / processing. It’s amazing for creating big filtered sweeping effects, techy hits, percussive elements, incidentals, weird ever evolving modular patches and of course fat bass – endless versatility that you can easily get lost in!

DOM: I cannot choose one! My modular corner is a beast, it’s a holy trinity of Moog Mother, 0-Coast, and a Doepfer rack. The Machine Drum for hi-hats is sublime when applying random square LFO to the decay (so funky). Mono Moisturizer spring reverb to add warm but dirty verb dynamics. And finally my desk, recently custom built with 3 levels of sliding desk surfaces for different parts of the music lifecycle. Bottom: keyboard mouse and midi controller for programming, Middle: piano keyboard for notation / performance and Top: Traktor S5 and drum pads for live performance / rehearsal.

And what about the software that you use for production?

ANDY: We do everything in Ableton with plenty of plugins. We have thought about switching to another DAW, as Ableton definitely has a particular ‘digital’ sound, but we’ve got so used to working with Ableton we’ve stuck with it. Things like Massive and Omnisphere 2 get regular usage too and I love the Fab Filter Pro 2 EQ and Pro MB compressor.

Is there a particular piece of gear that you’re just dying to get your hands on and do you think one day you’ll have it?

ANDY: A Buchla synth would be pretty nice – a 100, 200, Music Easel or Skylab. Hmmm – I’d better start saving up! Like Dom I’ve also invested in a 0-Coast – a cute standalone piece of kit that combines east and west coast synthesis philosophies… something to counter all that Mooginess.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?

ANDY: I’ve got a bunch of Ableton templates full of different follow action midi clips which I feed into my kit for quick and random results. I’ve also set up templates with different configurations of midi controller enabled instances of various glitch tools and effects. I shove elements of tracks we are working on into this on loop, and tweak as many elements as possible whilst recording the output. From this audio I then pinpoint and edit out micro elements that will work in the track, or adjust the template set up to hone the output in further. We almost always use plenty of field recordings via a Zoom H4n which heads with me everywhere I travel. I often head into churches or large open spaces to record quiet background ambience and natural reverberations – a ready-made atmosphere to sit behind a track. I recently bought a lovely contact mic built by Leafcutter John which has been great for creating percussive sounds via the banging of various hollow objects!

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?

Dom: For me, band passing or high passing so much more. Squeezing much into the mid / upper mid range to leave room for sparkle and sub in a much more controlled fashion. Also compressing or expanding the stereo field or EQ, not just amplitude, with the rhythm to give more illusion of power without just hoofing up the kick and losing clarity or tightness.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?

ANDY: This has varied considerably. A few years ago we were regularly doing decent sized gigs and had a full set-up of stands, controllers, synths, effects units and two synched laptops – all of which could be packed into nice flight cases. We’d also have Mach V our VJ joining us on stage as visuals have always been an important element of our live show. These days we are gigging much less so we have paired things back to the visuals and one laptop running into the machine drum, a Virus kb, controllers and effects units.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?

ANDY: The absolutely ideal environment would be something like Minilogue’s studio in the Swedish woods, or Taylor Deupree’s amazing looking set up. But we both live in London and isolated cabins full of synth gear are hard to come by. As such I like working in a small darkened room, surrounded by dials and twinkling lights with barely enough room to swing a cat / mic.

DOM: Let’s buy a cabin with the massive proceeds from Spotify. Homebase do a good line in garden sheds from £80.

ANDY: To be fair to Spotify they have been very nice and included us on some of their playlists recently!

What can you tell us about your overall process of composition? How are the ideas born, where do they mature, and when do they finally see the light?

ANDY: As we mostly work in separate studios, we set ourselves particular parameters to work within when embarking on a new project – so structure around things like bpm and genre. Otherwise, we’ll head off on completely different tangents. We’re trying to keep our next album in 70 / 140 bpm type territory with drum and bass and old skool rave themes so these are our current starting points when it comes to our new album project.

DOM: The seed of a tune can be anything. I try different things every time. It might be building a melody with a nice patch on the keyboard, it may be noodling on the modular. It may be a sample loop or programming the machine drum. But get arranging quickly or you’ll get stuck!

After the piece is complete, how do you audition the results? What are your reactions to hearing your music in a different context, setting, or a sound system?

ANDY: It’s strange how listening to your own music with other people skews how you hear it. It’s a really useful process to go through – although can be a bit awkward. It’s great to get really honest feedback – even if unmentioned and only acknowledged through my own discomfort or embarrassment around mutual listening to a particular track – heh heh! Then perhaps it’s time to change it.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?

ANDY: The information overload on the web is fantastic from a time wasting / dithering point of view – I enjoy reading music blogs and listening to new sounds. I write about music for Inverted Audio and Igloo Mag and use this as a way to justify any music listening procrastinations. For further procrastination, we have also just started our own label and blog VLSI so have been fiddling with site design and plans about world domination through that. The aim is to release more of our own music through this platform and we are on the hunt for new artists to support and release too.

What gets you inspired?

ANDY: I love seeing live large-scale art / music / installations – things by Ryoji Ikeda, Robert Henke and Autechre’s ‘in the dark’ shows. Max Cooper’s new ‘Emergence’ AV show is also excellent and really inspirational. On the other hand, less known acts and labels can be equally as inspiring – people like Kane Ikin and labels like Bokeh Versions are current favourites.

DOM: Same. Live performances do the most for me. Max Cooper, Moderat, Robert Henke, Origamibiro, Digitonal, Jon Hopkins, Amon Tobin and Infinite Scale have all inspired us at some point over the years.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?

ANDY: It feels like a bit of a golden age for electronic music. At one point over a decade ago, hardware synths seemed pretty unfashionable – now everyone has gone modular and Roland has released new versions of the classic kit. As an electronic music consumer, it’s never been better – there is so much to discover from DIY tape releases to re-issues of obscurities. As a kid listening to Jarre, our current ability to research and listen to so much excellent music would have blown my mind.

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