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 an older brother. When I was around 10 years old we were into Hard-Rock and Jeans. So I wanted to play the guitar. I learned playing the electric-guitar by playing along to “Iggy and the Stooges”, but I also learned classical guitar at the same time. Actually I still enjoy switching between different worlds, for example, at the moment I enjoy listening to dub and punk. Anyway, my composing process usually starts with playing the guitar. First gear? I had a stereo cassette-player (SABA) with a built-in speaker when I was a kid. I recorded my voice with it, playing hit-parade…

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
After that stereo cassette-player I had a four-track tape-recorder (YAMAHA) and then an 8 track digital-studio-workstation (ROLAND). Now I record on any PC, but I often still let the signal run through my VS880 or my Gallien-Krüger bass amp and my Boss-pedals. I guess I am a rather minimalistic kind of guy, I only have very few pieces of gear. I do not collect stuff. When I didn’t use something for a year then I dump it, I don’t want it to stand around. Too much material rather holds me, like, having a weight on your feet while you want to run.. I know that’s kind of luxury problem…

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
It is still that Roland-VS880. I really like the handling, I like the effects and virtual guitar pre-amps inside. I like the size, cause you can take it to the rehearsal room, or to the countryside, or even on holidays. You can achieve an intimate situation with this tool, plus (!) you’re not staring at some monitor all the time, the monitor on that machine has the size of a matchstick, so… you cannot trust your eyes, you have to trust your ears.

And what about the software that you use for production?
Wavelab 5, sometimes feeding it with fruity-loops.

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?
No, nothing particular, just the most expensive preamp in the world and the most expensive condenser mic, because I experienced that you can actually hear the price difference in that field.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I always try to shape the sound before it gets on the hard-drive. I first want to achieve a certain atmosphere and inside that atmosphere I want to create the musical idea, because I think it’s a feedback: the sound and the sentence that you’re phrasing. Also, I like the idea that the listener gets into the same cloud that you were in when you actually gave birth to your musical idea. You know? And later, while you do the producing and mixing, your contact is much weaker, you’re not at that core anymore, you’re designing the… appearance, let’s say.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
On my last record I was singing a lot, so, after I recorded my voice I did send my vocals back on a guitar amplifier, used distortion, prepared membranes and I recorded the signal with microphones, as if the speaker was my voice. I did send everything to my Marantz tape-recorder, leveled to the max, saturated tape, because the Marantz has a limiter and I really love that sound when you hear the limiter and the tape.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
You can see my live setup as a sketch on the above pic. I bring the following: Classical Guitar, Boss-Bass-EQ (GE7B), Boss-DD6, Boss DD7, Boss-Bassman, Boss-Fender-Reverb, Roland R-05 wave-recorder, Boss-FV50 volume-pedal, Roland AC33 acoustic amp with built-in Looper. Then lots of tiny noise- and toy-instruments and finally, in case I bring the jazz guitar, I ask the club if they can provide me with a Fender-Twin-Reverb or a Roland-Jazz-Chorus. Oh man I really should get sponsored by Roland/Boss ;)

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I record at home, and I have a walk-through room, so, first I would change that and then I would ban the tram, ban the cars, ban the neighbor… hmm… I actually should shift my studio into a 100 square-meter detached house with ocean view.

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?
Again… still… it always starts with the guitar… that’s where it grows and grows up.

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 return to the first sketch, I play that sketch and then I let it grow again into a new direction to gain a live version of that idea.

Do you ever procrastinate?
No ;)

What gets you inspired?
Playing with other people, talking to people.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
Sorry, I’m afraid, I’m not the right guy for that question, I really listen to few contemporary electronic music, I like some digital dub, for example the music that you can find on that label “jahtari”… well but even that music is not 100% “todays electronic music”, cause in my opinion, it’s based on something that Prince Jimmy discovered 30 years ago: “computerized dub”.

fsblumm.free.fr

Cover photo of F.S. Blumm by Takehito Goto

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?
At the very first beginning, there was a good friend of mine playing guitar and starting to compose his own music when we were 14 or 15 years old. I never learned to play an instrument but I really felt like I want to create something too. At that time I was heavily into computers, games, and programming. So it felt natural to me to create music by using the computer. Since then I was basically making music in the box and when I was 19 I got my first synth, which I still use, a Korg Polysix. Still, I do many things with software just because it feels so natural to me.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I moved places quite often in the last years so I had quite a different workspace every year. I never had a separate studio, it has always been a part of my flat. At the moment the room is a bit smaller again. Before that, I had a studio that I also used as a painting atelier. Now it’s for music only and focused on functionality by just having set up what I really use.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
Even though it’s not a synth or effect, the Olympus ls5 field recorder in combination with Ableton Live feels like an instrument for me as I’m using it on nearly every piece. Still, I do many micro-recordings playing just a chord on the Nord Lead for example but recording it with this little thing and creating something from it with Sampler in Live or Native Instruments Battery when it comes to percussion. Also, I like to record external sources and work with it on the Teenage Engineering OP-1.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I went to many different programs and combinations of them. A long time I was using Cubase in Rewire with Reason. Also, I was working with working with Logic a long time ago when it still was a PC software. Since I started playing live with Ableton Live, I also switched to it for productions.

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. Also, I’m looking for the Tonal Recall.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
For the percussion, it is a lot of layering. I have all those little sounds recorded by myself or super small parts, pitched and reworked from libraries. So for a snare sound, for example, I can have up to 6 or even more sounds playing simultaneously all with different velocity and timing. Melodically my music is always based on pad sounds. So when I’m starting with something I’m looking for a good lively atmospheric basement. Underneath that there is usually a heavy sub bass as a fundament. For finding my sounds I use Native Instruments FM8 as an effect on the channel. Building effect chains in it and putting in on samples or synths. My favorite is the Psyche/ Delay.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I recorded a lot by myself. ‘Silk’ is based on a melody I played on a little kalimba. Or in ‘Pacific’, I played the lead melody on a steel tongue drum. Some rhythms are tapped on the table for example and I converted the recording into a MIDI file triggering samples.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
Right now the setup is me, Mohna on the vocals for our collaborative tracks and a friend performing the visuals that filmed myself. I use Ableton Live controlled with an APC 40 and an old UC33 Evolution. All the drums are coming from the Elektron Analog Rythm. Besides that, I have a MIDI keyboard which I use to play key elements in some tracks. Also there a piece of wood with a contact microphone which I can knock on for wooden sounds running through filter, reverb, and delay.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
The room isn’t treated acoustically at all. So that’s definitely a point I would love 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?
I’m trying break out of my routine. After all the years you have strategies that are always leading to a result. But now it really feels inspiring to experiment. For instance by just putting an insanely huge line of effects on an arpeggiator melody, sampling, cutting and pitching it, again some more effects, so it becomes something really different to the original material. If you record this again and play just a short single note on the sampler, you will probably come up with an interesting new sound. The pieces that I’m really satisfied with have been finished super quickly, sometimes even in one or two days. Sometimes you hear it and it I maybe would like to polish it and add some details but everything is already said and it’s honest just like that, so I stop working on it. The best ideas don’t really mature. Usually, I don’t go back to an old project, I just start something new. That’s why I have hundreds of loops.

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 have this routine that I upload my sketches to a private soundcloud account combined with a photo. I always have a picture for every piece I create. So if I have a walk on the beach I’m listening through it. And being outside, having an open view, brings new ideas how the song could evolve from there.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
I take a break for some days or even longer and do something else. Maybe not even listening to other music. Riding my bike and going for a swim is always refreshing.

What gets you inspired?
It’s mostly the silent moments. For example, while traveling when you’re sitting in a taxi or train after a long flight and everything is passing by. Also, I’m very interested in art like painting or photography. So discovering new artists or seeing exciting exhibitions are getting me inspired. But of course also music, books, and movies.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think it’s very difficult to have an overview of electronic music as it’s very diverse with so many different styles and sub-genres. But for me, the actual state feels really positive. There is a lot of electronic music with an emotional, melancholic, artistic feel lately, also in club culture.

christian-loeffler.net

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?
My first piece of equipment was an Electro Harmonix 2880 super multi-track looper. It looks really simple but is surprisingly versatile. I wrote the original version of my track ‘Grounds’ on here, which was one of the first pieces I wrote when I started composing. I still used the looper live synced with an MPC until a few years ago. I started composing quite organically. I had always thought I was going to be a performer and hadn’t really considered creating my own music until I was asked by a couple of friends to create soundtracks for them. I loved the process and discovered something very different when performing my own work. Everything developed very naturally from there. Around the same time as the looper I also bought a Zoom H4, with which I recorded pretty much all of my first album. When I first started, all I had was a laptop, a Zoom, and I invested in a set of Adam Speakers which I still use now.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
I’ve been through a few studio stages, however, only now in the last year am I starting to build the studio I really want. I live with Joe Acheson from Hidden Orchestra and we both have a studio at home. Joe’s studio is in the basement and has an isolated soundbooth. It is really easy and nice to record down there. My studio is upstairs and is very simple. My grand piano is in the living room.

Tell us about your favourite piece of hardware.
I’m in love with my APC40 controller at the moment. Ableton Live is amazing, and with the APC I find it feels like playing another instrument as it is so flexible and responsive.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I work with Logic in the studio and use Ableton Live when performing.

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’m very excited by my new Helpinstill piano pick up. I’d been using an older model for the past few years which was great, but recently I used a newer model at a gig and the sound was incredible, so I have upgraded. For looping live the pick up is invaluable. It also enables me to get a really nice rich bass sound from the piano.

Are there any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
Usually I record everything myself in my home studio, but since Sketches is a solo piano album, I thought it might be nice to do things differently. I recorded at Retreat Recording Studios just outside Brighton. We recorded every track with a number of different microphone placements. I later mixed the tracks with Joe in our home studio. With all the tracks recorded on different sets of mics we could pick and choose which placements, or a combination of placements, worked the best for each track.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
On Sketches, even though I intended it to be a solo piano album, there are two tracks with field recordings. Just at the point when we started recording the acoustic version of ‘Rain’ for the album, it started to rain. We placed a microphone next to the studios ceiling skylight window and recorded the rain at the same time as the track. Amazingly the rain got heavy and then died away with the music, it was perfect. For ‘Birdwoman’, we recorded the birds outside the studio and then layered it with the piano. I also used field recordings on a couple of tracks for my first few albums. I love the way the sound of birds, traffic, rain or clock mechanisms blend with percussive sounds from extended piano or violin techniques.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
My live setup currently consists of Ableton Live with the APC 40 Mkll. On the piano, I use a Helpinstill pickup and DPA 4099P microphones – the combination of the two sound great together. I use the pickup to create a strong bass sound, and the mics for a more natural sound with some definition. I also have a lovely acoustic violin, but when performing live I tend to use a Starfish electric – which was made for me, built with exact same dimensions as my acoustic. I put it through an Art Preamp and TC Electronic Nova System.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
The most important thing to me is light and space. The next step is proper sound treatment and a more modern upright piano in my studio.

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 find that every track is different. What is similar is that each track must come from something strong – a story, an emotion, a reaction to something. I always have a feeling, like there is something trying to escape. Something I need to say but cannot be said in words. I then sit down at the piano and see what happens. Once the initial ideas are down I work in a similar way on each track. My approach is kind of like sculpting. I let the composition lead me. It takes a lot of time. I listen and listen, and then add or remove what I feel works or doesn’t work. It is all very instinctive and organic.

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 sound system?
I love to run in the mornings and this is a good way to listen to the album as a whole. It’s a nice way to hear the album developing over time during the last months. It is strange how being away from the piano and computer screen lets you hear the music in a different way, which I find often it is quite reassuring and refreshing. I also always have my latest mixes with me and listen a lot as I walk around the city. It is also always an interesting experience to listen to the tracks on headphones as well as speakers.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Sometimes, but these days I am much better at getting started on things. If I’m not focusing then I use the Pomodoro technique. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I find it helpful. I don’t think you can force the creative process. If I’m not in the mood I’ll try and do something else useful, such as emails, tour planning, or admin tasks. It’s hard for me to be in the studio all day when the sun is shining. If I’m meant to be working and the sun is out, then I will come up with a list of things that I absolutely have to do which means I have to be outside!

What gets you inspired?
So many things. People, friends, family, stories, love, travel, nature, music, art, dance, food… the list goes on forever.

Be sure to pick up Poppy Ackroyd’s upcoming mini-album, Sketches, out on July 14th, 2017, on One Little Indian Records.

poppyackroyd.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?

MICHAEL: I learned guitar in 6th grade by playing along to The Ramones on my dad’s 1978 Gibson “The Paul”. At the same time I was playing trombone in our school’s jazz band and our teacher always emphasized listening: to each other, to the way our instruments’ tones were blending, and the whole band’s dynamics. I fell in love with creating more textural music and when Andrew and I lived together in college, we had a lot of time to experiment with recording it.

ANDREW: Mike and I are twins, so unsurprisingly my origins as a wannabe punk rocker are very similar. However, in high school I fell in love with ‘50s and ‘60s cool & modal jazz – “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis rocked my world – and I got my first taste of “composition” while writing and gigging regularly in a funk/jam band on bass guitar. In college I went down a very deep rabbit hole of discovery and became fascinated with minimalist and ambient aesthetics, and determined I had to try making my own “furniture music” in the vein of Satie, Eno, Cage, Young, and the dozens of other modern composers being thrown at me on a daily basis in music history courses. I bought a horribly noisy Tascam USB interface and began writing very bad ambient and post-rock music using Garageband, effects pedals and cheap MIDI synths with Mike in our shared apartment. Hotel Neon didn’t come about until 2012 when we decided to get serious with the thick, droning style we developed.

STEVEN: When I was young, I remember sitting at my family’s piano and recording little parts with a cassette player and listening back to them. I had no idea how to play but enjoyed experimenting and trying to create something. In middle school, I played trumpet in the band and started to learn more about the arrangement, dynamics, and structures of music. I suppose my first “real” piece of gear that I owned for myself was an Applause acoustic guitar. I ended up walking out of the store with a Zoom 505 multi-effects pedal too. It was not until later in life after getting out of college in 2006 did I begin to really make an effort to work on my own music using Garageband. I met several false starts beginning projects with friends so I made the decision to just start making music by myself. During that time I began learning to record and mess around with layering textures. Looking back, all those efforts in learning prepared me for joining Hotel Neon.

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

MICHAEL: My setup hasn’t changed much at all over the years- just a Focusrite interface into my MacBook Pro. The amps I own are only for practice; we use software amps live and on the recordings. The geographic distance between the 3 of us means that we bounce ideas back and forth often, and they change constantly. I like to have as little in the way of that flow as possible, and I’m rarely doing anything that needs an elaborate studio setup to record anyway.

ANDREW: I have gone through a constant change in my setup, mostly as a byproduct of frequent relocation. Since those first days of experimentation in college, I have moved a total of 7 times over the last 9 years, and have never allowed myself to accumulate much gear…in fact, it is almost embarrassing for me to show my humble little collection to the world. It’s not at all a “professional” arrangement. But the core of my setup remains to this day simply a MacBook Pro, Logic and countless plugins (I return most often to the Soundtoys suite), a Focusrite 2i2 interface, an Arturia Analog Lab MIDI keyboard, and a MicroKorg synth that has found its way into virtually every track we’ve ever written as Hotel Neon. There has been a legion of guitars and basses as well, frequently traded, swapped, and sold.

The need for mobility has also informed the way I compose. I hate feeling overwhelmed with choice, and I hate being surrounded with LEDs. I need a simple, clean, bare workspace to do my best work. I have grown so used to NOT having a dedicated studio space that I simply can’t function in a typical “fixed” studio setup. When I am composing music, I carry my gear all over the house to find a space that I’m comfortable in and to find new perspectives… quite literally seeking new vantage points, much to my wife’s chagrin.

STEVEN: My current setup has pretty much stayed unchanged for the past several years. The recording setup consists of an ADA preamp into my MOTU interface then to my MacBook Pro running Logic X. I’ve recently begun experimenting with Ableton for our live setup and look forward to diving into the recording functions of it. My computer has quite a few plugins and similarly to Andrew, I really enjoy the Soundtoys suite. On our last album, I experimented a lot with VSTs powered by Kontakt and used Altiverb & Toraverb for reverbs. Like my recording setup, my pedalboard has pretty much stayed the same for awhile now but recently I got a Hologram Infinite Jets that I’m excited to dive into. I’ve got a few Les Pauls, a 72’ tele custom and an acoustic. One of the Les Pauls is equipped with a Fishman midi pickup which is a lot of fun. It allows you to blend your guitar signal with a midi VST or just have straight guitar/VST output. The only studio frustrations I’ve struggled with is changing spaces. I’ve moved several times over the past few years and it takes me awhile to feel comfortable in a space.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.

MICHAEL: My 1978 Gibson “The Paul”. It’s technically my dad’s, but I’ve semi-permanently borrowed it.

ANDREW: I will always have a soft spot for my Korg MicroKorg. As mentioned previously, it has found a place on virtually every recording I’ve made in the last 5 years, and its A36 patch is a staple of the Hotel Neon sound… I always return to it and can always find comfort there. It’s ugly, clunky, and not very versatile at the end of the day, but I love it just the same. It has thunderous lows and is easy to control live with the cutoff knob.

STEVEN: This is a tough question, I have several pieces based on what I’m doing but I’d say my favorite is my 79’ Gibson Les Paul. Last year we toured with Lowercase Noises and because I flew out to start the tour I borrowed the LP to play throughout. By the end, I had really bonded with the guitar playing it on our first “real” tour. I told Andy from Lowercase Noises that if he ever wanted to sell it I’d buy it from him in a heartbeat and a few months later he sold it to me. I really treasure the memories and the vibes that surround that guitar.

And what about the software that you use for production?

MICHAEL: I use Garageband. It does everything I need in a simple and streamlined package, and the limitations it has kept me more focused on what I’m doing.

ANDREW: Logic is my DAW of choice. I have tried to adapt to Ableton, Reaper, Pro Tools, etc. but I simply find the Logic interface to be best for what I’m doing. I’m always experimenting with plug-ins and won’t bother listing every single one, but I return most often to the Soundtoys suite of effects. The Echoboy delay alone is worth the price of admission, but I also love using distortion, bitcrushing, and other tools of destruction in our music, so I’ve found great sounds with the Decapitator.

STEVEN: I’m a Logic guy too. Similar to Andrew, I just find that it works best for me. Now that we are working on tracks remotely from each other, using the same software has benefits in sharing files. As I mentioned in a previous question, I’ve recently gotten into Ableton and am excited to further explore the seemingly unique things you can utilize it for.

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?

MICHAEL: Honestly, no. I enjoy trying new things for fun, but when it comes to recording or performing, I always find myself going back to what I already know and love.

ANDREW: To support my field recording addiction, I am in hot pursuit of a Sound Devices recorder, whether it’s the 722 or 744. I’m always scouring the used markets for one. On that same topic, I’d also love a stereo pair of Sennheiser MKH8040 condensers… I’ll definitely have them someday!

STEVEN: I’d like to get my hands on a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo interface. I have a few friends who have upgraded to the Universal Audio offerings and love them. The Duo seems like it would be a simple and minimal fit in my setup. Not to mention, access to the plugins/sims that Universal Audio offers would be great too.

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

MICHAEL: We’ve always been really fascinated with trying to meld “clean and clear” with “dirty and grungy.” Our unofficial band motto is that if something sounds good, it’ll sound even better distorted and bitcrushed.

ANDREW: I’m not sure how the other guys feel about this, but if I had to make a blanket statement for the band then I would say that everything we do is sort of an experiment in sound design. We aren’t really making songs so much as we are making sounds… that reads a little lofty and pretentious, possibly, but I don’t think we’ve ever written a song and viewed it as a neat, tidy unit. We are always viewing it from 10,000 feet up, and view it more as a fluctuating or flexible statement. We’re constantly warping, twisting, editing, and manipulating the entire track, roughing it up, adding dirty and distorted elements and generally trying to mask any semblance of “normal” instrumentation that might be there. We’ve always been obsessed with creating thick blankets of sound. A song in the DAW is really just a single piece of clay for us; it’s always shifting and being shaped, to an extent. We make heavy use of field recordings, distorted non-musical sounds, and noise of all types – static, electrical hum, etc. – in order to mask traditional instrumentation and add a real sense of mystery for the listener. I want people to ask “What is that sound? Where’s it coming from?”

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

MICHAEL: Andrew incorporated a lot of field recordings into “Context.”

ANDREW: “Context” was definitely filled with more field sounds than we’ve ever incorporated before. That’s an area of obsession for me. I feel that the recordings we used ended up serving the purpose of the album well. It was a fun experiment to re-contextualize familiar sounds I captured in places that I know well, inject them into the tracks, and after heavily manipulating them, see how it could translate into a meaningful and cohesive piece for someone else to enjoy.

On this album, we were also very intentional about using an analog mixing process and printing to tape. Matt Kidd (Slow Meadow) did a great job with taking our messy project files, sorting through the layers at hand to make sense of it all, and pushing the results to tape in Houston. The sound is a little denser, thicker, and grittier than what we could have done ourselves.

STEVEN: For me personally, I tried a lot of new techniques on “Context”. One thing in particular I did was create my own sample library of bowed guitar sounds. I had always wanted to try and do something like that and this seemed like a great opportunity. For every album or run of shows, it’s always my goal to raise the bar a little bit. Generally, I make a list of improvements that could be made to whatever I’m working on and those become the priorities when tackling a new project.

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

MICHAEL: I only need a distortion, delay, and reverb pedal. When we play live, Steven mixes everything on his laptop and we play through software amps.

ANDREW: We take great pride in having a compact, versatile, and mobile setup: our guitars and synths run into a Behringer XR18 mixer, are processed live in Ableton, and are fed to the house with an L and R output. It is extraordinarily simple and can be controlled wirelessly with an iPad. Setup only takes 15 minutes and we can fit our whole band, with gear, into a small car. We were intentionally trying to create the most compact arrangement possible so that we can take it anywhere and play in any space available to us. All we need is a PA to plug into. This setup was a direct result of the “Slow Spaces” tour series we launched with Lowercase Noises. The whole objective is to bring our music to living rooms, galleries, and other small and unconventional spaces. We are just as comfortable in a living room as we are in a cathedral and can replicate our music in either context. Sound techs love us!

STEVEN: Like Andrew said, we’ve tried to create the most minimal setup possible and I think we’ve achieved that well. It is very satisfying to walk into any space and have complete control over our sound. The brain of our setup is Ableton which all the audio, backing and visuals are controlled though. I use an APC 40 MKII to control it all and mix on the fly. We use Mainstage for Andrew’s synth patches and for visual cues for prominent sections in the tracks.

Outside of my guitar, cello bow and slide I have a lot of midi implementation on my pedalboard. I found the Disaster Area Designs to be a lifesaver in a live setting. Throughout our set, I am doing a lot of looping/overdubbing and I can use the MIDI controller to control my looper. It also allows me switch presets on a few different pedals with just a tap on one switch.

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

MICHAEL: I live in a studio apartment that’s a little less than 300 sq. ft. My music area is also my kitchen, my bedroom, and my living area. That changes the way I think about what I do musically in that it’s not separated in any way from my “normal” life. I’m the sort of person who’s easily overwhelmed, so being forced to keep things simple also keeps me sane. And not treating my recording space as some sort of sacred shrine keeps me from overthinking what I do there.

ANDREW: Great question. The physical makeup of a workspace is everything to me. As mentioned previously, I really need a clean and minimal space to do my best work, so having a spacious room free of clutter is important to me. At some point I might settle more permanently into a room I’m comfortable with, but when that happens, it will almost certainly need some degree of isolation from other noises in the house in order to maintain the “clean” feeling of the space.

STEVEN: Comfort is the most important environmental aspect to me. Not necessarily physical but mental comfort. Having a space where most of my stuff is setup and ready to go when an idea strikes is also important. Nothing kills an idea faster for me than having one then needing to setup equipment to try it, I like it all ready to go. Eventually I’d like to improve on sound-proofing and implement a “live room” of some sort but for now, my little bedroom space will have to do.

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?

MICHAEL: My own ideas are born mostly by accident. The advantage of working with a group is that even if something sounds terrible to me, the other guys often hear things I can’t, or that I’ve just become numb to, and it takes on new life.

ANDREW: My personal process changes day-by-day, but most typically, my ideas are born out of observation. I typically see or hear something that either seems worth capturing or inspires an emotional response. I do my best to capture the essence of what that response is, whether it’s passing interest or fascination or some deeper emotional resonance. I typically take a photograph, a recording, or a note in my journal, and I make music that either reflects or accompanies that feeling… if that makes any sense! I’ll think about how the observation makes me feel, what kind of mood it gives off, what kind of instrument or effect might get me close to that feeling… I guess it is similar to soundtracking specific moments in my memory, but of course, there are always the happy accidents that Mike mentioned, in which I simply like the way a new patch or piece of gear sounds and I run with it.

No matter which one of us births the original idea or sketch, it almost always makes at least one loop through the whole band via file sharing and remote recording sessions before it’s reached refinement and consensus. The geographic distance between us is quite challenging sometimes, but it also adds a very impartial and objective quality to the edits and review each of us adds on a given track. We usually work relatively quickly. “Context,” for instance, was basically the product of a marathon week of very intense and rapid succession of recording, sharing, and editing, and we reached consensus quickly. It either sounds good or it doesn’t, and I don’t think we have ever been too attached to the pieces we write to be kept from making that decision quickly.

STEVEN: Generally I start with some sort of loop as a base then build on it. Most of the time that loop doesn’t make the final track but I need something to play off. With the geographic distance, it serves as something to interact with being separated from Michael and Andrew. Weaving textures and frequencies together is my favorite part of creating our sound. Typically everything I contribute to the tracks is just one take. There is something very special having that “in the moment” feeling to what I do. I try not to overthink what I’m doing and contribute what initially comes out. I’d say that out of both Andrew and Michael, I tend to focus more on the arrangement. Despite drone style music not having a conventional song structure, I still mentally like to pick out parts. “Intro, verse, build etc” Doing that helps me organize my thoughts and allows me to feel sections of the track are complete. I think “Context” is special to me because all of us have grown in our abilities so much and with the distance that is key. We all know our strengths and play off each other’s very well.

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?

MICHAEL: I like to sit in the armchair by my window while I listen and just watch the city hum along. The key is a strong reaction in general. Each of us will hear things a little bit differently, but if there’s no intensity in our response to it, it’s not done.

ANDREW: I am rather insistent about putting completed pieces through their paces on “average” consumer gear – it needs to be impactful and massive as can be expected even on iPod earbuds, car stereos, Bluetooth speakers around the house, etc… I am very realistic about the fact that our music might serve as a background to most listening settings. Maybe I am wrong about this, but I don’t think too many people sit down at their desk and sit perfectly positioned, intensely focused with undivided attention through professional reference monitors when listening to Hotel Neon. I’d almost prefer that people DON’T do that and that rather they take it with them outside, transport it to different scenes and settings and let it find a home in new contexts of their own doing. Of course, it’s important the material sound good through those high-end systems too, so that it has a chance to succeed in more settings… but there has to be a balance between hi-fi demands and consumer reality. I’d like the music to reach as many ears as possible.

STEVEN: I think with our music there is no defined context, setting or listening device that I’d say is the right vehicle for listening. Typically I’ll listen back in the car, in earbuds on a walk around my neighborhood or just through my monitors while working my day job. Sometimes I’ll have a few different versions of a mix for a track and listen to them in succession and determine the one that feels the best in a couple different listening mediums. If I’ve been working on a track for awhile I always like to give a 1-2 week buffer to listening to the output. I like to leave some time for the track to “breathe” a little bit and let my ears listen to it without the fatigue of over listening while creating it.

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

MICHAEL: Rarely, at least when it comes to music. If anything, I tend to rush the production process.

ANDREW: I wouldn’t call it “procrastination” as much as I would call it “hesitation.” Like most creative people I have intense bouts with self-doubt sometimes… “Is this piece any good, and is it worth continuing? Maybe it can wait until I have a better idea.” But typically, as mentioned before, I try to make those decisions quickly and move on with the process. I’m pretty prolific when it comes to writing new material and have multiple pieces ongoing and in development at any given time.

STEVEN: It is both exciting and daunting to begin something new but once I get rolling I tend to put all the time into the project that I can. Sometimes if I get too lost in my own head I tend to feel a little paralysis more than procrastination. If that happens I’ve found that if I step back and start a new track I can get momentum to revisit the previous one being worked on. Another thing that is helpful is waiting for Andrew or Michael to add a part to inspire me to keep plugging away.

What gets you inspired?

MICHAEL: Following my curiosity: learning about people/places that are different from me/my own. Movement: I run almost every day, just trying to listen to everything around me. I’m a different person by the time I finish any given run.

ANDREW: I’m very much inspired by new settings, new ideas, “newness” in general. I have a borderline anxiety that I need to be experiencing and learning *more* at any given time, so I’ll constantly be starting new books, researching new travel destinations, recording new sounds in the field, taking different routes to work, re-arranging studio setups and furniture… anything is fair game. I don’t like constants. I have a hard time sitting still and like to be thrown into unfamiliar settings. It’s why I’m a restless and undisciplined composer, I think.

STEVEN: Very much of why I create music is because I need a way to express myself. Being a more introverted person words don’t always come easily to me. Expressing myself through music I feel like is my true voice. Because of that, I’d say that what inspires me the most is life. It is a little cliche to say that but what my music is to me is an expression of myself and the environments/emotions that surround me on a daily basis.

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

MICHAEL: It’s easier than ever to find bad music and it’s easier than ever to find good music. I’m thankful to live in a time when it’s so easy to connect with the people who make all of it.

ANDREW: Good question. I am a pretty young guy in my mid 20s, but in my brief experience on Earth so far I would say I’ve already seen a trend towards artists and musicians in this space returning to the “classics” for inspiration – everything from using vintage equipment in modern DAWs to rediscovering the giants of the genre in new streaming services like curated Spotify playlists and Mixcloud sessions. Here in Philly, there is a great scene of older electronic and space music “veterans” who are sharing the knowledge with new audiences through radio shows like Echoes, Star’s End, Music with Space, etc. and concert series like Cosmic Crossings, The Gatherings, and more.

To Mike’s point, there is an enormous amount of new music out there and people are getting started creating it for all sorts of reasons, getting inspired from all sorts of sources… but in conversations I’ve had with fellow musicians and even people who listen to our music for the first time, there seems to be a lot of interest in figuring out where this all came from. What’s old is new again, I suppose.

STEVEN: I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the fact that it is easier nowadays to create music is a bad thing, that the market is saturated. It very much is saturated BUT the fact that young artists have an opportunity to be creative and express themselves through the art of music is pretty incredible. Hotel Neon would have probably never had the chance to be heard since we operate outside of the classic studio environments. Since electronic music as a whole is pretty diverse there is something in the genre for anyone to connect with. I’m excited with the direction electronic music seems to be evolving in. Everyone has a voice to be expressed and personally I hear those voices more clearly through the electronic genre of music.

hotelneonmusic.com

Hey Jason, 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 started playing the drums back in junior school and around that time got heavily into electronic music. I then got into DJing and started programming my own music using Rebirth and FL on the family PC. After making a few tracks that I thought were somewhat decent, I put together a demo and sent it to a label. The A&R got back to me with a very encouraging letter and suggested I get hold of Reason. I managed to get a copy, then convinced my parents that I needed a midi keyboard for my 11th birthday. So I worked with Reason and that keyboard setup for the next few years and that produced my first releasable piece of music, which came out on that same label. My first serious piece of gear was a Clavia Nord Rack 2, which I bought second hand a few years later.

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

This current studio would be my second. The room I’m in now used to be a garage which was converted in 2012. I’ve collected quite a bit of gear over the years, but right now my main setup is down to a dustbin MacPro with a bunch of SSDs connected over Thunderbolt and a MacMini server over ethernet, a UA Apollo Quad interface, a Yamaha keyboard which I just use for MIDI, Genelec monitors, a modified Drawmer 1960, Neve and Great River preamps, a Juno 60 and my 1920’s Grotrian Steinweg upright. I’ll then bring in my other synths when needed. I’ve just hooked up the JX3P for something I’m about to start. I haven’t used it in quite some time so it’s been nice to go back to it.

Tell us about your favourite piece of hardware.

Instruments and computer related stuff aside, I love my Neve preamps. I have the 1073 DPA which my piano mics are permanently hooked up to.

And what about the software that you use for production?

I work in Cubase with a few plugins. I’m using mostly the UAD stuff, Fabfilter and Soundtoys for FX.

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’s an endless list! A CS-80 would be amazing. I’d really love to own a celeste. I’ve been trying to track one down locally for years, but no luck as of yet.

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

It’s an important part. Both sound and music I feel should always work together and each is just as important as the other. Creating that balance between both is something I always aim for.

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

I tried to push the electronic side a bit more than I did on my previous album Attachment. So there was more synth recording and experimenting with that.

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

When I used to play clubs regularly, the last setup I was using for that was a MacBook with Ableton Live and an APC40. The APC was eventually replaced with an iPad running Lemur. I’d love to start performing this new stuff live. I’ll have to work out what exactly I’ll use for it, but it will probably consist of the MacBook and iPad setup together with a keyboard controller and maybe one or two synths. Hopefully, the venue will have a nice piano too.

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

I’d say having the separation between my living space and my workspace. That’s proven to be quite important. I’ve also put a lot of effort into the ergonomics and the lighting in here. Something I’d improve on, well, it would be great to have some windows. My studio is completely sealed up for acoustic reasons, so it looks the same in here at 10am as it does at 2am, which is nice, but having some natural light would be nice too.

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’s different from track to track. I’ll usually start with a melodic idea or an atmosphere or mood, but sometimes it can be a sound I’ve created using a synth or a plugin and I just go with it until the piece starts to take shape. I do a lot of sitting at the piano and improvising while recording. Same goes for synths. A fun process can be to then cut up the results and look for new ways to piece them together.

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 listen on both monitor speakers and headphones while composing and mixing. I’ll sometimes upload an MP3 and listen on my iPhone if I need that extra reassurance. But usually, if it sounds good on my speakers and headphones then I’m happy. It’s always interesting to hear it back in a different setting. Taking something I’m working on, especially if I’m stuck with it, putting it on my phone and going out into the world with it can be quite inspiring. It’s almost like seeing the piece from a different angle, so new ideas start to form.

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

I do! Far too much for my liking. I’m a big film fan, so if I’m not working on music I’m usually watching something, or reading something film related.

What gets you inspired?

Everyday life. Books, art, film, other music. Being in nature really gets the creativity going.

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

It’s really thriving. There’s so much great stuff coming out these days. The genre walls are down and everything is fair game, not to mention the amount of quality gear that’s available and the explosion of modular synthesis. Plugins and samples sound amazing now too, so whatever type of music you want to make, you can, and you don’t need to break the bank to do it.

jasonvanwyk.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 was about 13-14 years old when I first got into writing music. I was in high school soaking up the hardcore/breakbeat/rave scene that was in full bloom, so this was about 1992/1993. As a young kid, there was a lot of fun and amazing music out there. The further I got away from mainstream music, the more amazed I got by what I was hearing. I’d go to indie record stores on the weekends with my friend, Chris. We’d spend whatever money we’d been given by our parents on starting a record collection. It was a really exciting time of my life that I remember fondly, and the more I got involved with music, the more I knew that I had to start producing my own tracks. Fortunately, I already had a few pieces of gear that would get me up and running.

These first pieces were an Atari 1040 STE and a basic Casio keyboard with MIDI. I tried my hand at software like Cubase, Trax, Notator before realising I needed a sampler to write the music I was into at the time, due to the limitations of this keyboard and the price of buying myself a nice synthesizer. This obviously wasn’t really an option for a school kid with no income. Chris was very much into the idea of producing his own music too and introduced me to some freeware tracker software. He’d been putting tracks together by sampling using a plug-in cartridge for his Amiga 500 and a program called ProTracker. After a few initial lessons from Chris, I started to work it out for myself using the Atari equivalent, which was NoiseTracker. I then realised I could start to put music together the way I wanted to using the Atari and the cheap sampler. Thinking back I’m sure both of these trackers only had 4 channels available and had no effects built in. Very rudimentary creation tools for the time, but it was enough to get me hooked and plant the seed.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Including my initial crude Atari setup, it’s changed and been added to year by year. I was pretty much all ‘in the box’ up until around about 2006. It’s also hard to say what my final setup looks like too, as my studio is constantly being changed, refined, moved, etc. I feel I finally have a good space which is acoustically treated, so the layout of it won’t change much these days, but the content might. The core of my studio probably will stay the same though. I’m using a PC with an i7 6700K (4.00Ghz) and 16gb DDR4 ram, which is fast enough for what I need. I only recently upgraded this PC, within the last few years actually, as I was making do with an outdated 1st generation i7 chip for a while, until it finally became a bit too slow for everyday use. A few other staples are the Focal CMS 65 and Sub setup, along with two RME HDSP Multiface audio interfaces, that connect to a Soundcraft Ghost 24 channel mixing desk and a Crane Song HEDD.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
Every piece of gear I’ve bought has probably been a favorite at some point in time. Actually, perhaps not every piece… Right now, I’ve been really enjoying the Yamaha CS10, which Ena (Horo) was kind enough to ship to me from Tokyo for a fantastic deal. A few other favourites are my Yamaha DX200, Korg Wavestation A/D, Yamaha TG33 and Roland SH-101. There’s a lot of gear in here though, so it’s hard to narrow it down. I’ve also got a Yamaha SY22, which has seen better days, but I love it. It’s kind of redundant to own that and the TG33, as they are essentially the same synth, other than a few upgrades that the TG33 has. I picked this up for $60 on Craigslist many years ago, mainly due to the price and the fact I love my TG33. These all come to mind though, as I’ve been using them a lot for recent ambient projects. I recently got a DSI Pro 2, which has become one of my favourite synths ever. Instant inspiration every time I switch it on. Amazing!

And what about the software that you use for production?
I’ve been using a program called Renoise since around about 2002. I think it was version 1.2 or so that I started to use after becoming unsatisfied with Cubase and the PC version of Logic at the time. It’s obviously not because they were bad programs, but the tracker workflow had become second nature for me after working that way for so long. When Renoise came out, it gave me all the advantages of programs like Cubase but allowed me to retain the way of working I was so used to. I’ve stuck with that ever since. I also use Cockos Reaper, which I link to Renoise using Rewire, as I can sync up video for film scores and projects that rely on timecode.

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 used to lust after gear, especially rarities and high ticket items, but these days I’m really not as bothered. I can more than make do with everything I’ve got, plus it’s more about how the sounds are processed for me. Buying a vintage synth for $3-4k doesn’t make much sense to me these days, as it will essentially sound very similar to something else much cheaper, due to the processing I like to do to achieve my sounds. I think this is in part why I never took the plunge into modular synthesis. I’m sure I’d enjoy it a lot and get a lot of use from it, but it’s just not a wise investment of money for me right now, with my studio setup the way it is currently. Of course, the collector side of me throws all this common sense to one side every now and then and makes purchases! But in general, I try and keep it sensible and not too much of a financial drain anymore.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
Renoise is a fantastic tool for sound design in general. Over the years, I’ve created many effects chains using the Renoise native DSP effects and some VST FX. I’ve amassed a large collection of these that I can use as starting points when creating tracks, or when I’m trying to achieve a specific sound. Often times, I’ll get surprised at the results some of these can render for me, and other times I won’t even remember how or when I created a chain. I got into DIY pedals for a bit, but haven’t made anything other than a stompbox with a custom piezo mic, which has 4 adjustable violin strings mounted on the box. Running things like this through other effects units and experimenting often creates fantastic results. Every now and then I’ll spend a good amount of time doing things like this and just leave the record button on. I had a broken Orban spring reverb for a while too, that created really weird artifacts. That was fantastic for getting really unexpected amazing soundscapes from. Sadly, it eventually died, but I like to use noise from things like that to create beds of texture.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I’m constantly experimenting with device chains, doing things that you shouldn’t normally do, like placing a delay after a reverb in a wet signal. Usually, you’d want the reverb to effect what comes through the delay, but that’s just a specific example that springs to mind. I intentionally don’t write down or make too many notes of things that sound good together. I like this approach, as it means I’m not likely to rinse and repeat certain things. This is quite the opposite for VST/native DSP chains in Renoise, as I touched on in the previous question.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
I don’t play live, exactly – more like a hybrid setup. I’ll play all of my own music via Traktor, using the NI Kontrol Z1 and X1 MkII, and then have 2 remix decks going, where I play stems of my tracks with the other decks using two Kontrol F1’s. It lends to a unique live experience for my music, without creating any panic and stress that might be caused by bringing more expensive studio equipment on the road 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?
Space and order. I have to clear everything, all desktops, the floor etc. from gear that’s laying about, including cables. I need that clean workspace before I sit down and create. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time now, so it’s a habit I like to practice. I definitely tend to push things to the back of the queue and sometimes leave myself with a bigger workload than is necessary, so that’s something I could definitely improve on. My time management is something I’m usually good with in general, but it’s a bit haywire with music sometimes.

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?
The process of creating isn’t always the same for me. I’ve never had a specific way of going about creating a piece of music. Sometimes I’ll start with percussion, sometimes with a pad. Other times I’ll just be messing with FX units and create something that becomes a starting point. As for how an idea is born, it’s really a mixture of inspiration and simply experimenting. Inspiration comes from so many sources for me, so I often find myself with ideas forming in my mind.

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 make music for myself, first and foremost, so my reactions always dictate whether or not a piece of music will eventually come out. If it’s still making me feel something after a month or two, then I’ll more likely consider it for a release, rather than something that I’ve gone off of, obviously. I usually listen back in the studio a lot, with and without the sub. Other place I’ll listen to would be on headphones when exercising, in the car, and on my hi-fi setup with standard speakers. Usually, I can hear if something needs changing or fixing in the mix on one of these ways of auditioning, so it’s a pretty reliable process for me. Hearing your music on a club PA is the ultimate test though, as if it doesn’t cut through there, then I feel like I never reached the potential that the track may have once held.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Often! It’s not so bad usually, but I can definitely let it interrupt work at times. If (or when) it happens, I’ll take a break from what I’m doing, then try come back to it refreshed at a later time. Sometimes it might be an hour later, sometimes it might be a week later. I usually don’t let it stress me too much if it happens. My attention span can dwindle quickly when I have a lot of projects on the go and I find I work better by not taking on too many things at once, so I can devote my full attention to where it’s needed at the time.

What gets you inspired?
Lots of things, but mainly sci-fi movies, video games and related themes in other forms of art. I think I’ve been eternally writing music that I’d love to see accompany visuals for some futuristic science fiction film or game. That’s usually my headspace.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I think it’s in a healthy state. There are a lot of fantastic musicians putting out some incredible music across many different genres. Lots of healthy little scenes all around the world, which in turn have spawned some amazing record labels too.

auxiliarymusic.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?
Early in life and I never really thought much about music, say nothing of taking lessons or playing. It was at the age of 13 when some of my classmates started listening to rock and punk and played music on their guitars. I looked at them and thought “hmm, it looks fun!” and I asked my parents to buy me an electric guitar, the cheapest one possible. It was some kind of Stratocaster copy. I liked the whole idea of making sounds and pretty early I realized that I was more into noodling and trying to figure out “my own” harmonies and chords than just doing cover songs.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
It was always a really humble setup and it was always meant to be mobile. For a long time, the only hardware I had was an all-purpose Mac Mini, cheap MIDI keyboard, headphones (because of neighbors) and a guitar, it was at my parent’s house. By the time I moved to a country-house with my wife I had already got a few old synths (Juno, DX7, Korg MS20) and new studio monitors (Neumann KH 120), and I lived like that for few years until, coincidentally, we moved just a few days ago to a new place. Most of the pictures you see are made just a few minutes before I packed all the stuff away into the boxes, so it’s all history now.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
Roland RE-301! As you could already notice, I work in-box almost exclusively and don’t rely on hardware gear, and the moment when I first heard the liveliness and authenticity of the real analogue tape echo was a revelation for me. You can put anything into it and it will start to be alive – how cool is that! But actually now I try not to overuse it, so it works as a bedside table now!

And what about the software that you use for production?
I use Logic Pro X as my DAW and my primary source for sounds are sample libraries, lots and lots of them.

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 wish I had a proper-sized studio in which I could put a real piano with a couple of good mics and a DSI Prophet. But at this point in my musical journey, a much more valuable achievement would be having access to a real orchestra and an ability to record it.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
Since my day job is doing music and sound design for video games and I have finished a sound designer higher education course, the answer will be too long! But when I work on my personal music I think the main idea that I follow is that you can imagine a music as merely just a noise with a set of accentuated frequencies, therefore treat it as a noise with some tonal information that is only by chance is interpreted in our brain as something that has a semantic layer. And by doing so you automatically start to think the other way around: all sounds have musical properties to one extent or another and you start to respect them as a legitimate part of your tooling. The idea is not new for sure, it just brings diversity to a musical palette. 100% Money-Back Guaranteed.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I tried to be as honest as possible and to put as much skill and detail as I could: I deprived myself of using sample instruments and recorded a real string quartet, two pianos, a clarinet and solo cello instead. And I tried not to use any overdubs or layering for these recordings; to focus more on the composing and orchestration rather than sound production.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
It’s a painful question for me as I don’t play live for many reasons one of which is my inability to deliver a convincing full sound with the limited resources that I have. One of the workarounds during my few live shows was using background playback, and in some compositions, this was just a mixed audio file with the exception of couple tracks and the only thing we did was just playing a bass and piano line on top of that stuff. It felt really, really wrong.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I think that the most important thing is that it should be at home, with lots of natural light.

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?
Since my day job is connected with an ability to compose any music at any given moment, with as little compromise as possible and as fast as possible, I simply have no time to think about how my ideas mature and see the light. When working on a bespoke piece I usually start with just a chord progression without a melody and then I start to arrange it with different instruments, like the way you arrange a Christmas tree. Somewhere in the midway, I find the melody, right instruments and “attention grabbers” — something that will make the composition different from just another mediocre piece in the same genre. Mixing and mastering also get done somewhere between the previous steps. I audition it, send it to the client and then… the piece gets rejected and I start everything from scratch! My personal music is a bit more relaxed, but the only real difference is that I am a composer AND a client.

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 have a pair of speakers I trust and a pair of headphones for some minuscule details (accidental sample cuts for example), but I am not the kind of guy who listens to the result on every piece of equipment possible. I think the main reason for that is that I am more worried about some kind of harmonic fatigue, not sonic fatigue, i.e. I quickly stop to hear the freshness of melody, chord changes and can’t make right decisions after that. What helps me is exporting my work-in-progress (somehow listening to the audio as a .wav file on a computer gives a different experience as opposed to playing back the project in DAW) and just pitch shifting the whole file 1 semitone up or down. I know it doesn’t work for everyone but for me, it’s like listening to the composition for the first time harmony-wise.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Oh yes. No matter how easy the job is there is always a slight fear of blank paper and procrastination comes into the place at these moments. But sometimes there are moments when there is no work to do and I just can live without doing, playing or even listening to music for several weeks in a row. I don’t know if that still qualifies as a procrastination but if so it’s a massive one!

What gets you inspired?
I don’t rely on inspiration and taught myself to never rely on such things as they ruin the productivity in the long run.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
Maybe because I grew in the internet era I perceive any style/genre merely as a cataloging thing, and I believe that any definitions and descriptions of music will get more and more blurred in the future. I think it’s a good thing.

130701.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?
Back to the very beginning, I’d say I was hooked on music after the very second I started listening to J.S.Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’. I was about 10 and I still keep that tape from my father’s collection. After that, I started taking organ lessons, as I was totally fascinated by the character and peculiarity of this instrument. I’d say my first pieces of gear were two. The first one was the electronic organ in the hall of my parents’ house. Then in 1983, I received as a gift my first MSX home computer and I started programming sequences and rhythms in MSX Basic. It was fun, with that language you could program up to three simultaneous parts, for each of them you could even choose the type of wave (saw, square, sine) and other interesting parameters as well. So I started to play the organ along with some programmed stuff on my MSX and by doing that I was, unconsciously, producing my first compositions. Then, after about four years, I got an MSX2 computer with a keyboard and a sound module that even featured a little sampler. By then I was already lost in ambient music, thanks to the second part of David Sylvian’s ‘Gone to Earth’ album. I still have those demos I did back then. They are not the most interesting stuff around, but there was a lot of passion for sure.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
During my life, I’ve been into electronic music at different levels of involvement. I remember, during the ’90s, having my Korg 01W/FD hooked to some modules and a sampler. I had this little project of mine, strictly electronic stuff, called Kre:8 (I know, this is a cheesy moniker, back then I thought it was cool). I even got in touch with Andy Barlow of Lamb, who really liked my first demo and invited me to reach his band in a Rome date in 1999, during their ‘Fear of fours’ promotional tour. So, basically, it was all hardware stuff that converged into the main mixer (a 16 channels Behringer model, when this brand was still manufactured in Europe). This kind of set up kept existing until my Waves on Canvas period (my last project heavily oriented in electronic music and songs), when I still had a lot of modules (a Waldorf Microwave XT, a Roland JP8080, a Vermona DRM MkIII, an Akai S5000 and an AKAI S3200XL among others) and all of them were hooked to Logic. Then one day I decided that I had to go exclusively acoustical. I had something to still deal with, I felt incomplete because something was really missing inside of me, as I just wanted to do what I’d always thought was impossible: to write my music for piano and strings, real ones, not libraries. It happened that I found the right people to play with (what basically still nowadays is my Ensemble), so I told myself it was the right time to sell everything and just keep my piano and my computer, nothing else, because I had to completely focus on something else for a while. That was my studio set up until a few years ago, when I then decided that I could embrace again electronic music, but with a different consciousness and approach. Nowadays I’ve got reel-to-reel tapes, a Waldorf Blofeld, an Arturia MiniBrute, a Roland JP8000, a hundred years old Dutch harmonium, a Korg KP-3, and a lot of acoustic instruments. Anyway, I tend to produce my sounds from acoustic sources, before processing and tweaking them in different ways.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
This is a tricky question. Anyway, I must say, if this has to be the instrument I had to bring with me in a faraway and distant island (given that there would be some electricity), I’d say my Roland JP8000. Its warmth is something I love finding peace and shelter. That instrument is capable of very lovely and imperfect pads. I usually hook it into my mixing board (a Yamaha MG20XU) and also add some ‘dust’ to it with my Korg KP-3. But, anyway, if for ‘piece of hardware’ you mean whatever instrument, then I’d say my beloved piano.

And what about the software that you use for production?
After using Cubase in the ’90 for a lot of years, I switched to Pro Tools LE in 2005 back when I purchased my first Mac Book Pro (I remember selling my entire video games collection in order to afford it, something I will forever regret, but I had to do it, I had no choice). It was bundled with the firewire version of the Digidesign M-Box Pro 2 I had. But I remember having a lot of problems with my DAW, the most notable ones being sudden and random crashes. Not what you were willing to happen after hours of work. So I switched to Logic 7 and I remember how happy I was receiving that big box full of manuals and guides, it was heaven. From then onwards, I never switched to any other DAW. I still work with Logic 9 and haven’t changed for the latest version because I simply don’t have the need. The ninth version of Logic is, anyway, very stable. I know Logic a lot, but there are still a lot of things and procedures to be learned. Also, I don’t like the choice of Avid, to make people pay an amount of money per month in order to work with Pro Tools, I mean, it’s a sort of rent. I am more in the old school way where, if I buy something, it is definitely mine.

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?
Well, I’d say there are two instruments I would really love to put my hands on and make mine. The first one is an acoustical one, and it is a celesta. I love that sound, it’s organic and shiny and deep at the same time. I have a lovely collection of glockenspiels and metallophones, but even if you change the kind of sticks and hammers while playing them, the sound won’t be like the one of a celesta, which is not cheap and sounds very wonderful. I’ve seen celestas are not so rare in Germany, so one day I will do my best to buy one and ship it safely to Sardinia, considering the long road it has to do. The second one is a dream, and I would really love to have enough space where I could keep and play a liturgical organ. There are also small models, the aunt of my viola player owns one at her house because she is an organ player. You don’t have to own a space like a Church to host an instrument like that. Who knows, maybe one day it will happen.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
What I usually like to do is what they taught me at the Conservatory where I graduated in Electronic Music, and it’s related to the fact that every sound in nature has a tonal center, mainly due to a redundant or most present frequency range. So, when I can, and when it’s aesthetically pertinent, I love transforming sound objects to proper sounds or notes, in order to characterize or sustain a certain part of a composition. This could be taken as a given and very common thing, but every time I apply this approach, it brings interesting results and unexpected surprises. Of course, I am not (and will never be) a preset guy, even if in the past I was obsessed with a few ones (the Korg MS2000 ‘Pan Tran’ being on top of the list), so every time I start a new work I usually take my time to make some new sounds that I like, when of course I am not going to use the ones I’ve already done. Most of them are on my JP8000 anyway.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
Lately, I am having this habit of basically mixing and already mastering while I am writing a new track. I set up the compressor (I usually use the PSP Vintage Warmer II) on the master channel, and I start from there. When I’ve finished the track I keep mixing the last bits and then I start the mastering process, but most of the work is already done, also because I know very well my studio monitors (a pair of Yamaha MSP5 I purchased a lot of time ago).

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
It depends, I tend to do mostly acoustic sets. But when I play concerts that feature parts of electronic sounds, I just bring with me my Mac Book Pro running Ableton, my Edirol FA101 sound card (with 8 separate outputs, so I can send all the metronomic clicks to each player) and that’s it. At times I also bring with me my Line 6 FBV Express MkII, which I use as an expression pedal hooked to an FX send on the piano channel in Ableton.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
I love my studio because it’s a small and warm place, stuffed with everything I really need. In the past, I thought I vitally needed the day’s light and a big window to work properly, which is not. I prefer an intimate environment with soft and warm lights. Maybe I’d need more space, maybe in the next house if we’ll ever move elsewhere. But honestly, I have nothing to complain, I truly love where I work. I have everything I need.

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 usually sit at the piano and start playing until something that I feel is valuable and worth my attention starts to appear. So when it happens, and I have enough time, I start working on it and develop a more structured idea. If I am in a rush, I just record the musical embryo on my iPhone or iPad, or I write down some notes about it. This can even happen at 3:00 am and that’s the bonus of having your studio in your house. Anyway, the most interesting cases are when I dream about music. I tend to dream about themes, at times even completely arranged pieces, so when I wake up I work immediately on what’s left in my memory. There are some of my compositions which are based on things I’ve dreamed. I think there is a true connection between our creative output and our inner feelings and thoughts, which in the end are just concepts that transcend the spoken and written language, like music indeed. That connection is for me a sort of straight line from my unconscious to my consciousness. I hope it gives the idea.

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?
That’s a very important aspect of the creative process, and I think we never have to underestimate what comes after we say to ourselves: ‘Ok, I’ve finished this track’. Then comes the moment where we can clearly see if the track works also on its own and not just in the studio or in the environment where we were totally focused on it. For instance, I record it on a MiniDisc, and from time to time I listen to it in my living room, where I’ve got another MiniDisc deck. Other times the help of my wife is totally needed and, indeed, essential. When I think I’ve completed something, I ask her to give a listen, because she’s the first listener who I totally trust. I could even change a composition in its entirety if she suggests me to do it because she knows me very well, she knows my limits, and she perfectly knows the traps I tend to fall in.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
It can happen, and when it does it’s just because my mind is asking me for a break. Usually, I am a very prolific writer, needless to say, my hero is Wim Mertens who released tons of albums, so I write a lot, also because in my head I have a lot of ideas about projects and concepts for releases. In the end, writing music has become for me my main way of truly expressing myself. But at times I have to stop and do other things or just relax. I usually read a book or watch some YouTube’s videos about recording studios or recording techniques. Other times the nerd inside of me knocks wildly because he needs to come out and express himself, so I tend to play a video game, usually a JRPG, watch and read some nerdy reviews about retro games and consoles (only Nintendo stuff, please). I am also a follower of some YouTube channels like The Eight Bit Guy, Christian Henson Music, and Techmoan.

What gets you inspired?
Life. What happens in my life, spiritually and on a more concrete level, is my main inspiration. For instance, these past years have been heavily inspired by the illness and the subsequent death of my father, who passed away this past March. Also, I live in Sardinia, an island in the center of the Mediterranean sea, so I am surrounded by waves. This has an important impact as well on my creative output. The same goes for nature which, here in this land, is quite generous.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
I am not a huge listener of electronic music. Surely I was a lot into it in the past, but with the years passing by I unconsciously lived a subtractive process that led me, in the end, to listen mostly to classical music or silence. Also because, being this my main job, working with music all the time, at the end of the day I don’t tend to listen to some other people’s music. Anyway, replying to your question, I’ve seen things have changed a lot. There is more knowledge around, a lot of tutorials on the web, so if someone decides to write and produce electronic music, he has got all the tools at hand for free. Styles are constantly mixing each other and some aesthetic styles return cyclically, so things are naturally following their historical loop. The thing that has changed is that nowadays in order to start working with a sampler you don’t have to spend a fortune like you had to do in the nineties, you just need a cheap PC and start do your own stuff with some freeware as well. Not bad I’d say. So, yes, in the end, I think the state of ‘electronic music’ is quite glowing and prolific. I just hope this won’t bring electronic artists to a state where all things sound the same. But we’ll have time to witness all this.

stefanoguzzetti.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 was around 8 years old when I started taking piano lessons. We had an antique Yamaha upright piano in our living room where I often used to sit and play by ear my favourite tunes from the radio or from animation films. There was one in particular called “The Snowman” by Raymond Briggs, with the incredible music of Howard Blake, which infused me for the first time with the desire to write my own music. My parents got me my first synthesiser a few years later, it was a Yamaha PSS170 I think. The first piece I ever composed I’d dreamt it. I woke up one morning with this tune stuck in my head that had come from nowhere and I recorded it with a cassette player/recorder. I guess that was the beginning of it all.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Since I finished my music studies and started using computers and software I had a very minimal setup. For example back in the 90’s I had a power Mac with only a Roland Sound Canvas and a MIDI keyboard to make music. Then I changed to a PC which introduced me to a whole new world of software and I didn’t feel the need to be equipped with a lot of hardware. I pretty much have a minimal setup until now, though the quality of my gear has improved significantly through time (i.e a powerful – made for musicians – PC, a heavy-weighted Roland FP-30 MIDI keyboard, a Universal Audio Apollo twin audio interface and a Rode NT2-A condenser microphone). Apart from my piano which was inevitably left back in my old studio in Greece, my workspace suffices for now but it’s not remotely close to being the final or even the ideal type of a studio yet. I currently live in an apartment with very limited freedom to treat the room as a fully professional workspace, meaning I’d have to record/mix at another studio if I have special requirements for my work.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
It’s my Roland FP-30. It was a present from my sweetheart and I just love the touch of its ivory-like keys.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I work with Cubase 8 and a lot of libraries and samples.

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 was never a gear-geek, so to speak, but I would be curious to try the ROLI Seaboard. I’ve seen in videos it can do pretty amazing things. Honestly, though, I don’t know if I would eventually buy it. When I started I was more into electronic music but as the years go by I tend to turn to a more organic approach with my music and electronic instruments don’t excite me that much anymore, not only the hardware but also the software. I would like to practice more on writing music on paper, recording with musicians and sampling properly my own sounds. I dream of having one day a studio full of real instruments, like a couple of pianos (upright and grand), drums, electric bass, various percussions and weird instruments from all over the world, a marimba, a vibraphone and, my latest obsession, a couple of hank drums tuned in different scales.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
I may have mentioned before that I tend towards a more organic approach in my work but I don’t abandon the electronic sound so easy. One of the main reasons I got into electronic music in the first place was my admiration towards some of the greatest minds of sound-design and production. Brian Eno and Flood are two of them. In my music, I love to use very subtle electronic textures and processed field recordings from time to time. With “The gift of affliction” I worked meticulously on the production and sound design. It was something that came naturally at that time and I really had fun with it. With “Ivory” the electronic aspect is so subtle that it takes a very careful listen to notice.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I wouldn’t call it a technique but more of a challenge. I wanted to focus on the mere essence of music stripped from any kind of production. I’d often ask, “What is a piece of music when you just put your fingers on an instrument and play it without having beats or samples or any other artifice technology offers?”. If that piece has something true and meaningful to say then it would have to be able to say it in the simplest possible way. Of course that was the foundation of all compositions but afterwards, when I got into orchestrating them I found necessary to add more instruments to develop the desired emotion on some of the pieces. I also decided to write some of the parts for the strings on a sheet and had them recorded with musicians. It was a truly exciting experience that I will definitely repeat even more in the future.

What does your live setup look like, and what do you bring with you when you travel for an extensive tour?
I am more of an introverted studio musician than a live performer and I haven’t really done a tour as a solo artist so far. I don’t mind being shut in a studio 24 hours a day but I wouldn’t play in front of an audience so eagerly. Nevertheless, I made some gigs in the past to promote “The gift of affliction” where I used a laptop, a MIDI keyboard/controller, my Melodica and my voice and I admit having a lot of fun doing it. The live presentation of my new album is much more demanding in terms of stage gear and musicians and I am currently exploring all the possible options that could make it happen.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
The most important aspect is soundproofing. The building, hence my apartment, has zero sound isolation so whenever I play something from my monitors, even at a low volume, I get a nervy tapping on the ceiling after a couple of minutes, coming from the neighbour above (obviously she hates music). Unfortunately, there is no other way of solving this problem except working exclusively with headphones or moving to another place.

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 my solo projects, I have no particular process, I just go with my gut. I’d read that Bach believed he was communicating with God when he was writing music. I don’t know whether I would call it God or anything but I can definitely say that a moment of true inspiration has a deeper, subconscious origin that can’t be explained. All I know is I sit at the piano, or at my computer and start playing or experimenting with sounds. If within the first few minutes I come up with something that “speaks to me” I try to develop it even further. If it flows out from my fingers effortlessly, without any thought, then it’s probably worth to keep. If not I usually just stop, I do something else and I pick it up again later. Sometimes it takes a day for an idea to mature, sometimes it takes years. Most of the music I have released so far was written in a day, or even in a few minutes of true inspiration. The process of orchestrating and arranging those pieces though is a whole different chapter which may take a lot of work until they finally see the light. Composing on demand is also another chapter which is determined by the deadline for each project. Deadlines are usually those nasty situations where my inspiration is often bouncing between extreme crises of panic and moments of oblivious denial. I do deliver on time though :)

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?
My reaction to a piece when I’ve completed it is usually dependent on my mood at that time. If I’m in a good, confident mood I’m happy with what I’ve done. If I am in a bad mood or tired I might just hate it. I tend to be overly strict with myself and hear every little detail in the way I have played something or the sounds I used here and there, and then the volume of each sound and then the fade-outs and the frequencies… and the list goes on and on. In short, it’s painful but I find myself loving every nerve-wracking minute of it.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Procrastination is kind of like that friend that always comes uninvited to your house and hunkers down your couch, like, forever? Fortunately, I’ve realised I’m not the only one with such “friend”. It’s quite hard to organise myself especially when I don’t have a specific deadline for a project. I used to just feel guilty about it but I eventually managed to turn it to my advantage by feeding my brain with “art food”. I listen to music (usually classical or jazz), I watch movies or TV series, I read books, I even take long walks or bike-rides in nature to “charge my batteries”. Anything to take my mind off from the anxiety of finding inspiration right here, right now.

What gets you inspired?
People and their passion for life and for creation. I love to watch interviews and documentaries about extraordinary artists, philosophers, scientists etc. When I ‘m hired for commissioned work I usually get inspired by the story and the feelings each project evokes. I like to discuss it as much as I can with the director and I make a lot of research on the subject I work on. As for my personal work, my inspiration comes from my life and my personal experiences. The environment and my surroundings are also very important for me. I can’t be inspired if I am far from nature. I also have to be in a cosy, aesthetically pleasing environment to feel comfortable to write and I can’t function if my place is dirty or messy.

And finally, what are your thoughts on the state of “electronic music” today?
The term “electronic music” is becoming vaguer with time as it is and will always be inextricably related to the evolution of technology. It has already permeated the perception and configuration of traditional and classical instruments with incredible results so far, continuing its evolution towards artificial intelligence. It’s kind of scary to think of what the future will bring sometimes. Meanwhile, there are countless interesting things happening out there whatever the genre may be, emerging artists, labels, festivals and media etc. who support the ever-changing trends. I grew up listening to electronic music and I believe that as long as the human aspect outbalances technology it will always find a way to surprise me, move me emotionally and excite my brain as a listener.

zinoviaarvanitidi-composer.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?
My first electric guitar was what kicked everything off for me. Whilst I started out more traditionally with rock music in my early teens it was through building a collection of effects pedals/loopers that guided me into electronic music composition. I didn’t have a computer until I was 18 so before that it was all about building weird fx loops and drone/ambient pieces and then recording onto cassette or minidisc. It was after getting my first laptop, an Apple iBook G4 that I became totally obsessed with learning the ins and outs of how to program and create computer/hardware based music. I didn’t know anyone else really who was doing it and had no idea what I was doing. Just pure trial and error experimentation.

How many different studio iterations have you gone through, and what does your final setup look like right now?
Well for years I just worked out of my bedroom, then moved to having a studio in a spare room. It was just before I started working on my previous album ‘Hollowed’ when I first got a proper studio out of the house and it really gave me a new drive and enthusiasm, and perhaps most importantly a better life/work balance. For ‘Bodied’ I moved into another bigger space, but I would never call where I’m at as a final setup. I’m not particularly precious about equipment. I’ve gone through so much of it over the years, I’ve always tended to use a few specific instruments or pieces of kit a lot and then sold them and moved onto something else.

Tell us about your favorite piece of hardware.
If I had to pick my desert island synth it would be the Korg MS20, I absolutely love it. It’s fairly simple but so versatile. I used it heavily on Hollowed and Bodied, running through a whole bunch of FX pedals. I just find it really inspiring and immediate to use. I like the fact that it has no memory so the moment you’ve moved something, its gone forever. Even though it’s a monophonic synth the whole of the track ‘Vesper’ from Hollowed was made on the MS20, layering up different parts routed through pedals.

And what about the software that you use for production?
I’ve been using Ableton Live since version 4 back in 2005. I’ve been through pretty much everything Logic, Pro Tools, Reason, Renoise, Cubase… But always found myself back at Ableton as my primary DAW. It’s just what I know inside out and after all this time I’m very quick using it which is what matters most to me! In terms of VSTs: I highly rate all the Soundtoys stuff. The Valhalla reverbs are great and an absolute bargain. They cost less than a quarter of what other comparable reverbs VSTs cost. U-He and Izotope both make quality plugins that I use a lot of and then also all of the Native Instruments stuff. I find it funny to think now that there are “vintage” VSTs that I used to use back when I started which I really miss and just aren’t available or compatible anymore.

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’d love to get a really nice piano. I’ve just needed the right space for it. My studio is on the basement level of a building so I can’t really get one in there currently. Other than that I’ve been meaning to get a decent microphone, the one I have is pretty inexpensive, it’s fine and does the job but I keep meaning to get a nice posh one.

Can you please share some aspects of sound design in your work?
Similarly to how it has always been for me, it’s mostly built around just pure experimentation. I work in a very instinctive way, feeling my way through ideas as they arrive. The way I work is to create a huge amount of content/versions/takes whatever you want to call it and then hone it down over and over. I’ll get inspired by some happy accident when I unplugged a guitar and it made a weird thud through the fx chain, then turn that into a percussive patch in Ableton.

Something I was very interested in for this album was the contrast in sound between the vast and the minute. I wanted to create very delicate sounds and moments that were counterpointed by brutal intensity. There are a lot of sounds on this record that are recorded extremely quietly and then cranked in volume so you can hear all the imperfections and background noise. The track ‘Fragility’ was all about this principle.

Another aspect is field recordings to give atmosphere and a sense of space. My wife and I made a lot of recordings whilst I was on tour in Japan which I have twisted into all manner of sounds and are to be found throughout ‘Hollowed’ and ‘Bodied’.

Any particular new techniques that you tried out for your new album?
I was keen to do more live recordings for this album. I created a lot of bespoke sample instruments made from acoustic recordings. I recorded some live vocal sessions, which are scattered and mangled across the record. There is guitar, cello, violin and lots more all over it and transformed into new sounds. A specific example of this is the track ‘Cipher’ which is largely made from Cello and Auto Harp recordings. I made a few sampler instruments from flicking and plucking the auto-harp and then pitching and processing in Ableton. I also re-amped sounds coming out of the computer to give some grit and sense of space. I’ve got a nice little Fender amp which is nice to run stuff through to give some character.

What is the most important environmental aspect of your current workspace and what would be a particular element that you would improve on?
Most studios don’t have windows because of acoustic concerns and also just the way studios are often built as rooms within rooms. I worked for over 3 years in a very small windowless studio, and whilst there is something to be said for the creative intensity of feeling like you’re in a submarine, it does get to you after a while… My current studio having some natural light is a big plus! I think I could improve upon my organisation and wiring set up. It’s all fairly boring stuff, but a lot of time is wasted because I’m climbing around the back of my desk plugging in cables or trying to find the right connector etc. Because I work in a very fluid instinctive way I like to just grab equipment and work with it quickly. I’m looking to get a proper patch bay setup so that I can have everything wired-in correctly and more flexibility. It just always seems like such a boring thing to spend my time doing!

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 tend to work very quickly on the initial spark of a piece of music. I feel that the intention of a track needs to come from a place of honesty and integrity and typically the longer you spend labouring over an idea the worse it gets. There is always a tipping point when that starts to happen and I try to be mindful of that. For ‘Bodied’ most of the initial ideas were created in quick bursts of writing either very early in the morning or late in the evening as I was working on other projects in the day. They were quick sketches and then I returned to them later when I had some space from the initial session to craft them into a proper record. I can spend a very long time tweaking and finalising a track, but as long as the core theme and essence of it was there at the start I find it to be the best way of working.

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 listen to music I’m working on a lot whilst walking. It’s good to hear it in a passive setting, just when you’re going shopping or walking to the studio. It’s always great to hear new tracks live for the first time on a decent rig. And also something that can’t be understated is how important it is to just have someone else in the studio from time to time to hear what you’re doing. They don’t even need to necessarily say anything, but I find I listen to my work in a different way if I know someone else is there. I listen with a more critical ear which might perhaps have been suppressed when I’m by myself.

Do you ever procrastinate? If so, what do you usually find yourself doing during those times?
Yes, all the time. I really do work best under a tight deadline, which when you’re working on your own music doesn’t really happen so much… I try to be mindful of wasting time, and so if I’m not really feeling particularly productive and can tell that I’m going to be procrastinating a lot I try and at least take in some useful information in the form of youtube tutorials, production tips, a music documentary etc. And if I’m just really not feeling it, it’s good to just get out the studio and do something different altogether. I do spend long hours in the studio, but I’ve also found some of my most productive times have been when I’ve only gone in for a couple of hours a day. There’s no right way to do things when it comes to creativity!