Toto Ronzulli – Trumantic

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

Moog Cutoff filter

I really like the filter “cutoff” knob on my Minimoog Voyager. I love it because it’s so big and easy to use. It’s a pleasure to play with it anytime when you’re looking for the right filtering for your sound.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

Ah… I think that easily changes over time. Hard to answer, but if I think of a “perfect effects kit” I say the trio Particle, Microcosm and Space. I’m using this combo heavily for my next record. I’m putting everything in it, from guitars to vocals and so on.

Red Panda Particle, Hologram Electronics Microcosm and Eventide Space

Many times I’ll throw in my Boss RE-20 Space Echo as well. Definitely changing over time is natural, so I would never want to have a “definitive kit”, especially when you start working on something new, changing something is a good way to be more creative.

Roland RE-20 Space Echo

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

During vacations I try not to think too much about music, but I always have with me my laptop with many vst, a small two octave midi keyboard by Korg and my Beyerdynamic heaadphones.

MacBook, midi keyboard and Beyerdynamic headphones

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

UAD Plugins

I have an Apollo rack unit from Universal Audio as my audio interface and it’s fantastic the quality of the included plug-ins, they sound so good and the sound is so hardware-like, I couldn’t ask for more in a way. Until a few days ago my dream was to get a Tascam Portastudio 414 MKII and it’s amazing that a soft-synths company called Robotic Bean has reproduced one and at such a low price, it sounds really great and I can’t wait to try it out. 

4 Track Cassette Tape

I love the endless possibilities of virtual instruments and their fidelity compared to hardware, but I would still love to get a Revox B 77 MKll to record anything onto tape and to add some wow/flutter turbulence and saturation to my songs. I love that recorder and will be buying one soon!

Revox B 77 MKll

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I try to have “the essentials” in the studio, having a lot of equipment would be really nice, but it would confuse me during production and take up too much space. That’s why I choose my gear carefully, but I probably regret buying the Digital Multi Echo RE-1000 by BOSS. It’s a fun and uncontrollable unit because it doesn’t have the “rate” knob, but I use it so rarely and that’s why I think I can do without it. 

Boss Digital Multi Echo RE-1000

I regret selling my Roland Gaia, I didn’t love its “cold sound” but through a few pedals you could make it awesome. I miss its front panel because it was very intuitive, I had the ability to play out wacky sounds in minutes.

Roland Gaia

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

The equipment that has inspired me to write new music are many, but if I had to pick one I would probably say my Minimoog Voyager. 

Minimoog Voyager

Currently though, I’m using the Prophet Rev2 Desktop really heavily for everything, especially on my upcoming album. I love that sound and its polyphony so much.

Prophet Rev2 Desktop

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

UAD Apollo Soundcard

Probably an Apollo interface. It has infinitely improved my mixes, production and recording. I realized that many times it’s just not enough to have great synths or a ’65 guitar, if you don’t have a good audio interface with high definition sound in recording and post-production.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Furman M-10x E

The “Furman M-10x E” because it is bulky and has so many cables on the back of the desk! It’s also not fun, it only has an “on/off” switch (it has 2! haha) on the front panel. The reason I can’t do without it is pretty obvious. It saves the life of all my equipment all the time and I feel safer having it. I will be getting another one soon. I’ve always had bad experiences with the unstable electricity in my town, I remember the day after I bought the Voyager, oscillator number 3 had stopped working. It was frustrating to send back and still wait for a replacement. I have since decided to get a stabilizer and “Furman” does the job just fine.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

Lately I’ve been testing a mixing technique that doesn’t require an acoustically treated room.

Just apply a VU meter to your daw’s master bus, play the kick around – 3 and gradually raise the bass until everything gets to 0, then mix everything else in. It may sound wrong but it sounds really good if you have good EQ on the low end. I also always test my mixes on a very small JBL to get a concrete reference of how the track sounds elsewhere. 

Tiny JBL speaker

I’ll add that I love to dirty some parts of my songs with lots of layers of backing tracks that go into different equipment and pedal combinations to create that “dreamy” atmosphere underneath a melody for example.

Dreamy fx pedals

Artist or Band name?

Truemantic

Genre?

Alternative / Indie / Electronica

Selfie?

Toto Ronzulli aka. Truemantic

Where are you from?

Margherita di Savoia, Puglia, Italy.

How did you get into music?

I was born in a club! At the end of the 80’s my father opened one and later in the 90’s it became very influential in southern Italy. Artists like “Afrika Bambaataa” were performing. I was born in ’94 and all this pushed me towards this direction. I remember when I was 4 years old my parents bought a toy drum set and I broke it by banging on the drums! Ahahah.
In the mid-nineties the club closed and reopened in 2006. All my teenage years were spent at the console with resident DJs and international guest artists like “Tony Humphries”. That’s why I started as a DJ and later as a musician, studying theory, solfeggio and practicing piano for years.

What still drives you to make music?

I realize that every time I sit in my room I feel so fascinated by the creative process. In a way I can’t describe the feeling I get, it may simply be an emotional state that drives me to create something new. Some days it’s frustrating to spend hours in the studio, other times it’s all I want. It’s like something you have inside that needs to be released!

How do you most often start a new track?

I hum and record with my smartphone a melody I have in my mind. Next, I sit in the studio and try to develop the theme. I think a film or book can influence my stylistic choices, but I also think the production is more of a “try and try again” in my studio.

How do you know when a track is finished?

When I add final texture elements and not additional “tool track”.

Show us your current studio

Truemantic studio

It’s not a real studio really, but something like a room.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Create your own sound! It doesn’t matter how… Just do it!

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link

https://truemantic.bandcamp.com/album/truemantic

https://margueriterecords.bandcamp.com/track/truemantic-destruction

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbws5Iz5TcKjS3iN7O_tMiw

My last two releases were 4 years ago and a lot has changed since then, from production to my setup! My first album ‘Truemantic’ came out in 2018 and my single ‘Destruction’ came out a year later. I’m currently working on my new album, concretely for about a year. There are so many amazing collaborations on it! I can’t wait to share it and play it live. I hope to stop by Copenhagen too!


Asymmetric Cut – Davide Bernardi

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

Arturia MicroFreak

One of my favorite knobs are all the Arturia MicroFreak potentiometers, but my fav thing about the MF is the touch sensitive keyboard (I was scared at the beginning, but now I’m totally in love).
Another thing that I like so much, are the wooden and clicky buttons of the OrganelleM.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

I don’t own many things, I have the Critter & Guitari Organelle M, Norns Shield by Garret Labs (+ Novation Launchpad Mini MK2 as 64 “Grid”), Arturia MicroFreak, Koma Elektronic Field Kit FX, Zoom MS-70CDR pedal and an old Panasonic Dictaphone.

Panasonic Dictaphone

I use an old version of Ableton Live Intro (8), just as multitrack recorder + Audacity and Adobe Audition for “editing” with Zoom U-22 as audio interface.
I would love to start/switch into the modular world, but for now I’m learning/trying this great and awesome world with VCV Rack 2.
Also the Ciat-Lonbarde ecosystem, it fascinates me a lot.

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

Critter & Guitari Organelle M

Organelle M is the perfect companion in combination with the Norns Shield (with external power bank) and Zoom MS-70CDR.

Zoom MS-70CDR

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

Valhalla Supermassive as a real pedal and almost all the Splice VST effects.
I would love to have all the Ciat-Lonbarde (Cocoquantus, Deerhorn Organ, Sidrax Organ, Tocante, etc …) as virtual instruments, to try/learn their workflow.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

Regret selling, the Boss SP-202 and the Yamaha MT50 4 track cassette recorder.
Regret buying, probably nothing, all the equipment that I’ve had, have in some way either good or bad things about them, that help me to learn something.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

Norns Shield and Organelle M are my main “brains”, especially with generative scripts / patches.
I like to control them with 2host USB (Midi USB-USB) or sequencing the MicroFreak.
Sometimes I like to record samples / fields recording, with piezo mic on the Koma Field Kit FX or with the Dictaphone.

Norns Shield

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

I’m not consider myself as “musician”, my workflow is about feelings, insights and following the flow, so maybe probably, learn and study music theory and a lot of things that I don’t know, even if I like (perhaps too much) the transportation and philosophy of the generative music.

Arturia MicroFreak and Organelle M

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Cables and power adapters.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I have no real tricks (being self-taught), but I have learned a lot thanks to the various online communities (for Norns and Organelle) and I wanna say thanks to all those who spent time and energy creating new scripts and patches!


Artist or Band name?

Asymmetric Cut

Genre?

Ambient / Soundscape / Drone

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Italy

How did you get into music?

When I was child, I got an xmas gift (Bontempi keyboard) then around 14, playing guitar (hardcore / punk / grunge), then I dive into electronic music with FastTracker 2 on 486 PC.
Later with different gear, such as samplers (E-mu ESI-32 and Boss SP-202) and grooveboxes (Roland MC-303 and MC-505).

What still drives you to make music?

I’m not a professional musician (I’m photographer and teacher), so for me it’s just something to relax, make something (hopefully good) and with the social media, make connections and know nice and talented people (like you and many others).

How do you most often start a new track?

Depends of my mood, but usually I start with the Norns Shield or /with Organelle M and the MicroFreak through the MS 70-CDR, layering some sounds and working on, till I’m ok with the result.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I usually start listening to it many times to understand if I have skipped any steps or made some drafting errors, then I let it settle, like wine and decide if it is usable or not.

Show us your current studio

Desktop Studio

I don’t have studio or studio space in my little apartment, so every time I wanna play I set everything on the living room / work / eating table.

Koma Elektroniks FieldkitFX

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

For me works very well the Samuel Beckett’s quote: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better”.
So this kind of mantra could be … try, try, try, don’t be afraid to fail and then try again, having learned something valuable from your experience.
Eventually it goes without saying, you will achieve success.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asymmetric_cut/
Bandcamp: https://asymmetriccut.bandcamp.com/

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/asymmetriccut


Idra – Modular Via Trumpet

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

Novation Summit Noise and Frequency

One of my favorite knobs is without a doubt the Summit cutoff combined with the noise knob that always adds a lot of depth to the sound.
Other knobs that I find very interesting are the branches and mutation on the Qu-Bit Bloom, which makes any patch generative and potentially infinite. Sometimes when I’m in the studio (which is also my home) and I’m doing something other than producing music I create a random patch and totally open both knobs, it’s fun.

Branches and Mutation on the Qu-Bit

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

I’m not a pianist even though I studied it a bit during my studies in classical music at the Conservatory. I think that among all the instruments I own, my grandfather’s piano is my perfect one. Both for an affective value and for the harmonic completeness, it has always been the instrument that allows me to create more, I just sit there and throw down some ideas and then go down to the studio and develop them on my modular system.

Piano

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

Modular (although it’s starting to become huge, in fact I think I will shrink it with a Palette case from Intellijel) headphones and zoom recorder for holidays. But when I have to play live I don’t care too much about comfort and I carry everything and more, including the Summit (my back doesn’t thank me).

Intellijel Palette

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

All Felt instruments plugins on eurorack format would be great, as well as a hardwere version of Ableton, would probably make live performances much more interesting

Felt VSTs and Ableton

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I’m not a person who sells a lot, but I recently sold my digitakt two days before its new update – that’s all I’ll say.
Joking aside I must say that in the eurorack world there is a lot of buying and selling and you can never lose anything or have too many regrets for having sold something.

Smokin’ hot Elektron Digitakt

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

As I said before certainly the piano is always my starting point for composition, but in the end my main tool today is the modular system, which constantly offers a continuous sound research avenues and new ways to create sounds from scratch, even using a few modules and always trying to study them in depth. The great thing is that it can be an instrument in continuous evolution and change and the perfect medium to express ourselves even with our personal changes.

Idra’s Eurorack

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

I think I would do the exact same path again that led me to be who I am today. I don’t know if everyone knows this, but I start my music journey as a classical trumpet player.
Classical music and its study has definitely helped me both in technical knowledge but especially in maximum attention to listening. A sensitivity to sounds and sonorities, I would say. So if I had to start again, I would start with the trumpet again.

Trumpet

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Endless cables

Cables… nicely organized

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

One of the tricks I use the most is after watching a video of Ricky Tinez based on understanding how to manipulate LFO phase points and make them free and random in independent points of time.
I highly recommend it, especially to create movement and use LFOs in new ways.
Another “trick” that I often use is to stop listening to an album that is almost finished for a while before putting the finishing touches on it.


Artist or Band name?

IDRA

Genre?

Ambient

Selfie?

Idra

Where are you from?

Milan, Italy

How did you get into music?

I started playing trumpet when I was nine years old, graduating in classical trumpet.
For a few years I got into jazz and world music, but it was electronic music that I fell in love with and where I found my own spot in the world.

What still drives you to make music?

The sense of freedom and the need to communicate something first to myself and then to others, is a refuge and a medicine that keeps me alive and allows me to express myself in the most creative way I can know

How do you most often start a new track?

Whenever I feel the need to enclose and let out my feelings and sensations. I often have very profitable moments of production, but I also often need silence, I do not follow a precise path, every time I turn on the machines in the studio and I feel that something beautiful comes out, it can become a track or simply my soundtrack of the
day.

How do you know when a track is finished?

When it makes me smile and gives me a clear picture in my mind, I would say the moment I think of a title the track is over.

Show us your current studio

Idra Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Don’t be afraid to listen to advice and always be open to change. But the best will always be: keep things simple.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link

seilrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lone-voyagers-lovers-and-lands

(I always take the opportunity to thank Boris aka. Jogginghouse – for this release)