Martin Yam Møller

Francesco Gennari – Eurorack Études

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

Aesthetically, the knobs and selectors on the Nagra III drive me crazy: big, solid, and the selector has a really nice click.
From a functional point of view, I love the Var Shape on the NTO oscillator by Serge/Random Source: I really love that continuous waveform change.
Honourable mention to the frequency knob of the Soundfreak Triple VCO (VCS3 in 4U format).

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

The Fostex X-28 multitracker. I’ve been using it for years, even live; it does everything it needs to do and it does it well, but despite regular maintenance, every now and then (still don’t know why) it decides not to turn on.
It’s not particularly nice when it happens 10 minutes before a live show, but since I decided to use it, I factor in a bit of thrill!

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

On holiday, just headphones to listen to other people’s music.
For live shows, lately my setup consists of a Eurorack system, a pedalboard with mixer, Fostex X-28, and Osmose.

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

Nothing. I’d say there’s enough choice both in software and hardware.

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

Sentimentally speaking, I regret selling the Korg Microkorg, it was my first synth.
Another synth that I always regret selling every time I try it again is the Moog Grandmother: fat sound, nice keyboard, great spring reverb, semi-modular.
Sooner or later it will come back into my studio 🙂

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

The piano.
It’s the instrument that shaped me, even beyond a purely musical point of view.
The one that has always been with me.

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

In general? A piano.
Synth/production-related? PC + audio interface + speakers/headphones.

DAW, RME audio interface and Genelec Speaker

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

CASES! Hard cases, soft cases, flight cases, pedalboards. They’re expensive, big, heavy, and when I change setup often you have to modify them, adapt them, or worse, replace them.
But it’s the best way to transport my instruments around, so that’s how it goes.

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

Well, it’s a technique that I really like and use a lot: cross FM modulation.
One oscillator modulates another in frequency, and the latter modulates the first one back.
You end up in definitely wild sonic territories, but I really enjoy being able to tame the modulation by finding various sweet spots that allow me to use it in a melodic way as well.
Two of the modules where I prefer to use this technique are the Piston Honda mk3 by Industrial Music Electronics and the Brenso by Frap Tools.

Piston Honda mk3 by Industrial Music Electronic

Artist or Band name?

Francesco Gennari

Genre?

Electronic.

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Brescia – Italy

How did you get into music?

I started playing the piano as a child, around the age of 5.
One day, a teacher at the kindergarten I attended brought in a digital piano to play, and I was completely enchanted by it. From that moment on, I started taking lessons, and later, around the age of 13/14, I entered the Conservatory to study classical piano, completing the course about 10 years later.
At the same time, I began developing an interest in other instruments: I played guitar and bass in a couple of bands with friends, until I got my first synth around the age of 18.
However, the synth loop started more seriously and intensely a few years later. Curious, I took part in a DIY workshop to build a small synth with three oscillators and a filter.
I then went through Pure Data/Max, continued with DIY, other keyboard synths, and eventually landed in the Eurorack modular world.

What still drives you to make music?

The urge to create something, to express myself, and the curiosity to try and discover something new.

How do you most often start a new track?

Most of the time everything starts at the piano.
The process can begin from a melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic idea. From there, I tend to transcribe my idea into my main sequencer in my modular system, which is Usta by Frap Tools, or bring everything into the DAW.
The development often continues in parallel by creating further interlocks, melodic lines, or interventions on the piano keys, and then moving on to timbral and structural research within the modular system.

How do you know when a track is finished?

In most cases, I realise it when I notice that I’m obsessing over too many details of the track, or when I see that I already have too many different versions of the same piece.
At that point, it means I’m stuck in an endless hyper-perfectionism loop.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Be curious.
Go beyond, explore, experiment, and research.
This helps you understand yourself and allows you to find a way to express yourself creatively.

I remember how my piano teacher at the conservatory used to introduce me to, and push me to investigate, the context of the piece I had to study: discovering the composer and placing that piece in a specific historical moment and in the composer’s own life. This process always changed my reading and interpretation of the piece.

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

My latest album: Studi

– Bandcamp: https://francescogennari.bandcamp.com/album/studi

– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBdrsKXF5H_y91ONIyzsYOt05CMWgL6nM

– Platform: https://tr.ee/WKJTshcvsA

Studi is made up of 8 tracks inspired by the concept of the Étude, where technical exploration and sound research converge.
Each Studio is accompanied, in addition to the album cover, by an artwork created by artist/designer Daniel Hicks, based in San Diego, CA, offering a visual counterpart to the music.

You can also find a performance of each track followed by a track breakdown on the Frap Tools channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPVhsLeaCG8ouhhsNamWOdhtU07GYkItN

Max Würden – Field Midi

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

All 16 knobs on the DJ Techtools Midi Fighter Twister.
They turn control into an instrument and give me an indestructible kind of freedom. I don’t think in parameters anymore, I think in gestures.

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

Right now my setup feels complete. In most cases, it lets me focus entirely on sound instead of technology.
The only thing missing is a new Eurorack case, purely for space reasons. And of course, if there’s more space, there will be more modules. That’s not gear lust, that’s gravity.
If I could wish for one more thing, I’d love to see Nana Modules release a Caixa 208.

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

In my last live set, I used my laptop, the Midi Fighter Twister, the Arturia MicroBrute, the KOMA Electronics Field Kit and Field Kit FX, and my DIY soundbox filled with kalimba, an egg slicer, and other objects. The soundbox has become an essential part of my practice, both on stage and in the studio, and I’ve been working with different versions of it for over ten years.
Overall, it’s a small system, but one that still allows me to lose control.

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

I sometimes wish Ableton itself existed as a physical instrument.
Not a controller, but a real object with resistance, weight, and limits.
I wouldn’t want any of my hardware as software. I chose it as hardware for a reason.

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

I try to keep the things I might regret selling.
That makes storage complicated, but it keeps my past intact.
Still, I had to let go of a Korg electric piano once, space won, music lost.

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

I switched to Ableton more than 17 years ago.
It was the first time the tool stepped out of the way of listening and working.

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

An analog synthesizer. Any one.
It teaches you signal flow, patience, and listening.
Eventually it teaches you something about the universe and about yourself.

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

My headphone cable.
It constantly gets caught under my office chair wheels and pulls me back into the room.
A reminder that sound is physical, and so am I.

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

The biggest trick was realizing that looping isn’t repetition, it’s a way of listening longer to the same moment.

Artist or Band name?

Max Würden

Genre?

Ambient, Experimental, Sound Art, Field Recording

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Cologne, Germany.

How did you get into music?

As far back as I can remember, I was always surrounded by music, from waking up until falling asleep.
When I was very young, I had a key moment: I suddenly understood how a band works, which instruments are played, how they sound, and what their roles are. That realization sparked my desire to learn an instrument and start making music myself. In the 1980s I learned to play drums and spent many years playing in bands, from indie rock to jazz. In the 1990s I began making solo recordings with 4-track recorders, effects and guitars, trying to free myself from the band format. When more powerful computers became available, I chose to move fully into electronic music and work solo. I’m entirely self-taught in this area.
What I carried over from my band years is a love for using all kinds of sound sources, mostly analog ones, often treated as instruments rather than tools.

What still drives you to make music?

What drives me is the search for calm inside sound.
I’m interested in making music from my surroundings rather than for them, a quiet contradiction to the original idea of ambient.
Real sounds have always been essential to my work. Field recordings have been part of my music from the beginning.

How do you most often start a new track?

I start with the desire to make sound and to become calm.
Anything can be the beginning: a tone, a chord, something in my hands.
The desire is what starts the next project.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I know a track is finished when I fall asleep while listening to it.
Unfinished tracks keep me awake, because I still hear what needs to be changed.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Listen longer than you think you should, and trust what remains.
It’s never the one session, it’s the many sessions.
That’s something I had to learn myself.

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

My latest project is RAUSCHKASSETTE, a collaborative cassette release with Ron Schmidt. It treats noise as the main material for a continuous narrative, moving through shifting textures toward a quiet, meditative stillness.
https://wuerden.bandcamp.com/album/rauschkassette
I’m also featured on KOMPAKT’s POP AMBIENT 2026, together with LUKAS SCHÄFER, as part of the long-running, Wolfgang Voigt–curated series dedicated to beatless, elegant ambient music.
https://kompakt.bandcamp.com/album/pop-ambient-2026

Davide Coretti – Dave Bundy

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

It’s definitely the Frequency knob of the Doepfer Wasp Filter, when the Resonance is 100%. I have two of them, because that filter has a unique character and timbre which i love!
They say it’s noisy and dusty dude, but that’s the way we like it.
All you need to do is to put the Resonance at 100% and tweak the frequency a little bit and you’ll find all the sweet spots you didn’t know you needed. LOVE IT.

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

XOR Electronics NerdSeq for sure.
It has tons of functions and possibilities, but triplets and 3 based tempos aren’t well implemented, so you’ll need to find lots of work-arounds to achieve it.
I must say that if you use the module the standard way – only with its built-in I/O – you’ll have a easier time with it, but if you push it, as I do, using tons of expanders and connections… then it can be very complex.

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

Through the years I tried to achieve the “standalone-repeatability” in modular synth world and I think i made it using the Nerdseq combined with the ES-9 and the MPC One.
I have a pre-patched system where every single module is patched to the NerdSeq and its CV Expanders, so I can reach and modulate most important knobs with the sequencer per step. The MPC is connected to the class compliant modular audio interface ES-9 from Expert Sleepers, which provide me an audio track per module (channel strip, eq, noise gates, compressor, fx, etc per single module).

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

In my opinion there’re already so many possibilities both hardware and software that I can’t really tell which one I wish it was real/vst.. but for sure I’m still looking for a sequencer as the one in the Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators or the Erica Synth Perkons HD-01, that can control external gear so easy as they do… maybe with integrated fx per step too?

Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator PO32

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

7 years ago, when I moved from my hometown (Taranto) to the city where I live now (Camerano) before buying a house with my wife – I needed to sell a bunch of gear and instruments that I still miss.
One of those is the 5U portable system from Synthesizers.com which I really loved and I would have loved to integrate with my current studio gear, to see what it could do with the latest sequencers and newer midi-cv connections.

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

If we talk about software I would say Propellerheads Reason 3.0 because it was my first love with a DAW and I still find some lost projects in it, like some ancient hard-disk that I try to recreate with new sounds and gear and it still is inspiring to me.

On the hardware side I would say the Make Noise Shared System with the CV Bus case for sure.
I didn’t have all the exact modules from the original shared system – because I didn’t get it as a whole piece, but module by module – but it was definitely the most inspiring gear that made me jam a lot and record some videos and tracks.
My only problem was the one-shot approach: once you switch it off you’ll never be able to recreate it perfectly (which IS also motivating/inspiring somehow)

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

Following my heart I’d say the Moog Voyager that was one of the synth I loved the most… but now a days it would probably be a Moog Matriarch, because of its character, paraphony, possibilities, easy layout, semi-modular structure and so on.

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

It’s the NerdSeq again. It was the game changer of my gear, but I had to choose an approach that fit its needs and it was – and is – not so simple.
I still use some of note sheets as summary of knob connections and reminder of hexadecimal values to reach certain sounds.
It’s probably the most annoying piece of gear to get prepared, but once it’s done.. just wow!
To avoid losing the flow – in fact – I use to get the track ready in Logic with VSTs and plugins and then translate it in NerdSeq language.

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

It is the Erbe-Verb secret drums!
Try sequencing the size knob of the Erbe-Verb module and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Advice: set big differences between steps to hear it better. Check it out in this video here:
Dave Bundy – Floating (MakeNoise Shared System)

Artist or Band name?

Davide Coretti aka Dave Bundy.

Genre?

Industrial, OST, electro with constant melodic component.

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Italy.

How did you get into music?

My journey began in 2001 as a drummer, then in 2006 I discovered Nine Inch Nails and it all started… software, pedal effects, hardware, synths, modular synths, outboards, and so on.

What still drives you to make music?

Making music – to me – is a need and that’s the reason why most of the things I do are still on my hard-disk years later.
I used to share more in the past, but I don’t know when or why I stopped doing it.
Probably when internet got flooded by people talking too much, instead of playing something.

How do you most often start a new track?

The real question is “How often do you FINISH a track?”
As I said I do it for a need, so I start a new track anytime I need to put it out… recording an audio note on my phone, while working or driving, recording a jam or just sitting in the studio with an opened project.
All that’s not finished is still new.
It’s easy to start something fresh, but finishing it and moving on is the real point.

How do you know when a track is finished?

In my opinion a track is finished once it’s released or published.
But even in that case there’ll be remixes and alternative versions!
For this reason I keep all the unfinished tracks and projects in my hard-drives as a sort of Harry Potter’s Pensieve, where I can find old memories and feelings through years.. believe it or not but i remember every single project and the feelings that moved me, to start it in the exact moment I recorded it.
Yeah I know, it sounds a little bit weird and I probably am, but let me say that it is so good to open an old project and add something fresh to it, as a constant evolving train of thoughts through the years.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

I think I heard it from Deadmau5 Masterclass.
He said to store every single pattern, project, sound or idea – apparently useless or without context – in a personal library, because there’ll always be a moment where you think that you’re stuck and that library would save you from using other people ideas, keeping your authenticity.

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

Not my latest, but one of my favorite one for sure (as Dave Bundy)
Dave Bundy – Amorphous
This is the latest one from my historic band, which I am the drummer and co-author of some songs. In this track I played drums and recorded most of the synth you hear using the Moog Slim Phatty.
It’s Today Or Never