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.
DJ Techtools Midi Fighter Twister
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.
Eurorack modular
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.
DIY soundbox
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.
Ableton and DAW setup
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.
Ableton and Novation Peak
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.
Korg MS-20 and SQ-1
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.
Headphone drag
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.
Cassette tape
Artist or Band name?
Max Würden
Genre?
Ambient, Experimental, Sound Art, Field Recording
Selfie?
Max Würden
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
Studio 1Studio 2Studio 3Novation Peak
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
1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?
The spring reverb module and the dwell knob
The dwell knob on my spring reverb module. It’s basically the input drive level for the spring reverb and when it’s all the way up you can hear the audio if you bring your ear to the springs, Gives it a verrrryy distorted sound when its turned up to the max, i love turning it up for dubby snares and hihats. It might not be the prettiest looking knob on my rack but it’s definitely my favorite because this was the first module on my rack and it was handbuilt by me.
The insides of the spring reverb driver module, point to point soldered.
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
Probably the Mutable Instruments Anushri, it’s a mono synth, drone machine and a groovebox all in one, it can do so many things, but I always have to use it with the manual open on the side because each knob in the bottom 2 rows maps to something different in different modes and the panel doesn’t really show what they are, I’d maybe redesign the panel to have more information, but otherwise its relatively perfect in my chaotic and imperfect collection of things.
Mutable Instruments Anushri
3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?
I’ve recently built a really cheap (1500 INR, 17 EUR at most) midi controller that’s based on the MIDI Fighter Twister, it has 16 knobs across 4 pages and across 16 midi channels. So I bring that, and my APC MINI because I work on Ableton. This, plus my laptop (Samsung Galaxy Ultrabook 3) and my zoom recorder that works as an audio interface. If I’m expecting a jam session to happen as well, I try to bring along my shruti box, I’m also trying to use it more often in my live sets. I’d like to travel with my modular rack but that thing is too heavy and delicate in its current state.
DIY MIDI Fighter Twister and shruti box
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
I’d really like to buy something that’s a hardware version of the Fors FM Dyad, it already has some pretty good Push integration, but like a dedicated box for it would let me just connect it with my modular and not having to stare at a screen would just make it so much more fun.
Hmmm… Hardware that I wish was software I’d probably go with my Fuzz module for its self oscillation and deep frying capabilities
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
I kinda regretted selling my AKAI APC 40 MK2, but then I basically ended up building the same thing with my 16 channel midi twister and the much cheaper APC Mini.
Something I regret buying is this Arturia 49 key keyboard, I bought it for like 2500 INR (27 EUR) from the side of the road in Mumbai and it does work flawlessly, but its just so big and I don’t have space for it so it just never gets used,
5. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
Fors FM Opal and Fors FM Dyad, they’re toooo fucking fun, best purchases I’ve ever made.
Fors FM DyadFors FM Opal
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
A better 4-in 4-out audio interface honestly. Maybe the Motu M4 because it’s also DC coupled so I can send CV out.
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
Akai EIE Pro 4×4
My Akai EIE Pro 4×4 Audio Interface, for obvious reasons, it’s the interface between all my hardware and Ableton and sometimes I feel like the noisy pre-amps on it hold me back. But it is absolutely rock solid, it’s built like a tank and is probably almost 10 years old and it still works really well.
9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
Self-oscillation on a fuzz module
Probably the self-oscillation on my fuzz module, I found a way to tune it by just blowing on the feedback pot or very very lightly touching it, it holds that pitch really stable and then whatever input I give it kinda morphs it into that tone, it adds a really fat sustain.
Artist or Band name?
Qareebi
Genre?
Ambient, Noise, Jungle, Dub, Techno
Selfie?
Qareebi aka Syad Ali
Where are you from?
Bangalore, India
How did you get into music?
I was an obsessive child (I still am) and I got really into skrillex when I was 14 (I’m 23 now) and I just wanted to learn how he did all that. I started making music when I was 16 with a pirated copy of FL studio. I was making lo-fi hip hop and future bass back then hahahaha. I’ve also always had friends who would talk a lot about music and it just made sense to me, as a teenager trying to find a personality, that I would be a musician. More recently my practice has evolved to incorporate my electrical engineering hobby and now I build a bunch of things to make music with as well.
What still drives you to make music?
Many things but I’d say primarily, the sense of community that I derive from being a musician with other musician friends, and also moments of intense satisfaction and joy when I’m playing something – and just for a few seconds, all thoughts vanish from my head, and only the music remains. It’s intoxicating.
How do you most often start a new track?
I usually just try and listen to tracks in my library by artists I like and try and maybe make something with influences from them, like if I’m listening to Photek i might try and make some weird percussive jungle break call and response type 32 bar loop and then see where it takes me from there.
How do you know when a track is finished?
When I want to start a new track instead haha, but I’d say it’s finished when it’s at least 3 min 30s long and when I just want someone else to hear it and tell me what they think. Sometimes I come back and continue working but I try to keep the tweaking session short.
Show us your current studio
Syed Ali – Qareebi’s studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Find friends to make music with, seek out community when you feel like your practice feels isolating, and share everything you can, when you can. What goes out comes back tenfold when you’re with the right people.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
I’ve spent the last year or so just building things to make music with but haven’t really been making enough music, if you’d like to see what else I’m up to please follow me on instagram 😀
1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?
I love knobs and switches, so that’s a tough question. Maybe the volume knob on my Coleman monitor controller. It has these delicious steps (every one of the 47 steps is a separate set of matched resistors), and when you have proper monitoring, it’s such a powerful feeling to fire up the volume.
Coleman monitor controller
An honorable mention (and shameless plug) would be the EAO switches on the M/S insert processor ‘VARMS’ that I designed with Elberg-ELT. They’re the same swiss-made switches used on SSL desks, they feel/look awesome, and they last for two million presses.
‘VARMS’ Elberg-Nayberg
Another favorite (functionally speaking) would be the cutoff knob on my AJH MiniMod Transistor Ladder Filter (vintage Moog Model D filter clone) – that sweep never gets old.
AJH MiniMod Transistor Ladder Filter
I also have an old Urei-designed JBL 6-channel rack-mixer (Model 5306) that I modded with direct outs myself. It has some very cool and chunky aluminium knobs. Still very much a sleeper I think – get one if you can! Sorry that was four. I did my best.
Urei-designed JBL 6-channel rack-mixer Model 5306
2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
Well, depends on the context. If anything, my eurorack modular, since it’s a very flexible instrument – it just sounds incredible, and nothing beats that workflow for me (so far). I also really like improvising with it live. It’s not the easiest thing to improvise on, but it sort of makes you work to solve problems with the relatively basic and limited components that you have available, which often lead to new ideas.
Eurorack Improvisation
It’s always changing. At the moment I want to add a quad lowpass gate because I really bought into the whole Buchla thing recently, but I ran out of rack-space and promised myself I wouldn’t get more cases. It’s so easy to just get more gear, but I often find that I make better stuff when I’m more limited.
Daniels Eurorack
Another answer would be my U47 clone. That mic sounds crazy good. It’s based on the (sadly no longer available) Max Kircher (ioaudio) diy kit with handwound custom transformer and only top shelf components. It has a BeesNeez M7 capsule. I also got the equivalent U67 with a Heiserman HK67 in it.
U47 clone
My only gripe is that it’s really difficult to find high quality Neumann-style mic body housings, so they feel much cheaper than real Neumanns. I would change that if I could, but I’m not ready to shell out for the insanely-priced Neumann replacement parts.
3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?
If anything, I bring a laptop with Ableton Live and a controller – I love my Push 2. If I’m going away with my family, we mostly just bring a cheap ukulele. I really want to be that cool Zoom-recorder-found-sound kinda guy, but I’m really not (yet!).
4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
I recently made a dynamic multiband clipper with a few cool features with stock Ableton Live devices, that I’m pretty excited about. That would be really cool as a hardware unit, but it’s probably going to be pretty expensive to build, and it would also be a different beast. I put the effect rack up for free download at our studio’s website if anyone wants to try it out:
I guess I also wish someone would emulate the Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water in software (and make it stereo!). That pedal is an instant vibe machine and nothing else does what it does. I love it to death. It’s also one of the only places I have ever encountered a lowpass gate outside of the synth-world.
I actually tried approximating it with Ableton Live devices myself, but I really just wish for a stereo hardware version.
5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
Yes a lot of things. I often buy and sell stuff when some idea hit me or I get caught up in the GAS hype. I once had a really cool japanese Fender Jaguar that I refinished and modded myself. I really regret selling that. It sounded amazing.
Fender Jaguar
6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?
My eurorack modular for sure! I rarely get anything done in the DAW if I’m making my own music. I love how the process feels way more “iterative” on the modular. You patch something, and the machine responds. Then you are inspired to do something else, and the machine reacts again etc. It feels more like a conversation than executing an idea, especially If you experiment a lot. Building the modular (choosing/arranging modules etc.) is a way of setting the scene of what can happen. This is an approach to writing music that really resonates with the gear-enthusiast in me.
Something else that was really important for me was to build my studio away from home. We built it during Covid lockdown. I simply don’t get squat done at home, I’m not disciplined enough and there are too many distractions. I need a place to go to work, where everything is always set up and ready to roll.
7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
I do everything from production to mastering, so it depends. First of all a laptop with Ableton Live Suite. Probably then a decently treated room and some good monitors. Being able to hear properly and feel awesome is everything. I still want to upgrade my setup to something better. From there I guess a good interface, a versatile mic (maybe a Sennheiser MD441) and a dual preamp like the Gyraf GIX. I love that thing, I got two of them. Just running tracks through them makes everything sound better.
Gyraf Gear
Then I would start getting into hardware instruments – maybe some semi modular synth like a Make Noise 0-coast or Strega, a Pittsburgh Taiga, or a Arturia Minibrute. Modular for the rest…
8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
I kind of want to say my laptop. I hate lugging it around, needing it, and being forced to rely on it, especially for playing live. But Ableton Live is just so amazingly flexible and powerful, it would require a truckload of gear to replace the functionality, if even possible. I’ve been eyeing the new standalone Push 3, but it has some major limitations.
9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
I’m not sure if it’s surprising, but I really like one particular idea that I had for my live setup for my band. I have an amazing MIDI controller called Touché by Expressive E. It’s a very sensitive touch controller that translates gestures into MIDI – it has three “dimensions” or axes that can be mapped to control basically anything. It’s mainly made for organic control of softsynths, but I use it to control effect sends in Ableton from the lead vocal channel out to different guitar pedal chains. It allows me to “play” the vocal effects in real time (one hand on Touché, one hand tweaking the pedals), and it creates this very dynamic underlying effect-layer supporting and “following” the lead singer. I cannot recommend that thing enough. For our kind of music, it really adds something, and I think doing this live is pretty unique.
Also just generally running anything through guitar pedals. Pedals are awesome.
Artist or Band name?
Solo: Daniel Nayberg Band: Meejah
Genre?
I always feel weird about putting genre labels on what I do, but probably ambient, electro, techno, and “weird stuff” would suffice.
Selfie?
Daniel Nayberg and electronic buddy
Where are you from?
I’m originally from Roskilde and still very involved in the music scene there, but I live in Copenhagen now.
How did you get into music?
I started playing electric guitar when I was 18, and quickly got fascinated by pedals. Pedals are a total gateway drug to synths, so here we are… A bit later I built and started a small underground venue and planned a few festivals with some friends, and someone had to take care of sound, so that ended up being me. Those years was a flaming crash course in live sound and mixing for me, but I learned a lot by trial and error this way! Nothing teaches you to mix quick like live sound. Sorry to those who suffered underway…
What still drives you to make music?
It’s simply a ton of fun. Moreover, what I’m really passionate about is creating physical and social platforms for young producers to learn about music tech, so we don’t all have YouTube and other online spaces as our only way of learning. It has a tendency to lead to a quick-fixy and superficial understanding of and approach to music creation, especially for beginners. This is why we host a lot of free community events/masterclasses/workshops at my studio. To bring people out of the bedroom studios, to meet others, and to have access to experimenting with pro facilities.
We are also working on (and have secured funding to) opening Denmark’s first inclusive electronic music/tech hub in central Roskilde with studios, venue, and educational facilities. You can read about it here:
I typically sit in front of the modular with no plan whatsoever – or with an intention of trying to mimic someone’s style/sound or way of working.
How do you know when a track is finished?
I really don’t. What has worked the best for me so far is setting very specific boundaries or simple challenges for myself. For instance, I challenged myself to do one piece of music every week for half a year. It had to be released every Friday, so I set up a YouTube account to feel like I would let others down if I didn’t deliver. Some weeks were better than others, but I always finished something.
I also really subscribe to the idea that you should leave stuff you’re working on a few weeks and then return to it. If it’s still good, it’s probably pretty done. If not, you will often hear what it needs with fresh ears.
Show us your current studio
Blip Blop Studio
Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
Try to maintain a playful approach to music making. Don’t do it because you have to, but also force yourself to at least try, even when the motivation isn’t really there, just for a short while. Get off of YouTube and get going.
Also, creativity isn’t a “skill”. In my experience it has way more to do with creating the right framework, mindset and prerequisites (physical or otherwise) for you to thrive creatively and to make you WANT to do something. That can be hooking all the gear up, so that it’s ready to go, as much as setting rules for yourself on how/when to work.
Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.
My band Meejah released our debut album in 2021 and it got nominated for a Steppeulv (danish music critics award). I’m really proud of it:
