Pattrn – Brice Deloose

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

Xaoc Belgrad

As a proper gear junkie I can’t choose just one, but I can limit my addiction to two knobs 🙂 For the feel – Xaoc Belgrad cutoff frequency. That knob is just the perfection! It’s both solid and fluid, the size is perfect for precise dialing (I can play melodies with just with this filter in high resonance configuration, and I even do this live sometimes). If anyone wants to feel what a knob should feel like, then they need to try this one out!

The second one is feature/playability oriented, it’s Shakmat’s Knight Gallop “pulses” one. I love how easily and musical I can play complex beats and percussions with it just by twisting it. To be honest it’s my secret trick for percussions programming… I don’t program, I just play with Knight’s Gallop and I have been doing this for over two years on all my records that have percussion sounds in it.

Shakmat Knight’s Gallop

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

Not really, I like to craft things from the start (or nearly from start) for every track. I love to experiment, jam for hours on my modular synth and then just edit and cut pieces out of all this improvisation, to start building a track.

Pattrn Eurorack

I feel sometimes people are too obsessed by the quest for perfection and forget that it all comes down to context. A “shitty kick’ can sound awesome in the right context. At the end, it’s how it all blends together to create a story.

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

Elektron Analog Rytm

I always have my Elektron Analog Rytm. It’s such a powerful and compact machine, but is also very fun to play with. Next would be my laptop with Ableton Live (I’ve been using that for nearly 20 years now) and RME Fireface UC sound card.
It’s rock solid, drivers and sound are just on point and I use the bigger Fireface800 in the studio, so I’m very confident with this setup and how stable and reproducible it can be between studio and live.

RME Soundcard

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

Tricky question… soft synths wise I love Serum for its flexibility and modulations capabilities and Omnisphere for it’s amazing lush and organic sound, so I’d say these two could be lovely to have in a hardware format, yet, somehow in my workflow I realize that I like the recall features of my soft synths and, for example, I don’t use my beloved Access Virus at all anymore. It has stayed on a shelf now for over 5 years (even if it has midi in/out and I could record all knobs movements as automations).

Access Virus

I think it’s a matter of perspective and your approach to these things. I like twisting knobs on my eurorack to create sounds, but then I love to mangle this audio and simply draw automations (by mouse or controller) in the DAW. It’s like fixing things on a canvas and moving forward with what has been done.

Actually I think it’s nice that some things are only accessible in some format, it forces you to make choices on how to use them and in this frame of ideas, limitation is also a tool to move forward. Maybe i should give this whole question a deeper reflection, but I’m pretty happy with how things are :p

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

Nothing 🙂 I have difficulties to sell things :p Still got my first Yamaha RM1X collecting dust and like i said earlier my Virus as well. Only thing I sold were some modules and no regret at all.

I spend a lot of time before i decide to buy something, i watch many videos online or try it out at friends, so I only got one regret of buying (and regret is a strong word as it was a very cheap thing and I sold it again easily)… that was the Volca Bass.
It doesn’t sound bad, but I didn’t like the ergonomics and it didn’t integrate in my workflow, neither live or in the studio.

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

My speakers without any doubt. I’m always amazed when I see studio pics with guys owning crazy amounts of expensive gear and only using tiny HS8 or mini 8010 Genelecs. It all comes down to what you hear!
How can you enjoy expensive gear if you don’t hear it properly. I’m deeply convinced that I can make better music with good speakers and a laptop only, than with a crazy wall-of-modular and shitty speakers.

Kii Three’s Controller

Also quality speakers make you dive into sound, which is so enjoyable, plus the decision making process is way faster, so I’m more efficient and work not only faster but better, which ultimately keeps me in the flow. Actually i have been a very lucky owner of Adam S3XV for over 13 years and just decided to upgrade to Kii Three’s for the exact same reason.

Kii Three’s

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

The speakers and of course some proper room treatment.

Acoustic panels

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

I don’t have any… A piece of gear simply cannot be annoying or it breaks the flow and this is a no brainer for me. Menu-diving? Hell NO! Or maybe then I’d say the computer. As it’s not an instrument, but it can do everything, but you need to remap, re-adjust things for every track.

I tried some “automap” controllers but i can’t work with these. I’d dream for an ultimate controller for the computer with like nano-bots that build the interface every time you create a new channel or load a new plugin so everything is always ready at a twist of the fingers… maybe technology will be there in a few years from now… but then this thing would become a huuuge console and would create all kinds of other problems in terms of ergonomics and horrible early-reflections from the ‘desk’.

‘Air’ and space in the studio

As I’m a bit of an acoustic freak this won’t work either. Also having space around me and a feeling of “air” or freedom becomes more and more important. When you spend over 8 hours a day in the same room, then when there are too many things much to close to you, it becomes claustrophobic somehow.

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

Resampling in Ableton. I love it. Just create a new audio track and record onto it everything that goes trough your master bus. It’s the best trick to create new textures that are evolutions or answers to previous ones. Sometimes I just solo some effects on some return busses and record those, pitch them down, stretch them, warp them, slice them and then feed them back into the same (or others) effects chains. I like to approach sound like clay and really get to sculpt it.

Also fixing things while bouncing audio is again a way to move forward. If at some point you wished you didn’t do it and wanted to go backwards then you have to become creative with new solutions and this is also something I love, as it pushes you out of your comfort zone and often results in a more creative outcome, than if I could just change a note on a midi clip or reopen the filter on a synth for example.


Artist or Band name?

Pattrn

Genre?

Deep Techno, Dub Techno, Ambient and Acousmatic music

Selfie?

Brice Deloose aka. Pattrn

Where are you from?

Brussels

How did you get into music?

Started learning the violin when I was almost 4, then discovered electronic music with cassettes that my big brother made me and ultimately started playing with Fruity Loops before diving into Ableton.

What still drives you to make music?

That indescribable feeling of just loving doing it, falling into a vortex and not seeing the time fly. And later to share it with people, spread love and joy while playing and giving the opportunity to people to escape their struggles, their pains for a little time… or simply get out of their day-to-day life.

How do you most often start a new track?

I really don’t have a routine, it can be a loop from some previous modular recording, a preset on a synth, an idea or theme I want to depict, … for me routine is killing the fun and the creativity. Some tracks have been made fully into Ableton with only VST’s, some others are nearly fully made from jamming on my modular synth.

Euroack cables

How do you know when a track is finished?

When I don’t see the point/added value to change something. The structure works and is coherent, I like the sound design and the mix is clean, with depth, space, width and all elements are intelligible.
This is the thing that took me the longest to achieve, the “letting go”. The quest of perfection is the worst enemy and can completely kill a track. The thing that helped me was to start working on many (4, 5 6 or 7) tracks in parallel.

Sony and Sennheiser Headphones

I have a round of listening to all of them and take notes, then I start editing and adjusting what was in my notes (without playing the whole track back). Doing so allows me to keep my ears fresh and avoid the trap that the rabbit hole the loop pushes you into.

Also no spending hours tweaking a sound until the whole track is drafted, because every element needs context. Spending too much time listening to the same thing in a loop is killing objectivity and I tend to get bored by my own work, making me want to change things just because my memory knows how it has been and wants something fresh, but this is not how people receive a “finished “ track.

So avoid at all costs the loop, taking breaks of sometimes days not listening to a track helps. Only at that moment can you really know if doing something helps the track or is just satisfying your brain as giving something fresh to your memory.

Also accepting to let go of things. You can spend hours doing something, if it doesn’t help the track, don’t force it, just throw it away and try something new. Often this works faster and better.

Show us your current studio

Pattrn Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Start as fast as you can to draft the track in its full length, listen to it from start to finish without stopping to keep an eye on the big picture or the overall story/structure and then at last, if at some point you feel bored, try instead to add something on top, or to find a way to tweak what’s there, to make it evolve and support the whole story.

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

Check out a FurtherSession that I did –
https://furthersessions.bandcamp.com/album/pulsing-light-in-a-frozen-solitude


Dean Fuller – The Washington Monument Amb

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

The RANDOMISE button on the Korg Opsix
The RANDOMISE button on the Korg Opsix

You want a gateway to all possible multiverses of music? The RANDOMISE button on the Korg Opsix will take you there. 

Maybe you just want to go to the universe next door. Korg has got you covered: You can set the level of randomisation, giving you everywhere from the tiniest variation on your current sound too.

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

Chase Bliss Dark World

Chase Bliss Dark World. It’s an ugly/beautiful reverb that makes anything sound cool. But … I want it in stereo. 
DARK on the left. WORLD on the right. Let ‘em twist and twirl together. Let them have babies with two heads and two dark hearts . I digress… 

PS. An adjustable loop length on the Chase Bliss Habit would be dope too… 

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

If I need to be agile/mobile/hostile I stick with this: Korg Volca Keys paired with a Zoom G1 Four. The Keys was my first synth, and it was cheap. The Zoom has pretty much every standard effect under the sun – and a 30 second looper. I’ve recently added the Arturia Keystep as a keyboard, because the patented Volca keyboard is a flaming trash heap.

Korg Volca Keys paired with a Zoom G1 Four and Arturia Keystep

Give it another couple of weeks and it might be the Volca FM2 instead though…

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

If Puremagnetik’s Driftmaker delay was a pedal I’d pay a ridiculous amount of money for it without a second thought. It adds such a gritty, messed up ambience to whatever it touches. Blankfor.ms had a hand in it, so you know the lofi is legit.

Puremagnetik’s Driftmaker
Puremagnetik’s Driftmaker

I don’t wish any of my hardware was a software plugin* This is not to say that I’m dismissing the digital side of music making in any way, shape or form. Plenty of great artists use it to great effect.  
I don’t use these tools because I just don’t have much time to play music.  

Booting up a computer, opening up Ableton, selecting one of an infinite array of software synths, worrying about CPU usage or RAM – all of this takes time and energy to deal with. I ain’t in a headspace (or a techspace) where I can do any of that quickly or efficiently currently. 

My hardware setup can go from POWER OFF to ready to play in about 10 seconds. Maybe a minute if I’ve got some super crazy stereo stuff I want to dial in.

 If I had a small, always on computer with enormous processing power next to my synth setup, then I’d definitely be integrating more.  

*although I am intrigued by plugins that work in tandem with my hardware pedals. When I have world enough, and time, I’ll be doing some weird n’ wild stuff with the Chase Bliss Plugin for Gen Loss 2 , as well as a user created plugin for HABIT…
 

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

Moog Mavis

Moog Mavis is the perennial underdog of my setup. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful as a single module in a larger modular setup. Oora Music gets a ton of mileage out of it as part of his suitcase of modules. On its own… you don’t have much to work with and I’m not fully ready to commit to it.
In retrospect, I wish I’d saved an extra couple of weeks and grabbed a Make Noise Strega instead. Alas, currently Mavis is a humble lowpass filter for my drum machine.  

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

I refuse to read the manual for Matt Bradshaw’s Drumkid because I wanna believe that it has a mind of its own. Sure, it’s supremely limited, but everything it does it nails. I randomise a drum pattern, and now I have a drummer that will flick in a little something extra from time to time. It’s a true collaborator – spitting its endless rhythmic ideas my way to play off. I need a good collaborator with an excellent brain to get my fingers working.  Drumkid is both.

Drumkid

Heck, a lot of the time I mute the drum channel – all I need is the groove that the Drumkid thoughtfully provides. 

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

I started off many a year ago with just a Korg Volca Keys and nothing else for like 5 years. Please note that the Keys sounds like a squealing pig until you grease it with heavy reverb. 

Korg Volca Keys

Can you blame me? I was seduced by that wonderful word: ANALOG.

Now I just want a usable sound that I can dial in quickly. 

If I could turn back time I’d grab a Volca FM instead and have every DX7 preset ever made loaded onto it. Who needs to properly learn FM synthesis if you’ve got some great presets, right? 

Also I’d get a MIDI keyboard for the thing because no-one deserves to be punished with the standard Volca ribbon keyboard. 

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

Chase Bliss Mood

I love the Chase Bliss Mood. I still don’t know what I’m doing with it half the time. I just did a session where it seemed like all the settings were reversed and maybe the thing is trying to gaslight me. I dunno man… 

But when it hits, it breaks through the fabric of reality. Even that basic reverb sounds so weird and warped and wonderful. To say nothing of its DELAY or SLIP modes. 

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

Chase Bliss Habit

Treat it right and Chase Bliss Habit can be a mono synth.
Firstly you need: 
⦁ A constant(ish) sound source/tone. 
⦁ Chase Bliss Habit.

Here’s how you do it: 

⦁ Set the MODIFY switches to A1. You are now in pitch delay mood. Twisting between 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock will pitch your echoes down. Twisting it further either side will pitch your echoes up to the heavens.  
⦁ Set the DRY KILL dipswitch up to ON. Now you have no dry signal. This is very important. 
⦁ Set SIZE and SPREAD to minimum. 
⦁ Set LEVEL to maximum. 
⦁ Run your signal through HABIT. 
⦁ I like dragging my input cable over a surface for extra loftiness. Radio static is also cool.  
⦁ Twist the MODIFY knob to get your note of choice. 


Artist or Band name? 

the_washington_monument_amb 

the_washington_monument_amb

… in retrospect, this name makes me incredibly difficult to search google for. But hey, it’s mine now. 

Genre? 

Lo-fi ambient. Lofi is a fine way to hide my (currently) novice playing skills. 

The Fauna of Lo-fi ambient

Selfie? 

[immediately before an exorcism] 

Dean Fuller
Dean Fuller

Where are you from? 

The land I live on was called Boorloo before colonisation. Nowadays it’s called Perth.

Perth

How did you get into music?

My parents played me stuff that blew my mind*. My sister played me stuff that blew my mind. My friends played me stuff that blew my mind. I feel obliged to return the favour. 

*specifically, in no particular order: Elton John. Frank Zappa. Queens of the Stone Age. King Crimson. Heather Nova. Foo Fighters. South Park: Chef Aid. The Goon Show. Tom Waits. Goreki. Massive Attack. Godspeed You! Black Emperor. David Holmes. After Dinner.

What still drives you to make music? 

Vanity. I like that people like my work. Shouting into the silent abyss can get dispiriting.  

Progress. Seeing improvement today over yesterday and the day before is awfully gratifying.

Meditation. It’s been a strange few months. I’ve been keeping too much in my mind. The act of creation wipes things away, if only briefly…

How do you most often start a new track? 

Korg Opsix
Korg Opsix

I’ll hear something on my way to work from tybo_ambientsky or shimmery.mp3 or kaicarsonwest do something cool with a piece of gear that I have. I’ll spend the day consumed by the thought. I crib the settings in the margins of my workbook. I imagine all the ways that I can take this and break it and then go ham with distortion and layers until I have an ungainly tower of grain and fuzz. Then I go do it.

How do you know when a track is finished? 

When my darling tells me to go to bed. 

Bedtime

Show us your current studio

Desktop setup

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Create incessantly and with intention. Be like Prince – record all the damn time, release only the gems. And release gems all the darn time. You are an iceberg; you are a vault. The little that the public sees is supported by the vast volume of work that you toiled on out of sight. Constant introspection and evaluation will make your work better. But only if you make your work.

All but shadows and lights

I’m paraphrasing Father Bronques here. His advice took me from an unemployed student to a photographer charging $200 an hour in the space of a year. 

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

I have a YouTube that would love a few more followers. Feeling like long, long lofi ambient pieces to sleep to? Do you need to hear tape loops looping forever? This is the place to go.

Spaceman explorering the synthverse

Also @royriverswhite is a good mate of mine doing fabulous art on an early 1980’s Apple MacIntosh. We’re gonna be doing something weird. Together. Soon.


[Editor: There are affiliate links to the relevant gear throughout the articles. It helps to support this blog. In fact, should you be needing some patch cables or guitar strings. Then clicking on one of the above links and buying any product that you prefer, will help the blog… doesn’t even have to be the ones in the link. Thx]


Stegonaute – Lofi Thought

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

Redson EC25 Repetition knob

I’m in love with the “repetition” knob (in French on the device) of my Redson EC25. It turns most chord progressions into space travel. The result can be extremely soft, with ethereal echoes, or very violent with destructive feedback. I use this (very lofi and cheap by the way) echo chamber as an instrument in its own right.

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

I don’t have ONE perfect kit, I like to navigate between my different devices. I will consider a perfect kit for one week before using another exclusive for the next. That’s what I like and that makes me never get bored.

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

Travel setup

I like to travel with the Arturia Microfreak because it is small, light and runs on usb battery. And when my children give me permission, I use their Nintendo 3DS with the Korg DSN12 program, which is a surprising emulation of the Korg MS10. I also bring a Sony TCM200 tape recorder to play with the different playback speeds. And of course on my Zoom H5 to record.

Nintendo 3DS with the Korg DSN12 program and a Sony TCM200 tape recorder

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

I would love to have the equivalent of Arturia’s “Fragments” plugin in pedal format. It’s a very inspiring granular processor, which can totally change a drum beat or a synth pad. I don’t use it as much as I would like because the computer is almost completely absent from my creative process now.

Arturia’s Fragments vst plugin

On the other hand, I haven’t found an echo plugin as dirty as my Redson EC25, all the space echo emulations that I have tested sound much too clean, even with an old tape simulation. So I would say a cheap tape echo plugin.

Redson EC25 Tape Echo

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

I have a love-hate relationship with the Arturia Minibrute (MKI), which I’ve bought, sold and repurchased several times. So I would say it is perfect to answer the 2 questions haha.

Arturia Minibrute

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

It’s hard to choose between my Fostex X14, which introduced me to the world of tape looping, and between the Arturia microfreak which allows me to compose outdoors, whether in the forest or on the top of a mountain.

Fostex X14

I have the Fostex for 18 years, and the Microfreak for 2 months. This makes me happy because I think there are always new things to discover and explore.

Microfreak

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

I think I would take a Mac and a UAD interface directly. I lost too much time with the computer, with my current system I almost forget it.

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

Except my computer, nothing bothers me yet !

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

I recently discovered that with a tape multitrack recorder like my Fostex I could play tapes recorded on normal devices in reverse mode. Combined with the different tape speeds, it’s pure happiness !


Artist or Band name?

Stegonaute

Genre?

Euuuh… Lofi, Trip Hop, Ambient ?

Selfie?

Stegonaute

Where are you from?

I live in a small village in the south east of France

How did you get into music?

I started at the age of 12 with the bass, then with the guitar.

What still drives you to make music?

I like exploring new sounds, traveling and letting myself be carried away. It’s my main way of expressing myself.

How do you most often start a new track?

Stegonaute’s piano covered in FX

I start most of the time on my acoustic piano, even if I don’t know how to play it. I like the fact that there’s no need to turn it on, it’s even faster than plug and play!

How do you know when a track is finished?

NEVER ! I stop working on it at some point in order to move on. Releasing EPs on the platforms allows me to say to myself “it’s over, I’m not touching it anymore!”. Otherwise I’ll still be working on it…

Show us your current studio

Stegonaute’s studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Put your phone in airplane mode.

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

Instagram @Stegonaute

Here is my latest EP : https://stegonaute.bandcamp.com/album/freefall

and my YouTube Channel


[Editor: There are affiliate links to the relevant gear throughout the articles. It helps to support this blog. In fact, should you be needing some patch cables or guitar strings. Then clicking on one of the above links and buying any product that you prefer, will help the blog… doesn’t even have to be the ones in the link. Thx]