Ian Pritchard – Collector//Emitter

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

My favorite control is always the lag or delay time control on a chorus, vibrato, or flanger pedal. I think the Caroline Guitar Co Somersault specifically does it really well, but a lot of pedals have the control now. Changing the delay time makes a huge difference to the tone, and I’m really surprised that pedals only recently started giving this control.

Coraline Somarsault Lo-Fi Modulator

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

Maybe this is a non-answer, but I honestly can’t think of one. Sure, all my gear has some flaw or limitation, but rarely is it something that gets in the way of working with it. I usually see those limitations as a way of guiding how I work with it, which usually helps me break out of my routine. For example, Digitone could have an output per track, but see question 9 for how I work around that.

Korg Prologue

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

I’ve been searching for the right thing for a while. It’s a guitar when I can, but when I’m flying I bring something else. First it was an OP-1, then an OP-Z, and now I think the Model:Cycles is the perfect travel synth for me.

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

I really wish the SoundToys plugins, specifically Primal Tap, Echoboy, and Little Plate were available as hardware. Those sound incredible, and I’d love to have them on my pedalboard (I’m aware these are modeled on hardwarem but I love their dsp, but I’d love a Prime Time 93).

There are tons of pedals I wish were software, but only if they 100% nailed the sound. For example, the Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water is an amazing lofi vibrato that saturates in the perfect way, so having that to easily put on mix busses would be incredible.

Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water

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

I’m a bit of a hoarder, especially when it comes to gear, so I find it hard to sell something unless I really don’t need it. There are a few pedals I’ve sold and miss, but usually I have some pedal that can do something similar. My biggest “regret” would be selling my Sub 37 which I loved. I only sold it because I had no space for it, but I miss it a lot and can’t recreate some of those thick, distorted duophonic sounds.

[Editor: I just sold my Subsquent37 for the same reason. No space. I miss the sounds, but I also feel strangely free]

Moog Sub37

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

I’ve recently discovered that what inspires me the most is actually minimal setups. I’ll usually pair one or two pedals with one synth and see what happens. That gets me out of my head thinking about perfect separation of each track or things like that, so I can jump into working on whatever ideas come to me.

Keeley Eccos

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

A nice guitar. I’ve played cheap guitars for so long, so when I finally got a nice one (a Bilt Relevator LS) I was blown away. From there, I’d probably get a few pedals (probably Red Panda Tensor and Smallsound/Bigsound Mini), obviously some kind of amp, and an affordable groovebox like a Circuit or Model:Cycles

Bilt Relevator LS

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

The old Line 6 DL4 is the best looper I’ve ever used, but they’re also notorious for randomly breaking for no reason. And they don’t use the standard pedal power supply. But I truly love it.

Line6 DL4 and buddies

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

Not sure if this is really surprising, but I’ve recently started doing it – on any groovebox that lets you pan the tracks, you can pan the rhythmic tracks to one output and the melodic tracks to another, and run the melodic output through any effects that you don’t want messing up the rhythm. This helps me record videos with my Digitone or Model:Cycles into a pedal, live in one take with just a two-track interface.

Elektron Cycles into Hypersleep pedal

Artist or Band name?

Collector//Emitter on youtube for all my pedal demos and synth videos, and Collector for my music releases.

Genre?

Kinda all over the place… ambient, glitchy, electronic and/or guitar-based

Selfie?

Ian Pritchard aka. Collector//Emitter

Where are you from?

Originally from Philadelphia, now based in Brooklyn.

How did you get into music?

When I was a kid I loved listening to music, so I wanted to play it. Then I wanted to learn how to record, so I did that and played in bands for a while. Now I am enjoying music as a creative outlet on my own time, with no real motives beyond making music.

What still drives you to make music?

Making youtube videos keeps the muscle memory there for when I want to be creative. Working full-time in a music-related field and then wanting to make music in my free time can be tough, but having an objective and deadline helps keep me going.

How do you most often start a new track?

Maybe once a week, it depends on the week. I usually focus my creative drive on making videos, so weeks when I have extra drive or inspiration I might start 3 or 4 tracks.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I’m really bad about that… I usually struggle with completing things. I guess when I can listen through multiple times and enjoy it, it’s done.

Show us your current studio

Studio with light leak

(This is unfortunately the best picture I have, and I can’t take one at the moment because I left Brooklyn to stay with my parents while NY is still bad with covid)

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

“[The recording] was really noisy. I kind of liked it. That was the way it had to be. Then you stop worrying whether you should have made this decision or that about how things sounded, and just get down to the business of making songs” – Elliott Smith, Tape Op Winter 1997

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

My latest release will always be a pedal demo on youtube, since I post them once (or twice) weekly – https://youtube.com/c/collectoremitter

But my latest music release was an ambient thing with the Elektron Model:Cycles and Red Panda Particle V2 – https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/collector1/particles


[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]

Todd Barton – The Don Of Buchla

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

Large blue, skirted Rogan knobs like on my Buchla 259 Complex Waveform Generator. They fit my hand nicely, feel good and I can see the index on the skirt. For sliders, all the sliders on my Easel. I prefer sliders to knobs, because I can more easily see where they are. Clearly I use the sliders a lot, since the printing is wearing off!

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

When I travel my favorite setup of my Buchla Music Easel plus a lunchbox of eurorack modules, ususally a Makenoise Morphagene or Epoch Hordijk Benjolin to bring into the Easel’s Aux In for manipulation and processing and the Intellijel Planar 2 for spatialization.

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

see above

4. What software do you wish was hardware and viceversa?

I wish Tom Erbe’s Soundhack plugins were hardware. Ooops, wait! They are 🙂 All of his modules with Makenoise: Morphagene, Mimeophon, Echophon,Erbeverb are the ones I have.

Eurorack case

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

My Buchla 100 and Synthi AKS. Couldn’t be helped at the time.

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

Buchla 200e

Clearly my Buchla instruments, but I have also created a lot of music I love with my Hordijk and Serge systems.

Hordijk and Buchla 200

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

Though I learned about analog synthesis from a friends’ Easel back in the 1970’s, the first modular I owned was a Serge Modular Music System in 1979. It was a great entreand, I’d do it again.

Serge

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

I’m going to interpret “annoying” as “tempermental” in which case my Easel. It’s tempermental, but I love it.

[Editor: It’s a little nice to know that even a synthesis master, who clearly has a superb grasp of the Music Easel, thinks that his instruments can be ‘tempermental’]

Easel Eurorack setup

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

Feedback. I try to get every module I encounter to feedback and learn what that has to teach me, what I can discover from it.


Artist or Band name?

Todd Barton

Genre?

All

Selfie?

Sure. Well a photo of me taken by my artist daughter, Ursula Barton

Todd Barton

Where are you from?

Originally the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Moved permanently to Ashland, Oregon in my late teens. I’m now 70.

How did you get into music?

Though my parents weren’t musical they played musicin the house (radio and phonograph) and there was a piano in the house that I began exploring at age 5. From then on I was obsessed with sound . . .

What still drives you to make music?

Sonic curiosity.

How do you most often start a new track?

By following the sound, listening to where it might takeme. It feels like sonic T’ai Chi, or more specifically a T’aiChi form called Push Hands which is done with a partner and it is an exploration and exercise of moving energy. I feel like my partner is sound.

How do you know when a track is finished?

Completely intuitive . . . the sonic sculpture looks and feels complete, nothing more to add and along the way I have stripped away unnecessary gestures and layers.

Show us your current studio— Too messy to show, but here are a few isolated shots ofsome gear.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Listen, deeply.

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

Buchla Now album. In 2020 the cassette tape label Ultraviolet Light will release Buchla Now. This album will feature a compilation of new tracks recorded by some of the most exciting electronic musicians working today, and focus solely on instruments designed by Don Buchla, the legendary instrument builder, physicist, circuit designer and inventor of West Coast Synthesis. Buchla Now was curated by Todd Barton with contributions from Marcia Bassett, Suzanne Ciani, Dan Deacon, Jonathan Fitoussi, Steve Horelick, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and Hans Tammen.

Suzanne Ciani once said of Don Buchla that his “ unique mindset allowed him to be outside the popular notion of what electronic music was”. Each of these artists, in their own way, carries on this tradition of boundary-pushing music, expanding the very notion of what music can be.

https://www.ultravioletlight.blue/


[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]

Scott Campbell – Sharp Sonic Soup

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

Currently its the Scan knob on the Instruo Arbhar. That giant skirt is so classic, and as a graphic designer the entire aesthetic approach of Instruo really appeals to me.

[Editor: I gotta say, I’m totally diggin’ the Instruo look as well]

Instruo Arbhar

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

The ER-301 Sound Computer is very close to perfect for my needs. It does so much and really lets me bring my ideas to fruition. I wish it had more CPU power and a nicer reverb. Maybe more outputs too, but I’m just being greedy.

ER-301 Sound Computer

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

Occasionally the iPad. There are so many great granular synthesis apps like Borderlands and Quanta. I also put together a small portable modular centered around the ER-301, but I haven’t taken it out of the house yet.

Portable Eurorack setup

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

I don’t use much software, but I wish I could have hardware versions of some of those amazing sample instruments like Una Corda (NI) and Blisko (Felt Instruments).

Una Corda

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

I’ll always regret selling my MemoryMoog. I bought it for $150! It was the mid 2000’s and someone found it in the attic of a house they had just purchased. They couldn’t get any sound out of it so they brought it to my friend’s music shop. He called me and I waltzed in and bought it without even turning it on. When I got it home I discovered that all of the level knobs in the mixer section were at zero, so I turned them up and it sounded glorious! I sold it years later for a hefty profit in order to fund a move out of state, but I’ll always miss it.
[Editor: Damn!]

Memory Moog

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

Getting into modular really got me back into making/recording music after taking a break for many years. I love being able to build out multi-layered complex musical ideas all within one system. Working with grooveboxes was sort of close, but I always seemed to hit a wall of limitations.

Eurorack Modular

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

Maybe a serious sampler/sequencer. In my early electronic music days I worked with an Akai S20 and Acid Pro on my PC, but I probably could have progressed much faster with an MPC or one of those old Roland boxes.

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

If something’s too annoying I usually just sell it, but I guess I’ll say tape machines. Maintenance is just part of the deal when you own one. I’ve learned how to service them, but when one stops working during a session its a real buzzkill.

Uher Tape Machine

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

This isn’t gear specific, but using noise (white, pink, etc) to modulate pitch, filter frequency, amplitude or whatever. When used subtly it makes sterile sounds more organic and can impart an analog tape vibe.


Artist or Band name?

Scott Campbell

Genre?

Ambient, Instrumental

Selfie?

Scott Campbell

Where are you from?

New Orleans, LA

How did you get into music?

I started playing bass at 16 and simultaneously learned how to record on a 4 track (Tascam 424) with my friends. I eventually got a Moog MG-1 and have been hooked on synths ever since.

What still drives you to make music?

The desire to find new sounds, learning a new piece of gear or technique, the need to create.

How do you most often start a new track?

Usually I start with a sound/texture that’s inspiring and build on it. I also do a lot of improvising, then edit it down to the interesting parts.

How do you know when a track is finished?

Good question!

Show us your current studio

The old bois
Tape station
Scott’s Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

“If you’re not making a mistake, it’s a mistake.” – Miles Davis

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

https://linktr.ee/scttcmpbll

[Editor: Also I gotta mention that Scott makes the wonderful playable cassette-tape-machine-manipulator Onde Magnetique. Definetly worth checking out, as well as his instagram]