Chrome Shadow – David Eilertsen

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

Not really a knob, but I love the matte black clicky buttons on the Digitakt and I’m a bit of an Elektron fanboy. The buttons are just very satisfying and of high quality. I definitely prefer hardware over software.

Elektron Digitakt with battery mod

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

I love grooveboxes and I’m still searching for that perfect one. The Digitakt is pretty close, especially with the new firmware adding song mode and new machines. It’s a future classic.
I do wish it had a rechargeable battery, stereo sampling and more than 8 audio tracks.
I made the internal battery mod for it, but it wouldn’t fit inside because of the way i attached the bms board. Plan ahead man! Oh well, I had to desolder the thing and along the way I sort of shorted the battery pack. I might give it a go again someday.

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

Korg Electribe 2

I often take the Korg Electribe 2. It’s definitely a favorite of mine and the one piece of gear I have kept the longest. I also have the sampler version with the hacktribe mod. Looks very techno in matte black, nice! It’s portable, well built, battery powered and has lots of hands on control. It can export stems to Ableton (all 16 tracks) and even chained patterns, making it easy to make a full track. I think it’s a very underrated machine. Check out rbeny on youtube.
He created some great ambient and droney stuff with it. Also check out Legowelt he also used the tribes for live stuff. The box does have some limitations though (voices). Korgs latest update was in 2016 which makes me very very sad.

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

I can’t really think of any. I think that there are so many options today in both realms. Wavetable, FM, granular, modular etc. With software I use Ableton Live for arrangement, mixing and so forth. Izotope Ozone for basic mastering. And that’s it basically. I used to be a Native Instruments Komplete user, but moved over to hardware.

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

When getting a new piece of gear I usually sell some other stuff and I don’t mind my setup changing and evolving. I love the chase of finding used gear for a good price and I enjoy fixing broken stuff. Sometimes it’s just a bad solder joint or a part that needs to be replaced.
I’ve had many different synths and nerdy stuff over the years and I don’t regret buying or selling any of it. But I have to say I do miss the Synthstrom Deluge sometimes. It ticks a lot of boxes. If it had the possibility to edit waveforms on that new Oled screen, that would be fantastic. Who knows it might come in a future update.

Synthstrom Deluge

The Korg Electribe EMX-1 is another great device that was hard to let go of. I got it for a very good price because it had a bad power socket. I replaced it with one from an old guitar pedal. Worked like a charm. It’s a very fun and immediate machine and it sounds great with those tubes.

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

I think all the instruments I have owned have been inspiring and fascinating in that certain period of time. It’s always inspiring when you get something new. But this can also be a hindrance in regards to finishing music. Mostly because there’s a lot of learning involved.
Maybe the goal is just to learn and have fun with those toys that make bleepy noises.

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

I would learn to play one instrument really well. Like a piano, the double bass or maybe a nyckelharpa?

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

Elektron Octatrack mk1

I recently got an old octatrack mk1 in rough condition. It was covered in stickers, had some bad encoders and a broken compact flash connector. I got a really good deal and was able to fix it with parts from Elektron. Now it almost looks new again. I was afraid that I would hate it, because of its complex workflow and steep learning curve. But actually, I love it! It’s a lot of fun and definitely annoying.

Eurorack in retro suitcase

At one point I got into modular. Built a 9u rack, then decided to downscale as I got tired of the sounds and sold most of it. I had some modules left and used them in this little retro suitcase project which I think turned out great. It’s a little cumbersome to tune the oscillators every time and I don’t use it that much. But still, there’s something engaging with that playful, experimental approach to making music. And sometimes the patch you create just sounds like shit. So annoying, but so addictive.

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

I’m still learning the octatrack and recently discovered that you can use external gear as send effects. The dark reverb on the machine is ok but not great. So being able to use the Eventide Blackhole with the octatrack is awesome.

Eventide Blackhole with an Octatrack

Artist or Band name?

Chrome Shadow

Genre?

IDM, ambient, garage, noise, dub(step).. probably something else next month.

Selfie?

Chrome Shadow – David Eilertsen

Where are you from?

Copenhagen

How did you get into music?

I’ve been working as a motion designer for a long time and sound design is a big part of my profession. So this goes hand in hand with my interest in electronic music.
I’m not very skilled with an instrument, even though I received piano lessons. To quote Brian Eno, I think that formal training and instrumental virtuosity should not be the sine qua non for music making. So it’s just as much patching and experimenting for my part. I started making music with Fruity Loops (now FL Studio) about twenty years ago (feeling old). I was inspired by the music I heard at that time. I was into post-punk, industrial and weird experimental stuff back then.

What still drives you to make music?

Learning new gear and the creative process of building something from scratch. I usually get in the zone when I listen to some music that inspires me. But that GAS can be an obstacle.

How do you most often start a new track?

Usually the beats come first – getting a groove going. Sometimes it starts with a pad or drone.

How do you know when a track is finished?

It’s never finished, but at some point you just have to let go and move on. If I work on a track for too long I start hating it and then abandoning it. So it’s key for me not to get stuck in the details. I don’t have a lot of spare time, so it’s actually a real challenge finishing a track.

Show us your current studio

Studio Desktop
Eurorack with Arturia Keystep

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

When in idea-generation mode, listen for potential rather for perfection. Creative time is short and you have to move fast.

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

https://chromeshadow.bandcamp.com/


Hissquiet – Blissed Moods

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

Chase Bliss Mood

I’m always fascinated by the range of knobs that there are, but I think my favorite knobs are the ones on the Chase Bliss stuff, I currently have the Mood. They are just so smooth with the ideal amount of tension. They just feel sturdy a well made, like I’ll fade into an effect perfectly every time.

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

Bastl midi looper

I think probably my latest bit of kit, the Bastl midi looper, does almost exactly what I wanted it for, which is to more organically make sequences with midi and overdub CC parameters. It perfectly pairs with my hydrasynth which doesn’t have a sequencer, but I wish it recorded the polyphonic aftertouch of the hydrasynth pads on the initial record. Idk maybe it does and I just haven’t spent enough time tweaking the settings, but that would be really really nice. But other than that it’s brilliant.

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

Elektron Digitakt and iPad

I think my favorite things to bring, are my digitakt and/or my ipad. With a myvolts power cable, a portable charger and some samples, I could really make a whole album on the digitakt. Ipad also is very powerful and has so many music apps that I use in my recordings all the time. Some of my favorites are Spacecraft, Tardigrain and Fugue Machine.

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

Spacecraft app

I wish the Spacecraft app was a pedal or a feature of some groovebox. It’s this granular synth that you can record anything into and make beautifully textured ambient or noise soundscapes. You can get a wide range of sounds out of it. I seriously oftentimes don’t even bother with hi-fi samples and just use the ipad mic, because it just adds extra texture.

VCV rack

This one is kinda silly, but I wish VCV rack was hardware, like, it is hardware right? But the part of it that I want to bring into hardware is the low cost (haha) and also the ability to save patches and arrangements. Which I guess is the point of a modular synth, but still. I haven’t gone down the hardware modular synth rabbit hole yet, but I’ve been using VCV Rack as a way to learn exactly what I want from a system some day.

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

I regret selling my Digitone. It was a really great groovebox synth. I made a whole album on it, Sublunar Reverie, so I decided it was time to sell it and try something else out. Selling stuff is how I justify getting something new and making sure I actually really want the new thing. It went towards the Hydrasynth which I definitely don’t regret buying, but I just wish I had them both haha.

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

Hologram Electronics Microcosm

Hologram Microcosm for sure. I almost don’t want to bring it out when I’m working on something because I’ll spend hours tweaking the modes wondering if the next tweak might be even better than the last, but it all just sounds really great! I have a bit of a thing for granular gear can you tell?

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

I think learning a dynamic instrument like the clarinet was super important to the way I do music, even if I rarely bring it out now. Some folks have said that I have a sort of classical music dynamic going on with the kind of music I make and I probably agree with that. Second though, I’d probably get into synths rather than a guitar, maybe a groovebox like the Digitone or Digitakt if something like that had come out then.

Clarinet

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

Any piece of gear with cat hair on it, haha, no but for real though any connectivity stuff, cables, midi, bluetooth. I think I spend 1/3 my time reserved for making music just making sure things are connected correctly. My studio is not only used for music, but I do my freelance graphic design work there as well, so I can’t really have it all out and connected. In an ideal world things would just work ya know!? 

Cables of all colors

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

The random button on the Hydrasynth is wonderful. It will create a patch for you or you can tell it to scramble up a patch that you already have based on percentages. Sometimes the patches are too wild and I have a blast reeling them into something more palatable to use, but you can end up creating something that you wouldn’t have easily come up with any other way.

ASM Hydrasynth

Artist or Band name?

hissquiet

Genre?

Hmm… maybe ambient music that isn’t really background music? More dark ambient, drone or sometimes I like to get noisy and cinematic.

Selfie?

Ash Farrand aka. Hissquiet

Where are you from?

I grew up and live on the East Coast of the States currently, but I’ve been all over the States. The East Coast feels like home though.

How did you get into music?

I did the whole orchestra/marching band thing when I was younger, but more recently (5ish years ago) I got into music, because I found folks like Hainbach, Anne Annie, and Amulets back in the day when they were doing more “no talking” hardware jams and quickly got a DAW and a midi keyboard and the rest is history.

What still drives you to make music?

Music is my therapy, it allows me to express myself. I really enjoy getting lost in a moment while I’m improvising sound and everything else in the world kind of goes to the wayside for a few minutes. I do it for me first and if others happen to like it that’s a definite bonus.

How do you most often start a new track?

I can start with a sound that’s interesting to me which can kind of evolve into a certain mood all on its own or sometimes I already have a mood that I want to try to capture with a sound. From there I think about how adding effects or layers could elevate or evolve or contrast with what that mood. That’s usually how a track emerges; it’s very emotion-based.

How do you know when a track is finished?

There are 2 criteria for this. When it sounds perfect and there’s nothing I want to change about it or if it’s nearly perfect and I’m simply done working on it. Some might call that laziness, but I can be a bit of a perfectionist on some things so sometimes it’s just best to let go, nobody will notice.

Show us your current studio

Hissquiet studio
Hissquiet studio 2
Hissquiet studio 3

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

I had a rad guitar teacher that really introduced me to the idea that everything can be music. I remember he started riffing off of a fan that was making a rhythmic sound and it really opened my eyes to the possibilities of music.

Slot Drum

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

I’ve got some tapes available of my latest album Solastalgia with Mystery Circles: https://hissquiet.bandcamp.com/album/solastalgia

All the links are here on my website: https://hissquiet.com/


Andrea Cichecki – ElectrOrganic

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

Mutable Instruments Ripples

My favorite is the filter knob. I use it a lot, especially, when I’m recording live, either to create space or for creative effect. On the picture you can see the filter knob of my Mutable Instruments Ripples. Other ones I like are the function knobs, to dive into the menus of my devices. I need them in order to make everything work.

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

Blofeld synth

It always changes but, at this moment, I’m in love with the Waldorf Blofeld. I can produce full songs with it, as it has all the sounds I need in there. It’s small, so it fits easily in between my other gear. It would be great if it had more knobs to have more access at once, however, for the price, I really can’t complain at all.

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

Eurorack and buddies

That would be my Digitakt, Strymon Timeline, Big Sky, my modular synth, the ZoomTrack 8 mixer and my Beyerdynamic headphones. It’s all compact, fairly easy to set up, light weight to travel with and it all fits in one small suitcase. If it’s just a small trip, it’s usually my Digitakt as I can create a lot with that already.

Elektron Digitakt

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

I wish the Make Noise Morpaghene had a software version. The same would be the case for the Mutable Instruments Beads. Software I’d like as hardware: a Teletronix LA-2A compressor would be very welcome in my studio. I just love this compressor, especially, for my synth sounds. It’s a classic and it just works.

Mutable Instruments Beads

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

I’ve got little regret regarding gear I bought in the past. When I buy something I try it out and if I don’t use it a lot, I will sell it again to find something else. Until now, I don’t have regrets on sales either as my setup always improved for the better.

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

Soundcraft desk and Strymon FX

My Soundcraft desk. It took me a while to find out what works best for my workflow and the mixer is the main instrument, as I can route everything with each other, send signals in all directions, which makes it a lot more fun to record. I don’t need to worry anymore, think about how to connect things or route it, as it’s all set up and ready to go.

Soundcraft Desk

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

The book Patch and Tweak and piano lessons instead of the clarinet training. The book is a must if you want to work with synthesis, I learnt a lot from it and still read it regularly.

Bjooks Patch & Tweak

Piano lessons would have made my life easier in terms of composition. However, I’m slowly progressing with my compositions now and just give myself the time to learn. It’s never to late for that and every day you can learn something new.

[Editor: The author of Patch & Tweak did a interview on this very blog right here Kim Bjørn]

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

Euroack Patch Cables

My patch cables, they always lay everywhere in the house, but I cannot do without them. I recently bought a couple of nice patch cable hangers from Sector Sieben, this already helps a lot.

Even more Euroack Patch Cables!

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

Mackie Big knob

Get a monitor controller and establish two settings to listen at, one low listening level (you still can hear somebody whisper) and a higher level around 70-80dB SPL. I mostly listen on either of these two settings.

This way you train your ears and start to hear small differences when using compression, EQ or FX settings. Last but not least, the most important ‘trick’ is to A/B reference your song, level-matched, with either previous versions of your mix as well as other songs. You can easily fool your hearing by thinking louder is better and sometimes you may think you are doing a good job treating a sound, only to find out, after level matching, you did too many changes.

With level- matching you really hear what you do. Plugin Alliance has a good plugin for that (Metric AB) but you also can do this in your DAW and simply level match the different songs with each other.

Metric AB

Artist or Band name?

Andrea Cichecki

Genre?

Deep music such as ambient, big soundscapes, dub-techno and ‘immersive organic sounds’. I like to emulate nature with electronic gear.

Selfie?

Andrea Cichecki

Where are you from?

I’m originally from the Netherlands, but have been living in Germany since 2012. At first, I lived in Berlin and now in the countryside near Dresden. I moved there because of a beautiful recording studio called Castle Studios where I work as well.

How did you get into music?

When I was young, I started with the clarinet and played a lot of classical music. Around my 16th birthday, I fell in love with electronic music and started to collect vinyl and, eventually, became a DJ.

In my mid-twenties, I already wanted to learn audio engineering but, sadly, where I lived at the time, there was no audio school and no online education available. So I tried to meet people to find out how things work and learnt a lot by myself until later in my life, where I attended the Abbey Roads music production and audio engineering school.

Clarinet

What still drives you to make music?

It’s a very strong inner feeling, call it intuition that I have. I’ve done a lot of different things in my life for work already, but this feeling with music always came back, telling me that I need to make music and learn all I can about it. I try to just follow that intuition. My life has changed ever since I became a full time producer and audio engineer. It’s hard work, especially, when you need to build it up from scratch to make a living. It’s also a particular life style. You really need to want this, otherwise it doesn’t work. I gave many things up in order to do it, but also don’t regret it a minute.

How do you most often start a new track?

Mostly, I start with a sound or chord progression on a synth that inspires me. I choose the key I work in and just go with the flow. Sometimes a drum loop inspires me or a melody gives me a certain feel and then it depends. Generally, there are two ways of making music for me. Either, I create a live-set, which means that I let things flow a bit more and don’t work in a particular song structure. However, when I produce songs with something specific in mind, I’m very structured and try to follow the sections. It took me a long time to find out how to finish tracks and, working structured and in sections, was the best for me. That also goes for when I work with clients.

Most musicians have a structure in their music as well and it’s just easier to be able to work like that, to have the same language. Otherwise translating their needs can get complicated.

Ableton Template

How do you know when a track is finished?

When the deadline is there. 🙂 In general, when all elements of the song are there and work good together, than it’s time to mix. Usually, I already do a lot in pre-production stages, so that I can keep my mixes simple and effective.

Show us your current studio

Andrea’s Studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Have a lot of quality output, educate yourself and, if possible, learn from mentors that can guide you. This is what I started to do, I try to educate myself on everything to do with music, the industry, music business in general, producing and engineering, marketing and promotion, social media.

Having an understanding of the work you need to put in makes everything a lot easier, as you can plan along and are able to communicate with the people around you better. Having mentors in your life to learn from is very important, so that you can improve yourself and are able to ask for advice.

Socials:
https://www.andreacichecki.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/AndreaCichecki/
linktr.ee/AndreaCichecki
https://www.instagram.com/andrea_cichecki
https://www.facebook.com/AndreaCicheckiMusic
https://soundcloud.com/andrea-cichecki
https://castle-studios.com/