Tag: norns

Ivo V – V for Valdivielso

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

That’s the FREQ knob on the Serge VCFQ filter—pure magic for bass. I almost always run it in low-pass mode; it’s got this gritty, alive quality that roughs up even the simplest sounds in the best way. It’s a core part of my setup at this point. I’ve actually had to fix it twice from how much I push it… says a lot about how essential it’s become for me.

Serge filter freq knob

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

Definitely the Octatrack. It’s complex, versatile, and can do almost anything. Whether I’m using it as a performance mixer, sampler, looper, or effects unit, it adapts to whatever I need. It feels very “modular,” if that makes sense for eurorack users. I use it as the main hub for most of my projects, mixing different sources together.

Octatrack

Even though it came out in 2011, it still feels ahead of its time. People are still sharing new tips on forums regularly. Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s tricky to learn, but totally worth it. If you compare it to learning piano or guitar, getting comfortable with the Octatrack in a couple of years is a pretty good deal, haha.

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

iPad with AUM and Koala Sampler

It changes every year, but I always put a lot of care into it. There’s something I really enjoy about designing  a compact setup that still brings inspiration. A few of my favorite “holiday rigs” have been: 1) iPad 2) Laptop with Strudel, the browser-based TidalCycles 3) Monome Norns Shield + field recorder 

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

I’m a big fan of some of Hainbach’s iPad apps, especially Gauss Field Looper by Bram Bos. It’s a beautifully designed tape-style looper that’s super tactile and sounds incredible, especially with its built-in bit reducer, which adds a nice digital grit. I even recreated a similar patch on the Octatrack which does the job quite well.

Norns

On the other hand, I wish there was a desktop version of Monome Norns. It’s an amazing environment, but very tied to its hardware. I’d love to use some of those scripts on my laptop without needing the box.

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

Honestly, I don’t really have any regrets. When I first got into Eurorack, I bought a mix of modules from all sorts of brands. That phase helped me figure out what worked for me. Over time, I sold most of those and kept the ones that felt right.

Serge Eurorack

Now I mostly stick to systems built around Make Noise and Serge. It helps me stay focused and more creative. If I’m not using something, I pass it on. Gear should be played, not just sit on a shelf.

Make Noise Eurorack

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

Classical guitar. It’s not my most used instrument, but I really love its warm sound and how flexible it is. It was my first instrument, and even though I mostly stick to cowboy chords, it always feels good to play. No cables, no setup, just pick it up and go.

Classical Guitar Camps M6C

For my last album “Arquitectura”, I used a lot of flamenco-inspired phrases from maestro Pedro Javier González. They brought something really special to the music.

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

I’d keep it simple and affordable. You don’t need to spend a ton of money to make great music. If I were starting from scratch, these would be my essentials: 1) an iPad for sound design and recording, 2) a field recorder for capturing sounds, and 3) a sampler for building tracks and performing.

The iPad is super versatile. I use it with the AUM app as a mixer. To round it out, I’d add the Moog apps, especially Animoog Z and Minimoog, which sound great and are a good deal. I also use Koala, which is like a mini SP-404. For more experimental stuff, I love Hainbach’s apps like Gauss, Fluss, and Noises. For live setups, I’d add a basic audio interface (I use the Roland GO:Mixer) and a MIDI controller (like the Akai Midimix). You can get the whole iPad setup for under €500.

Olympus recorder, Roland GO:Mixer and Akai Midimix.

For a field recorder, any Zoom, Tascam, or Olympus will do. I use a Zoom H4n and an Olympus LS-11. Both work great, I even found the Olympus used for just €60.

As for a sampler, Koala app might be enough on its own, but if there’s room in the budget, I’d go for a newer Akai MPC (Live or One). They’re powerful for both sound design and live performance, packed with solid synths and strong sampling features. For non-experimental music, I’d even pick one over my beloved Octatrack.

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

The Monome Norns Shield is a super powerful little box, with an amazing community behind it (shoutout to the Lines forum). I’m not a coder, so I know I’m not using it to its full potential, but even without coding, it can do so much.

Some scripts can be a bit tricky, with menu diving and button combos, but it’s totally worth it. A few of my favorites are:

  • benjolis – a digital Benjolin
  • dronecaster – great for thick drones
  • icarus – Monotron Delay-style synth
  • molly_the_poly – Juno-6-style synth with random patches
  • oooooo – six-voice tape-style looper
  • passersby – a West Coast-style synth voice

All of these have made it into my albums. That said… I fried mine. Tried to fix a broken encoder and ended up burning the PCB. Thinking about upgrading to the full Norns now instead of just the Shield.

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

Honestly, I’m a bit late to this, but I’m really into feedback and making sound without external inputs. Lately, I’ve been having fun patching my small Euro Serge without using oscillators. It’s not just about music, it’s about exploring sound and how different devices work together. It feels like finding the machine’s soul.😀

Artist or Band name?

Ivo V. My active projects are Les Eines (The Tools), a solo project influenced by ambient, west coast synthesis, and musique concrète, and Refugi de Fauna Salvatge (Wildlife Refuge), a collective project. We use live coding tools (Tydal Cycles, Supercollider), trumpet, modular synths, and samplers. Crazy stuff!

Genre?

abstract electronic, alien folk, kosmische.

Selfie?



Ivó Valdivielso aka. Ivo V

Where are you from? 

I’m from Barcelona, though I currently live on the outskirts, in the Baix Llobregat area. It’s a nice place full of creativity and great cultural initiatives.

How did you get into music?

I started teaching myself guitar. Since I couldn’t find any bandmates, I began making backing tracks with a free software called “Dance Ejay” that came on a CD-ROM in a box of cereal. It was a cheap way to start!

What still drives you to make music?

Music makes me feel alive! I love learning new techniques, meeting new artists, and designing new projects. It helps to keep me balanced.

How do you most often start a new track?

I usually start with some samples, like a field recording, a guitar phrase, or a blip-blop from the modular system. I load them into the Octatrack and start jamming until it “clicks.”

How do you know when a track is finished? 

I stay focused when creating tracks. Usually, the tracks are part of a bigger project, so they need to meet certain requirements. I do a lot of prep work: field research, interviews, sound decisions. By the time I start making a track, I know what I want. I’m not a big fan of post-production; I prefer doing most of the work in pre-production and creating with intention.

Show us your current studio

Ivo V’s studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

There’s a time for buying gear and a time for making music. Keep the phases separated for maximum creativity.

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

This is my last album from my solo project, Les Eines

And this is something very special. The Experimental Protest Song Device (DCPX) is the result of a collective creation process, drawing from poetry and computer code, science and activism. It is published by Discs noIA, an online record label for artists with a critical or confrontational attitude towards AI. Their website cannot be scraped by AI bots!

https://www.discs-noia.cat/dcpx-disc

Simon Thomas – MosaicTapes

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

Mannequins by Whimsical Raps

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with gear and regularly purge almost everything, but there are a few bits that bring so much value to me that I think they are here to stay. The Mannequins modules by Whimsical Raps are such examples, and the ‘big’ knobs on them are so smooth and lovely. They’re really fun to play around with (especially the one on Silhouette).

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

I don’t think I do have anything even approaching perfect, to be honest! There are some bits that provide unique value, like the Cocoquantus, and for me I think I prefer having a select number of pieces that make up a ’near perfect’ picture rather than having to rely on one thing.  

Cocoquantus

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

I rarely make music on the go – I like to create in a quite private way, so making music while commuting feels a bit distracting and uncomfortable. I have taken my laptop on holiday before; I’m a big fan of Max, and patches like ppooll and Leafcutter John’s Forester, have both been really important to me creatively. I also have a young son, so our holidays are really busy, so having my laptop allows me to get going on something very quickly with very little other dependencies. 

Max device Ppooll

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

I absolutely would love to see a hardware version of Slate + Ash’s Cycles. That thing is amazing, and having a stand alone box would genuinely be the stuff of dreams.

Slate + Ash’s Cycles

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

As I said before, I often sell everything, and I don’t think I regret much, if any. The only thing that comes to mind is a lovely Telecaster which I think I may have had around 2008, and sold probably in 2012. 

Fender Telecaster

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

Without a doubt Max MSP (does that count?) I never make music with hardware – it’s a tool for performance for me, and all my music is made in on my laptop. 

I remember when my son was born, I had a 6U/104hp Eurorack case, and I would try to carve out time to make something using it, as I felt insanely guilty for having spent all this money on something which wasn’t being used. Looking back, it felt like a real struggle to get it all out, patch it up, find a spare surface to work on and then try and muster some creative energy. I think within a year I had maybe 2 or 3 half-baked ideas. 

Norns and Grid

There was this thread on Lines about non-traditional DAW like environments (or something like that), and Forester was listed on there. It cost £45 so I decided to give it a go, and within two or three days I had made my first album, The Children of Several Famous Geophysicists. On top of it being creatively freeing, I also felt like I had discovered my sound. I jumped into ppooll soon after that and that became totally indispensable for me (helps that my heroes Fennesz and Tim Hecker both use it). 

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

Definitely a laptop – there’s so many cool things to explore; not just Max, but things like Tidal Cycles – there are endless possibilities, and most of them are free! If not, I’d go for a Norns – you can pick up a Shield relatively cheaply and there are so many amazing scripts to explore… plus you can record to the hard drive.

Norns Shield and Grid

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

That’s an incredibly difficult question – I tend to get rid of things that I find annoying. With that in mind though, I’d probably say my guitar – I’d obviously never get rid of it as I dearly love it, but I think my annoyance comes from my poor technical ability. I also think that as a sound-making device, I find it hard to make it sound like anything other than a guitar, which I find frustrating. 

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

It’s not gear specific, but re-amping things I think is a really cool trick to transform sounds into something new, especially using ‘crappy’ recording devices – iPhones, cassette players, children’s toys (especially if broken). Magic.  

Artist or Band name?

I make music as Mosaic Tapes

Genre?

‘Ambient’ although I don’t really like that term. Soundscapism? I dunno, it’s all pretty reductive. 

Selfie?

MosiacTapes aka. Simon Thomas

Where are you from?

I live just outside of London

How did you get into music?

My dad was always into music – he had loads of CDs, and my Uncle was a pretty successful musician – he was the guitarist of a band called Charlie and produced the album Dangerous Age by Bad Company as well as working with 3 Colours Red and The Yo Yos. He taught me and my brother how to play guitar, and when I was 16 and my brother was 14 we started a band. We did a couple of UK tours and supported some pretty decent bands, but broke up in 2007. I still think the songs are great; my brother is a world-class song writer and it shows in everything he has done since. 

What still drives you to make music?

I have a compulsion; I have to be creative or I get frustrated and down. I’ve been playing live more this year than before, so I have been focusing on my live set and creating less, but it still scratches the itch for me. 

How do you most often start a new track?

Usually it will start with an interesting sample that I have made in Cycles, or have discovered, and then I will warp that out of all recognition and then start layering other bits on top of it. 

How do you know when a track is finished?

All of my tracks are done in a single take, so it’s done when I run out of steam and everything fades away. It’s a really useful way of not over engineering ideas.

Show us your current studio

Sadly, I don’t have the space for a studio, so I usually just commandeer the dining table. 

MosaicTapes desktop studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

If you have creative block, don’t try and force it – it’ll only make you feel worse. Go for a walk and it’ll come back to you. 

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

I released a track with Jogging House recently: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/is-this-single/1793909231 

And my album Beloved Algorithms came out last December: https://lontanoseries.bandcamp.com/album/beloved-algorithms 

Marc Weidenbaum – Disquiet

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

Faderfox DJ44

The knobs on the Faderfox DJ44 are, to me, the pinnacle, but what do I know? Faderfox does such great work with its range of devices, and this one, in its little metal case, is an exceptional example of attention to detail. When I read your question a few years ago, when you first sent me the interview request, the DJ44 was my immediate thought — and it remains my answer to this day. I mention it with a sense of the bittersweet, because I’m likely going to trade my DJ44 at some point, because I just don’t use it as much as I used to, but in any case it’s a fantastic device.

FaderFox DJ44 Top view

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

I love the Norns from Monome. I had the original Norns, the one with the metal case, which I bought used, but couldn’t really justify the cost, even used, so I sold it and bought a Norns Shield, which is a cheaper version that lacks a battery, among other differences. I had two Norns Shields for a while but sold one of them. There is now a larger Norns Shield called the Norns Shield XL, which I may trade up to at some point. My choice here of the Norns is a bit of a cheat since the Norns is essentially a tiny little computer that can run a wide array of software scripts, and the Norns isn’t just the Norns itself — it’s also that ever-growing library of open-source scripts that people write for the Norns, and the community of people themselves. In any case, the Norns is fantastic. What would I change about it? Honestly, nothing. 

If I can give a second answer: I love the full line of Buddha Machines and I use them a lot for music-making. 

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

I’ve pretty much always got an iPad with me. I purchased a used Traveler Guitar Ultra-Light Acoustic last year on a visit to Portland, and it is very easy to bring on a trip. Despite being tiny, it has a full fretboard with an acoustic piezo pickup. I was in Los Angeles for a few days for a friend’s memorial service at the start of winter, and I had a recuperative time in the hotel room with just the guitar, a little Orange amp (the PPC108), my iPad, and the 8mu from Tom Whitwell’s ingenious line of Music Thing Modular instruments. (I played a small role in the development of the 8mu. Whitwell says he started on the project when he read a tweet of mine in 2019 that went: “Isn’t there some sorta readily available very small MIDI controller, like the size of a cellphone, with a couple buttons, a couple faders, a couple knobs?” The 8mu is what resulted.)

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

I’d love for the handheld Dirtywave M8 Tracker (no relation to the abovementioned 8mu) to be available as software. I think I read somewhere that such a port may yet happen. I certainly appreciate Renoise, the long-running tracker software, but I don’t think it’d be disrespectful of me to suggest the Renoise interface can be a tad overwhelming. The M8 is, in truth, menu-heavy in its own way, but I’d sure love to be able to use it on my laptop. I would have said the Monome Teletype, but that finally happened on VCV Rack, so I’ll go with another, simpler answer, which is I’d love for the Ornament and Crime module to be a VCV Rack module — and that would include the Hemisphere Suite alternate firmware and, heck, all the alternate firmware options. A funny thing happened in the years since you first sent this list of questions to me, which is that so many great physical synthesizer modules have been ported to VCV Rack, as a result of which this question was more difficult to answer today than it would have been back in 2020. 

As for the reverse, from software to hardware, that’s an even more difficult question, because a lot of my favorite software, such as the Borderlands app, isn’t purely software; these are tools that work because of the physical interface on which they run. An app like Borderlands already is hardware, in a manner of speaking, because it runs on an iPad. However, a distinction can be made between a piece of software-driven hardware that will work until the thing breaks, like a guitar pedal with firmware, versus a piece of software that is dependent on a separate operating system, such as iPadOS in the case of Borderlands, that may break the software when the OS updates and the old hardware on which it ran is sunsetted. Any number of iOS apps fall into the latter category. 

In addition some software, like the Koala app, already have physical parallels in hardware: if I want Koala in standalone hardware form, I could just get an Roland SP-404 (I do want to try the MK II, which does a bunch of stuff the Teenage Engineering EP-133 K.O. II doesn’t). I love Samplr, which also falls into the Borderlands category of being iPad-specific. I love SuperCollider, but it requires a computer keyboard and a screen — I wonder what “hardware SuperCollider” might even mean, right? In many ways, SuperCollider is as tied to a keyboard as Koala, Samplr, and Borderlands are tied to iPadOS. So, no, there isn’t really a piece of software that I wish was hardware. 

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

I had two Technics SL-1200 turntables and a mixer many years ago, and I sold them as our family grew and our home seemed to get smaller. I miss them, but I also couldn’t justify the space, and I still couldn’t today. There’s some regret in that, but also a healthy dose of realism. I trade gear with some regularity, and it feels like pieces are always in flux, so I don’t regret anything I have passed on. If I wasn’t using something enough, then it’s best being with someone else who can make use of it. In fact, I currently have a few instruments on semi-permanent loan from other people who can’t quite part with them but don’t have the space or need for them. 

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

To keep it simple: the OG Ditto Looper. Or more to the point, a handful of them in combination with my electric guitar.

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

The process has been inherently exploratory for me, and it remains so. I probably wouldn’t do anything differently in particular, unless I had started much earlier or much later. For example, had VCV Rack existed before I got into modular, I’d probably have proceeded in a different manner.

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

That question pretty much sums up my mixer, a Mackie 1202VLZ4. It’s called a “compact mixer,” but it’s only compact if your sense of reality has been warped by too much time in professional recording studios, which mine hasn’t. The thing seems absurdly large for the amount that I use it, but a mixer is essential and I’m not sure what I could use that’s smaller. I need a lot of ins and outs in a mixer. And that doesn’t count a pair of audio interfaces I use. Maybe there’s a patchbay I could use in its place somehow? Maybe the Teenage Engineering TX-6? (It does pack in six stereo inputs, but it’s priced a bit out of my realm.) Maybe I could combine an Expert Sleepers ES-9 with a mixer module and that’d do it? Maybe, as a friend recommended, I should just trade down for a smaller Mackie, the 802VLZ4, or an equivalent from another manufacturer. Maybe someone reading this will have a recommendation. 

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

Hooking a microphone up to the Dirtywave M8 Tracker was, as the saying goes, game-changing for me. As a result, I wasn’t surprised to read that the second generation of the M8 will in fact include a microphone. 

Artist or Band name?

Marc Weidenbaum, Disquiet

Genre?

Ambient, field recordings, noise

Selfie?

Marc Weidenbaum

Where are you from?  

I was raised in the same house on Long Island from when I was about a week or so old until I left for college. I moved to California after college — first to Sacramento, where I worked for Tower Records as an editor on its music magazines (Pulse!, Classical Pulse!, and epulse), and then to San Francisco. I’ve lived in San Francisco’s Richmond District ever since, except for four fantastic years in New Orleans.

How did you get into music?  

I listened to the radio a lot as a kid. I didn’t have much spending money, so the radio was my connection to music. At some point my younger sister’s friend took pity on me and gave me, with her mom’s permission, a bunch of her own Beatles records, which had been hand-me-downs from her mom in the first place, I think. I dove in, and I never fully re-emerged: it’s safe to say that listening to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on repeat as a teenager rewired my brain. By the time I was finishing high school I had branched out — Talking Heads, King Crimson, Funboy Three, stuff like that. I wrote for a campus music magazine when I was attending college, and by the time I left school I wanted to write full time about music. As the years went on, I came to recognize I’m as interested, if not more interested, in sound than in music on its own. As I think the philosopher Chistoph Cox put it, music is a subset of sound. That’s where my head is at.

What still drives you to make music?  

Curiosity mostly. As someone who primarily writes, I’m fascinated by the idea of communicating non-verbally. Related topic: making music is way more social than writing is. Also, using instruments has helped me understand more deeply the music I write about, and playing has informed the collaborations I do with musicians, as well as the occasions when I interview musicians and other people who work in sound.

How do you most often start a new track?  

I’m usually trying to approximate a combination of sound and signal flow that originates in my head — or more to the point, in my mind’s ear.

How do you know when a track is finished?  

My skills are pretty limited, so I know when something has gotten to where I can’t usefully push it any further. I pretty much stop at the “sketch” phase every time. I think my listening may prefer sketches, as well, come to think of it.

Show us your current studio  

I don’t have a studio, just a few Eurorack cases on a bookshelf by the edge of my desk. Most everything else I keep in a closet and pull out as I need it.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?  

Play something every day. (For me currently that is mostly practicing guitar and trying to become vaguely fluent in SuperCollider.)

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

I’ll mention two things: 

First, I moderate an ongoing music community called the Disquiet Junto. Since the first week of January 2012, each Thursday I have sent out a music composition prompt. As of the first week of January 2024, we had reached 627 such prompts, and the Junto keeps going every week. Musicians from around the world participate. I encourage people to sign up and give it a try. You can learn more at disquiet.com/junto. 

Second, I publish an email newsletter called This Week in Sound. It’s for fellow listeners interested in the role sound plays in culture, technology, politics, science, ecology, business, storytelling, warfare, art, society, and anywhere else it might resonate.