Unusable Engineering Curves & MembranesCurves & Membranes is a one-oscillator mono synth built around Bézier wave shaping, orbital modulation, and a membrane-style filter model. The idea was not to make a synth that does everything, but to make a smaller instrument where the few core parts actually behave in interesting ways. It is monophonic on purpose. I did not want to lower oversampling or update rates, because I did not want to compromise the sound. I also did not feel any need to add more oscillators when the one that is there already does enough interesting things on its own. The smaller structure also makes the interface easier to grasp, and to me the limitation makes it more attractive, not less. The oscillator uses a repeating single-cycle Bézier waveform. You shape it by moving handles and midpoint rather than selecting from a fixed set of waveforms. From there, the synth runs two modulation concepts in parallel: an 8-slot wave preset bank with slew and clocked stepping, and independent orbital modulators for each point and handle. In the filter stage, 32 membrane lanes react to LP, BP, and HP actuator points in parallel, with damping, tension, width, emphasis, and keyboard tracking changing the response. A big part of the point is that the sound and the visuals reflect the same thing. The oscillator shape, the modulation movement, and the filter behavior are all part of the same core idea, so what you see on screen is not just decoration pasted on top. It works especially well for bass lines with movement, expressive mono leads, and long evolving drone material. You can keep it simple and musical, or push it much further with wave sequencing and orbital motion. Even with a lot of movement, the synth is designed to stay pitch-stable and playable. There are no preset system included. The thinking there is simple: if the interface is clear enough, you should be able to make your own sounds without starting from a giant preset browser. Randomization is also a big part of the workflow. The modulation systems are built to make exploration fast, not precious. Highlights: One-oscillator mono synth. Bézier single-cycle oscillator. None, Clip, and Fold wave distortion modes. 8-slot Wave Preset Bank with slew. Internal or host-clocked wave sequencing. Independent orbital modulators for each point and handle. 32-lane membrane filter with LP, BP, and HP actuators. Direct interface with no hidden panels or secondary pages. Videos Full walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgsCDjBzLlk Sounds / patch ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4qDD3YghU Read More

This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion soundsOne of the wackiest synths to come out of this year’s Superbooth is the Cyma Forma RND, which boasts a single large button on its front face and not much else in terms of controls.
But don’t be put off by its somewhat limited user interface; though it’s a synth designed to make you “stop playing, start listening”, the RND is actually surprisingly capable…

READ MORE: Reel is a $10 app that turns your iPhone into a 4-track tape recorder – and it’s already hit No.1 on the App Store

Developed in collaboration with French musical artist Bambounou, the Cyma Forma RND has a singular button, but there’s loads going on behind the scenes.
The RND is built around eight different synthesis engines: subtractive, FM, acid, noise, speech, Karplus-Strong, supersaw and additive. With each push of the button, four of these are layered and run their own unique sequence.
Each time the centre button is pressed, each of these parameters is randomised. “Press again. It’s gone, forever. Something new exists in its place,” says Cyma Forma.

The synth also comes with five filter types plus a reverb effect. It’s not entirely clear how the user is supposed to play with these, but the unit has a surprisingly comprehensive I/O setup – with four-track audio output over USB-C, four-channel MIDI in and out, 9 MIDI modes, MIDI clock in and out, analogue sync in and out, and a stereo mix output – so we’d imagine the answer lies there.
Also a benefit of the above I/O is while the synth is billed as ‘press once, previous sound gone forever’, you can record any sound into a DAW while you have it.
Credit: Cyma Forma
The number of parameter combinations resulting from the eight synth engines isn’t quite infinite, but for all intents and purposes, it’s close, with over four billion sounds available…
Availability & pricing
The Cyma Forma RND is available to preorder now, priced at $150 / £111. Shipping is expected in late June. You can also buy a flex case for an additional $66.
The RND will be available to check out at Berlin’s Superbooth this week, at booth Z245.
Learn more at Cyma Forma.
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Polyend Drums hybrid drum machine Polyend's latest release Drums features eight tracks designed for creating percussion using analogue voices, digital synthesis methods or sample-based instruments.

Reel is a $9.99 app that turns your iPhone into a 4-track tape recorder – and it’s already hit No.1 on the App StoreIf your voice notes app is overflowing with half-finished hooks, synth jams and “don’t forget this riff” recordings, this might be the iPhone music tool you’ve been waiting for.
Built by Bristol-based developer Tug, Reels is a tape-style 4-track field recorder for iPhone designed to make capturing ideas feel fast, tactile and weirdly addictive.

READ MORE: Ninajirachi still doesn’t have any “professional” music gear

Aimed at musicians, DJs, songwriters, podcasters and field recordists, Reel strips mobile recording back to the essentials.
Big transport buttons mirror a traditional tape machine, while a chunky jog wheel lets you scrub through recordings at variable speed like you’re handling actual tape. Record, rewind, overdub, loop, punch in and out – it’s all designed for muscle memory and immediacy, with an interface that’s made to feel “just like tape”.
The app supports up to four tracks at 32-bit float and up to 96 kHz, allowing for archive-quality recordings without clipping concerns. Connect a class-compliant USB-C audio interface and Reel automatically routes stereo input pairs to tracks on first connection, so you can start recording almost instantly.
It’s also refreshingly free of modern app bloat. There’s no subscription model, no account setup and no mandatory cloud features – unless you actually want it. Instead, Reel is designed as a quick-capture tool for everything from hardware jams and DJ sets to field recordings, vinyl archiving and tracking live instruments on the move.
Credit: 24bit Studio
Recordings save locally by default, with optional iCloud Drive sync and easy export as AIFF or WAV files via the iOS share sheet. Stems can be AirDropped into your DAW, sent to Dropbox or fired into a group chat in a couple of taps.
There’s more. Reel continues running in the background, meaning recordings won’t stop if you lock your phone or switch apps mid-session – something anyone who’s accidentally lost a great take will certainly appreciate.
Describing Reel as a “pocket swiss army recorder”, Tug says the app was built as an alternative to traditional DAW workflows.
“Whip it out in the field for a quick capture, or hook your hardware setup up to your phone and hit record for proper multitrack,” he explains. “The whole idea is to keep the limitations of tape, make it feel as nice as hardware, and not make you learn anything to get going.”
Reel is available now via the App Store as a one-time purchase priced at $9.99/£9.99/€9.99. The first 500 buyers will also receive “Founder” status, unlocking lifetime access to future premium add-ons and beta features. And it’s already taking off; at the time of writing, it sits at the No.1 spot on the UK App Store Top Paid Music chart…
Learn more at Reel Audio. 
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Everything you need to know about Superbooth 2026Superbooth is returning to Berlin for another weekend filled with music tech galore. Heavy hitters such as Korg, Moog, and Novation will be on site, but there will also be offerings for more niche companies pedaling their latest secrets to get that extra bit of magic in your tracks. Read on for all the information you need to make the most out of your time in the synth wonderland.

READ MORE: Ableton Live 12.4 has arrived – here’s everything you need to know

Background
Superbooth was first held in 2017. It was launched by instrument makers SchneidersLaden, growing from the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt.
When and where?
7-9 May at FEZ Centre in Berlin. Head to Superbooth’s website to purchase tickets. The convention is open to the public for any synth nerd to join in on the fun. Three-day tickets are €100 and single-day tickets are €41.
Who’s there and what’s happening?
Superbooth is a trade show similar to the NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants), with a greater emphasis on synths and production gear. Tech brands often announce new gear at Superbooth.
Some of the brands making an appearance are Elektron, Arturia, Teenage Engineering, Korg, Polyend, Novation, Sequential, and Roland. Modular lovers can check out products from Make Noise, Buchla, Tiptop Audio, and Intellijel. The Superbooth site features the full list of exhibitors, so you can know exactly what you want to play with while you’re there.
In addition to showcasing products, there will be workshops where attendees can have some fun working directly with the new gear. Some of the individual workshops are sold out, though, so check out the full schedule to see what’s still available. 
For some dancing in between all the exploring, Superbooth programming also includes live performances from Monolake (aka Ableton co-creator Robert Henke), DJ/producer Polygonia, and Rødhåd’s WSNWG project featuring Lady Starlight.
Get your tickets for Superbooth 2026 at the event’s official website.
The post Everything you need to know about Superbooth 2026 appeared first on MusicTech.

“Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?”: Collect 200 talk synths, samples and letting the strongest parts of your tracks speak for themselvesWorking between LA and Toronto, producers and musicians Stevie Appleton and Nick Henriques have a refreshing approach to producing with the software and hardware they have access to. They often start the songwriting process with a live jam, then refine the arrangement as they go, being guided by feeling rather than convention. When it comes to mixing, they keep it natural, sometimes replacing MIDI parts with real synths, and a beloved vintage bass guitar.

READ MORE: Sound, science and structure: how Max Cooper unravels the cosmos

Having racked up over 17 million streams to date, thanks to their creative approach, we catch up with them to hear about their process and what their plans for live performance and a second album look like.
Hi Stevie and Nick. You work together as Collect 200 but you both have long careers as songwriters and producers. How did you come to collaborate initially?
We were familiar with each other’s work in the dance space and had been trying to get together, I suppose, to write something for someone else. But we met at Miami Music Week and spent nearly a week hanging out before writing our first song, which happened to be Mixed Emotions, on the last day of the trip.
Image: Press
Your single Goodbye is the latest in a series of releases since last year that have racked up an amazing 17.5 million streams. There’s clearly a market for uplifting, feel-good music – but what else do you attribute this success to?
Quite honestly, the music is extremely authentic to both of us, written more off a certain feeling rather than aiming at ‘catchy’ or a commercial route. There’s a chance that some people are seeking more and more of that these days in a world where you can press a few buttons and it generates a song. We like to think this music feels very human, which is a crazy thing to need to explain!
Your debut album, Everything Will Be Alright, is out now. What is the concept behind the album and can you share a little about how you approached it as a project – how it came together?
The album really felt like a journey of discovery and optimism to us. A lot of the songs were written about some harder times that came good, some new beginnings, even about the project itself. But deep down, we had a sense that things work out the way they are supposed to in life, and that sentiment fit with the energy of the music so well.
You are planning your debut live shows – can you share any details about what we can expect to see and hear from them?
We play live as a duo using Ableton and adding live vocals, keys, loops and FX. So it’s definitely quite far from a DJ set, but we like to keep the energy pretty consistent, bar a few breaks in the set to make it feel more in the lane where you can just vibe and flow with it. We’re very happy with the energy the live sets have been bringing so far.
Image: Press
Tell us a bit about your studio.
We work both independently, between LA and Toronto, and of course together. The workflow is great, there’s a really solid crossover in our skill sets. Stevie is more on the musical side; he has lots of vintage synths — a Prophet 6, Juno, plus guitars. Nick has a great studio in Toronto, and that’s where the records end up being finished.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
One of the secret (or not so secret) recipes was buying a 1968 Hofner bass. It immediately works, with few FX needed – it’s so round and warm. It’s been the backbone to the feel of the album, actually. A great plugin we’ve been using on our drums is Orion by Cradle, which is perfect for glueing drums together.
What’s the best free plugin you own?
For sure I’d say the Softube Saturation Knob. It adds nice subtle analogue weight to the sound and is especially good for bass – it instantly glues it together.
Image: Press
What’s been the biggest investment in your career/studio?
Vintage synths for sure. At the end of the album process, on a lot of the plugin synths, we then replace them with Super6, Prophet and Juno 106. We’ll do a lot of passes messing with LFOs and cutoffs. It’s very fun and you know what you have is a one-of-one. There is a BBE Sonic Maximizer and 2 classic blue stripe Universal Audio 1176 compressors at one of the studios we use in Toronto, and a lot of the records on the album have had stems run through those to put that final polish on them. I think we need more of those.
Your tracks all lock into a really infectious groove. Do you get that from playing live instruments, from samples or quantisation? Or some combination of all the above?
We use a lot of dusty drums samples that have little swing moments in them that really bring songs to life. On top of that we will play some live guitar and keys without quantizing too much to leave that slight human error in timing. On top of that, the natural grooviness is something that we go to when writing, so a lot of it comes from the ‘jam’ at the beginning of the songwriting process.
Image: Press
Your mixes sound rich and full and yet there’s space in there – they don’t sound overcrowded. What techniques do you use – maybe with regard to EQ and compression – to achieve that effect?
We like to approach the mixes by trying to do the least amount to achieve the best result. We really believe in simple, broad movements when it comes to EQ, reverb, and saturation – less is more. Pick the things in the record that are confident and allow them to be confident while having the rest in support of them.
How do you see your sound and studio evolving in the next two years?
For the second album which we’re currently writing, our dream was always to have live strings, horns and drums. It will likely come at the end of the writing process, but we’re 100% going to find the best place to capture that authentic vintage soul sound rather than imitate it with samples and plugins. Basically it’s a case of making our own samples!
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
In the dream studio, we’d have a perfectly mic’d up drumkit and percussion rig going through a Neve console, with perfect vintage mics set up and ready to go. I think drums are such a crucial part of any mix, especially in our world. And having access to layering dance loops with something like that 70s drummer sound would be everything to us.

What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
We’re pretty focused on not mixing the record like dance records, not scooping out a lot of the low mids, so that it sounds good on a DJ stage. For us, that’s where the warmth and the ‘hug’ as we like to call it sits. It’s a huge case of trial and error to get the balance, but a lot of mix engineers will just wipe out that frequency, and for us, that’s where a lot of the feeling is. We like to throw out a lot of “mixing rules”, and go 100 per cent based on feeling. Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career? Can you tell us about how it impacted you?
Someone said to us recently in this album 2 process, ‘the most important thing for us to do is follow our intuition rather than try and copy what we did in album 1, as tempting as it is’. It’s actually crucial, otherwise you end up not writing from the heart again, and lose what we believe the magic of the music to be. So with that in mind, we are going to be free in the writing and even in style, and go where the process takes us without comparing too much to our previous songs!
The post “Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?”: Collect 200 talk synths, samples and letting the strongest parts of your tracks speak for themselves appeared first on MusicTech.

Barry Diller trusts Sam Altman. But ‘trust is irrelevant’ as AGI nears, he says.Barry Diller defended OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while warning that AGI remains an unpredictable force needing guardrails.

US Senator says crypto market structure vote could happen by AugustKirsten Gillibrand said that the US Senate had to address lawmakers potentially getting “rich off of these industries because of their insider status“ before any vote on the CLARITY Act.

Direct FDM Printing with GranulesThe idea of FDM 3D printing using granules rather than filament is an appealing one: rather than having to wrangle spools of filament that need to adhere to strict dimensions and cannot be too flexible, you can instead just keep topping up a big hopper with fresh granules. This is what [HomoFaciens] has been tinkering with for a while now, with their Direct Granules Extruder V7.0 showing significant improvements.
There’s also an accompanying article, with details of previous granule extruder attempts detailed on the same site. Many of the improvements here focus on making sure the granules melt properly before they reach the end of the extruder, with the auger screw helping to push things along. While this seems straightforward, there are many details to get right, with the previous v6.2 version having issues like the hot plastic backing up into the cold section and clogging things up.
For the test bench a Prusa Mk4 FDM printer is used, with the standard extruder swapped for the experimental extruder. On the extruder the cold, top part is water cooled to ensure it stays cold, with each turn of the wood-screw-turned-auger providing the right extrusion speed. As can be seen with the print tests, the results look pretty good despite the extruder not having been tuned yet.
If you want to give it a shot yourself, the article page provides files for download.

Shed Valley Labs Chief LP-2Chief LP-2 is a free, 2-channel audio looper for Windows, built for live performance. It pairs a precise audio engine with a fast recording workflow - tap a tempo, record a loop, and it locks to the bar automatically. Core features: - 2 independent loop channels with per-channel gain, mute, and input mute - MIDI learn on all controls - Direct Host VST-instruments (VSTI) and record the output as audio - Metronome-locked recording: loops snap to bar boundaries automatically - Count-in and fixed-length recording modes - Overdub with configurable decay - 1 mute group for instant channel muting - 1 programmable macro button (trigger multiple channel actions in one keystroke or MIDI message) - Per-channel VST3 plugin insert - Per-channel routing: choose any hardware input/output, with mono output option - MIDI clock master and slave (beta) - Chromatic tuner - Song settings save/load - Song templates (save/apply a default rig setup). Coming soon: Upgrade to the Chief LP-6, featuring 6 channels, 4 mute groups, 5 macros, A/B/C sections, and a built-in lyrics/chords screen. Read More

How to make ambient music: Tools and techniques
Learn how to make ambient music that's immersive, expressive, and ever-evolving via our in-depth guide.

Sony in advanced talks to buy Blackstone’s Recognition Music for up to $4B, reports BloombergThe acquisition would be made through Sony's music rights-buying JV with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, the news outlet reported
Source

Ninajirachi still doesn’t have any “professional” music gearEver since Ninajirachi landed the cover of MusicTech, the Australian-born DJ and producer has been on a whirlwind run. She recently completed her debut tours of the UK and Europe, she closed out the intimate Sonora stage at Coachella 2026, and her debut album, I Love My Computer (2025), has earned millions of streams.
And yet, despite this rapid, vigorous ascension, the title of her album is quite literal when it comes to her production. To clarify, the artist, real name is Nina Wilson, still only uses her computer to produce.

READ MORE: Ableton Live 12.4 has arrived – here’s everything you need to know

“All of my muscle memory is here now with the trackpad,” she tells Mixmag in a recent interview. “I’ve never learned to use gear like synthesisers or MIDI machines, it was just always laptop music.” She goes on to refer to in-the-box production as her “first language”, and that so far it hasn’t been necessary for her to expand beyond it.
Her current DAW is Ableton Live, and before that, it was FL Studio, but she got her start on the entry-level laptop-friendly DAW: GarageBand.
On her episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast, she went into detail on how she fumbled through those early days to her immense success:
“I would just loop the stock loops and record over the top through the MacBook microphone. A lot of the first recordings, I didn’t know how to turn the metronome off, so it would be just completely out of time with everything I was recording over the top. I still have a bunch of those old recordings.
“I eventually started using different software when I got into electronic music when I was in early high school, like maybe about 12 years old. And I realised I kind of needed something more powerful if I wanted to make sounds like the ones I was hearing in my favourite songs.”
While she continues to use software to make those sounds, she is also expanding her musical toolkit. Namely, she has started doing a lot of singing on her tracks.
“I can now use my voice like an instrument for songwriting and not feel embarrassed about it,” Wilson says. “I remember when I first started collaborating with people, I wouldn’t sing even if I had the ideas because I figured that I just couldn’t sing. But I manipulate my voice so much because of that insecurity – it’s something I want to get past.”
Wilson has confirmed she is working on new music, including a song with her hero, Porter Robinson. Those songs may not feature any fancy outboard gear, but they will represent her persisting growth as an artist.
The post Ninajirachi still doesn’t have any “professional” music gear appeared first on MusicTech.

Focusrite: Designing The ISA C8X Audio Interface Learn about the history of the Focusrite ISA preamp circuit, explain what makes it special, and lay bare the intensive development process behind the first ISA audio interface.

SCALER on remixing their music for stage, the Novation Peak, and 200 channels of basement re-ampingAd feature with Novation
Hailing proudly from Bristol, England, four-piece experimental band SCALER have spent the past decade fusing metal, techno and trip-hop, both onstage and in the studio. Their latest album, 2025’s Endlessly, is an intricate collage of metallic synths, thumping percussion and, crucially, rich vocal parts from five different local collaborators. The band’s shared and intimate studio space in the city is where these ideas begin and transform.
The quartet of lads in their 30s stress that the live show is where SCALER REALLY comes to life. “The concept behind the band was always to create the best live show that we possibly can,” says SCALER’s guitarist and self-confessed tech-head, Nick Berthoud. “We’re writing songs to facilitate the live show; the reason we’re writing music is to play it live in some capacity, basically.” Beyond laptops, they rely on several choice instruments and essentials — Novation’s Summit and Focusrite’s Clarett chief among them — to bring their vision to the stage.
A SCALER show is an organised chaos of an audiovisual experience. Having supported Squarepusher and performed with Daniel Avery in recent years, the band attract a distinct type of fan with their collision of acid basslines, crunching guitar riffs, and permutating drums.
We sit down with bandmates Berthoud and James Rushforth to learn more about their live-first approach to music production, the reverb-rich environment they used to re-amp the elements of Endlessly, and the gear that’s crucial to SCALER’s sound.

Endlessly is now eight months old. How is it evolving SCALER as a band, both in the live shows and in your approach to making new music?
Nick: “We took quite a long time to make Endlessly as a record. And from a songwriting standpoint, it’s quite different from our live shows; we placed a bigger focus on vocal features, and we just wanted to explore a different side to the band. We almost always remix the songs to play live.
“Some tracks from the record have been completely reworked, because what works within our live show versus what they are on the album are two different things, so we do have to work that out. I think that’s a process we quite enjoy, though, and it keeps things quite interesting [for fans]. If we just played all of the songs exactly as they are on the record, then…I don’t know, it’s just a bit naff.”
James: “Endlessly has been really difficult — the conversion into the live show. When we perform it, it definitely feels like we’re doing an album show. It’s much cleaner, which is fine, but we’re kind of in the process of enacting a response to that chaos.”

Why do you place such a strong focus on the live show?
James: “In the age of playback, I think there should be a bit more responsibility to try harder with the arrangement. People just don’t do that enough, and it’s very lazy.”
Nick: “Our back catalogue has never streamed well. It’s just not that type of music. But it’s not a worry for us that we’re not getting millions of streams because the reason we make a record is to come and get people down to the live show to experience the full thing.
“We don’t want to just play exactly what we’ve heard for a year whilst making an album. It’s much more interesting for us to take elements from that and make it exciting again. We’ll even sometimes rewrite a song for specific shows. Like, if we’re playing a techno event or playing a more metal event, we’ll think, ‘Okay, how can we like dance-ify that song even more for this show?’, and it keeps evolving.”
Image: Press
SCALER tracks are complex and layered, almost like tapestries. How do you actually start a song together?
James: “Conventionally, a song will start from a simple but strong idea, which then gets pitched to the group. However, when working across an album, we end up being responsive as we’re writing. It’s a lot easier, with this band, to conceptualise the track first [and] be like, ‘What actually are the limitations of it? What are the things that it’s borrowing from?’ Being able to put the building blocks of an album [together] is much more satisfying to me, because you have this longer form to play with, so you can be reactive as you’re making it.”
“The much bigger picture, about us making music…Like, when we were making a lot of these songs [on Endlessly], I was saying, ‘Let’s just make something that when we get older, we’re going to look back and be happy with those decisions.’”
You’re speaking to us from the studio right now — can you tell us more about the gear there that inspires you?
Nick: “We’ve got most things piped into a Focusrite Clarett audio interface, so everything is good to go. There’s a wall of synths that changes — because we all have some synths at home as well, and we bring them back and forth. That’s all parked into a Soundcraft mixer that then goes into the Clarett.
“We also use the Novation SL MIDI controller, which controls the wall of synths. It’s really nice how you can set up each individual synth and have the MIDI CCs control [each synth].
“But the biggest thing for us was the Novation Peak synth. [It] was used at various points on the record — probably not as much as the Arturia MiniFreak or the Roland JP-8080 — but for live, we’ve taken a lot of the synth lines onto the Peak. So Alex [Hill], who performs the electronic instruments, can control it live. It’s this idea of consistency… Being able to take a lot of those sounds and put them all into the Peak for live means that we have that consistency across the live show, where a single, versatile synth can play all the sounds that — some of which it created, some of which it doesn’t create in the studio. That’s been a game-changer for the live show.”
Image: Press
What do you think it is about the Peak that makes it such a valuable centrepiece for you?
James: “It’s got analogue oscillators with digital control. That’s the whole setup, really. And then, within that, the effects sound great; multiple different filter modes. You’ve got these Animate buttons that you can assign stuff to, which seems kind of gimmicky, but you can actually use them really well. It’s also got a wavetable thing going on as well, so you’re kind of somewhere in between analogue and wavetables. So you can have a nice low end and then a really bright high end.”
Nick: “For a professional or semi-professional, it’s one of, if not the best synth you could use, because it’s built like a tank and it can just kind of do everything you would want it to do.”
Beyond synths and straight-up gear, you also used some interesting recording techniques for Endlessly, right?
James: “Yeah, the whole record was basically an exercise in feedback and resonances. Conceptually, that’s across the album, in the loops and you can kind of see it in the artwork. But at the end of the album process, we went to a manor house, and we took the stems from the record and re-amped them in the basement of this empty manor. So across the whole record, there are lines and lines of re-amps mixed in with absolutely everything: different mic positions, two Fender Twins and a bass amp, and then a shit amp in the other room, multiple mic positions on the stairs…There’s like, 200 channels on one of the songs [laughs].”
“I basically made this spreadsheet, going through section by section — ‘We need this one, we need this one…’ Then, yeah, we just spent three days in this cold basement and spent two and a half grand to do it.”
“You go back and listen to Cold Storage, in the middle eight it goes right down into this bleepy arp, and then you can hear you’re fully in the underground basement…It’s crazy. But once you do that stuff, you never look back.”
Image: Press
There are a few collaborators on the album, too, who are all local to Bristol. As a quartet, what’s the collaboration process like for you, and how did you end up working with these artists — Art School Girlfriend, Akiko Haruna, Tyla X An…
James: “Well, when we were making this album, we were unsigned, so we funded the creation of the album ourselves — it’s not like we were going in with a budget. I was basically going cap in hand to some people I didn’t even know, and cold-calling people. So my olive branch was always, ‘We’ve made you a track. We want you to do this. Here it is.’”
“This project specifically was about collaboration, and to also be a real illustration of the landscape and the people that we’re surrounded by. We want it to be an authentic representation of a moment in time in Bristol, really. We love to do it. We’re always going to be doing it. It’s always gonna be part of what we do.”
With Endlessly now out there, what’s your focus from here on out?
Nick: “We’ve got some festivals over the summer — we’re going to Sonar in Barcelona for the first time. But we’re also focusing on writing some new music at the moment as well, which should keep things rolling.”
James: “Also, just within our lives, we’re trying to make the band financially stable, and make sure we’re consistently putting out stuff in a way that is comfortable and actually enjoyable. We want to make sure that, A) we can sustain all our fixed costs in a reasonable way, and B) consistently put out music that we all enjoy and not kill ourselves doing it. That’s crucial, because Endlessly killed us — not in a bad way, but that’s what it takes to make a record like that.”
The post SCALER on remixing their music for stage, the Novation Peak, and 200 channels of basement re-amping appeared first on MusicTech.