MXGPU: “Saying you can only achieve great-sounding recordings with $10,000 worth of gear is just gatekeeping”Based in Portugal, MXGPU comprises electronic artists Moullinex and GPU Panic, whose 360° “in the round” stage setup has already seen them play shows at Primavera Porto, NOS Alive, Wonderfruit (Thailand), and sold-out Lisbon pop-ups at MAAT and Casa da Música.
While Moullinex is known for his remix of Cut Copy’s Lights & Music, a Beatport no.1 and four solo albums via his label Discotexas, GPU Panic, a Red Bull Music Academy alum, has released on Crosstown Rebels, TAU, and Watergate.
Their debut album Sudden Light came out in September and sonically blends liquid D‘n’B, bright staccato synths, and vocal-driven pop, described as somewhere in between Caribou and Porter Robinson.
Taking an innovative approach to live performance, the duo blend computers, synths, software and modular gear in a specialised rig that incorporates improvisation, live processing of sounds, evolving sequences and much more.

We catch up with them to get their thoughts on their dream synths, how they stay creative and whether analogue really does sound better than digital.
Hi Moullinex and GPU Panic! How did you two end up working together?
We began working together in 2016 when GPU Panic joined Moullinex Live to play guitar on tour. From there, we started making music in the studio, and it just felt natural. We kept collaborating and working live, and here we are today.
Your album, Sudden Light, combines countless influences, including the Chemical Brothers, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso. What was a lesson you learned about music-making while creating this album?
The main lesson is that you need to create a lot. There’s always something to try. Don’t judge, have fun and try to find a process you enjoy. Keep things moving, switch between different projects or ideas so you don’t leave a studio session dreading the 10 hours you’ve just spent on a kick drum. If you spread these 10 hours over your entire month, it will hurt less.
Working as a duo is great because sometimes we have to be deliberate about why we do things. Sometimes that helps us decide between ideas or directions. Sometimes the best thing is not to talk at all and just to try.
Image: Ana Viotti
MXGPU’s live show is focused on “high-spec live performance, hardware integration and analogue expression”. Can you tell us more about this?
We wanted to create an immersive experience where we could feel what the audience feels during the show. We are on the dancefloor, in the round, surrounded by the audience who are so close that they can see all the gear and how we are playing. We wanted to bring proximity to our show, avoiding those high and distant stages where a bit of the humanity of live shows is lost.
Tell us a bit about your studio workflows and how you combined them both for MXGPU.
We love gear, but we also love just doing everything on a laptop. The way to achieve what we want ultimately is secondary, but we let ourselves be completely inspired by the methods that a specific piece of gear, plugin or tool gives us. We love to sample our own recordings, to flip things, reverse, change the pitch, the speed, the context. We use a lot of distortion and saturation. We also love to create layers of texture with field recordings and sometimes gate them with percussive sounds to create movement.
Image: Ana Viotti
Our openness to invite the other person to completely flip a musical idea from the other is also very inspiring. You need to let go of your creations! It’s a continuous process where we just keep adding musical ideas and projects to a folder where everything is always ready for the other to jump in.
Your live rig is designed around a blend of analogue and digital gear, real-time improvisation and sequenced modular control. How does this all fit together?
We have a two-sided triangular-shaped stand, and we are facing each other. Each side has some cool gear to make things immediate and very hands-on.
Moullinex’s side has an Ableton session that is the brain of it all. There, we run MIDI sequences, audio tracks to process different instruments and vocals live. It’s all connected via the Tascam Model12, where all the instruments plug in: Moog Minitaur for all the bass, Arturia MiniFreak for poly, Torso S4 for weirdness, Queen of Pentacles by Endorphine.es for live drums, Nyx and Telepathy by Dreadbox for synth voices. Then the entire show is processed by the Eurorack system for a little mastering.
You have the Arturia MiniFreak and KeyStep Pro at the heart of your rig – what is it that makes them so well-suited to the way you perform?
We are very considerate of the size and weight of what makes up our live setup. It all needs to fit into three suitcases, including the stand. The Arturia MiniFreak is a beast for the size and price — such a versatile synth where we can recreate all the sounds that we need from the record, and it also integrates perfectly with the plugin version.
KeyStep Pro is an amazing MIDI and CV powerhouse. It’s very helpful since it’s configured in a way where all the synths are accessible and playable from the hardware. It’s also great for creating some improvised sequences on the fly.
Image: Ana Viotti
Do you plan to keep the collaborative project going into the future? How do you see the live show evolving, and what are your plans for its direction?
Yeah, sure! We’re already jumping on new music and dreaming about how to make the live show evolve and keep it surprising, and remain a great experience for the dancefloor. There’s so much to be done and so many places we want to visit. It’s an ongoing daydreaming process.
What’s been the biggest investment in the MXGPU collaboration?
Probably renting a 40-year-old crane and doing a floating show at dawn in the river in Lisbon.
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
The almighty CS80, first popularised by Vangelis, Stevie Wonder, and so many more. Besides sounding great, it looks great too. Its bigger sibling, the GX1, would complement any living room that had enough space to fit it.
Image: Ana Viotti
What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
That analogue sounds better. We think analogue might sound better in some instances, but it really depends on the person engineering. Honestly, saying you can only achieve great-sounding recordings with some $10,000 piece of gear is just gatekeeping. It’s the same with vinyl-only DJs. Your record collection is only as good as your taste..
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career?
One day, an industry veteran who shall remain nameless entered my studio and said, “Wow, that’s a lot of chords”. That stuck with us; sometimes we see it as a compliment, so we are more detailed than minimalistic. Some other days we strive to use the Occam’s razor principle when producing: that the best solution is probably the simplest one.
 
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