Project Dataline

1. Congrats on the album release! How long have you been working on it?

Thanks! I have been working on this release since the beginning of this year. I have a lot of unrecorded material on the Elektron machines which always bothered me - 'why don't I record these'...The main reason for this was that these songs were aimed at performing at gigs and they just lived inside the machines. I did try to record few of the songs in the past by multitracking them and it did not work for me at all, they just lost the feeling and sounded too sterile. Few months ago, I came across the weeklybeats website and that inspired me to record new tracks every week. This got myself into some kind off buzz and decided to record just the stereo output of the Elektron machines into the computer. I decided to keep things simple and focus on the flow of the track rather than recording side. And after a few weeks, I thought that I could release these tracks as an album and here it is...I am continuing to release new material every week with the same purpose and planning to release them on different labels in the future.

2. You seem to have a really high production rate, you release a song more or less every week. What's your secret?

The secret is the Elektron machines, simplicity and flow. These machines are very inspirational - just messing around with them gives me ideas to come up with a song. I try to find a pleasing melody at first which usually reflects the mood I am in at that moment. Once that is done, adding other bits such as bass and drums comes naturally. One thing I do is that I go through the patterns of the song a lot of times to make sure that the composition is not boring and flow is going. As it is pattern based music, the sections can sound 'disconnected' which I try to avoid. Also I try not to stray away from the original idea of the song as ideas just fly out of these machines and you can loose the plot easily. So I do delete some of the phrases and simplify the whole process. One other thing is that, I keep everything on the machines to keep that 'feeling'. The song should absorb your feelings and not be a static matter, it changes with you through the stages of developing, performing and recording the final performance.

3. Have you consolidated your setup or are you looking to expand it? If so, with what?

If I had the space to set it up, I would get a digital piano - something like a Nord Piano2 or Korg SV1. I really like those relaxing piano/rhodes type of sounds and something I miss when dealing with synths. I keep myself away from DAWs and VSTs. They don't seem to work for me. Although they sound great and have near unlimited potential, this is not something I am after. I prefer to keep a simple, limited but inspiring and creative setup which has an interface designed for studio work and live performances. This is exactly what Elektron machines offer. With the Elektrons, I use the OP1 a lot. It brings such a diverse approach to music making. Especially connecting OP1's sequencers to control the Elektron machines opens a lot of possibilities. I feel very complete with the current Elektrons + OP1 setup. I do have some other synths but they have not seen any much use lately. Currently, there isn't anything on the market which I really want to add to the setup. Sure, I would love to own all those fancy looking synths and drum units - but do I really need them?

4. What is your favorite trick with the Elektron machines?

There are too many to choose from! On Machinedrum, my favourite trick is to use short RETRIGs to create synth stabs on the E12 or ROM machines. Combine that with Filters, LFO, Reverb and Delay - there are a lot of sounds to be created. On Octatrack, I like to use the Lo-fi effect before the Filter. Driving the Lo-fi effect into oblivion while taming it with the Filter results in some really cool sounds. On Monomachine, it is just wonderful to Parameter lock the FM machines within the sequence. And also using the POLY mode to capture nice chords and melodies into the Octatrack. These machines have very nice little touches like, holding Function while assigning new machine to keep the other settings of the track intact, copying and pasting parameter locked Steps by pressing Step + Rec/play, nudging the sequence with Function + Left/Right, Stop + Play combination on the Monomachine to enter different type of sequencer recording and many many more...I have lost the count of the years I have been using them and I still find out new ways to use these features. Something I discovered recently was that you can control the Monomachine's joystick section using Octatrack or Machinedrum's MIDI sequencers. This was in front of me all the time but you just notice these little hidden features when the time is right.