The Cabotronium Compilation

Artists Interview

After creating the main core with FM/RM synthesis, equalizers, distortion, and reverb, we’ve used patterns from Cabotronium sounds to create a more complex texture, something from the background that thickens the rhythm intertwining with the sonic structure.” these textures are perfectly integrated with both the melodic and the rhythmic aspect.

We composed the music without a precise method of using the sounds, the whole track is an improvisation.

The piece is made entirely with Cabotronium samples, processed with various instruments within the Ableton Live platform, and a Strymon Big Sky reverb. I started by selecting those sounds that could be rhythmic textures, looking for a cyclical nature in the sounds that this instrument can create. I found some bass and treble pulses, which I filtered out with high-pass.

Later I looked for some bass; once I found some samples that fit the case, I cut and sequenced them. I had to change the key to a single note, the others are as Cabotronium produced them. From these full and deep basses I have obtained all the atmospheres and most of the harmonies: the basses have been processed with a Big Sky reverb, with an algorithm that transposes the sounds from octave to octave, creating a series of reflections that rise from the bass towards the high notes, generating harmonies from a single bass note. For the pads and the lead I looked for stable mid frequencies; I found some sort of electrical hum of which I kept some of the fluctuations; to play it I used a granular sampler from IRCAM. These sounds were also passed through the Big Sky, with a second algorithm. Also, all the percussion comes from the Cabotronium: the hi-hat comes from the various noises, which follow each other randomly, and whose length (decay) is regulated by a fast pulsing LFO. The kick comes from one of the bosses that had more attack; I added some amp- and pitch-decay to make it more pronounced. The snare comes from one of the richest and more aggressive noise, simply cut. Various processors and filters alternate randomly on kick and snare.

Once I had accumulated a small pile of different splinters I divided them into potentially percussive, potentially melodic and potentially other and pretty much churned the tune out over a weekend. I then sat on it for a few days to see if it was any good and went to export it – realising at the very end that I had left 2 tracks muted the whole way through the process with some top notch bits I could’ve used! I mulled over adding them for a few seconds before deciding to ditch ‘em since nobody would know the difference anyway. The track is made entirely on the laptop with the sounds provided – no additives or preservatives! enjoy…

The beat is very dynamic, but above all it is the evolution of a single obsessive rhythmic pattern. On the ending, the synth is 7/8 and every 2 measures it re-meets the basic rhythmic pattern. The bass (a devil Epiphone) is played: the first part is distorted (big muff) while the second part is clean with tight reverb.

The intent of the track was to create a “multiform auditory trip” and, for this reason, it was arranged by combining different structures within which I experimented various solutions in using these samples. After listening to the sound material, I cut out about fifty sounds from the most bizarre and impetuous and, after selecting about twenty samples, I loaded them into the Elektron Digitakt sampler, where I worked and structured them. All the sounds come from the Cabotronium, trying to keep their integrity as much as possible, except the rhythmic part (excluding some hithats created with the sampled noises) which, on the other hand, was written through the use of three external samples, or kick, claps and toms and an accompanying 909; finally, two external FM synthesizers controlled via MIDI by the sampler were used in the pads. All the sounds come from the Cabotronium, trying to keep their integrity as much as possible, except the rhythmic part (excluding some hithats created with the sampled noises) which, on the other hand, was written through the use of three external samples, or kick, claps and toms and an accompanying 909; finally, two external FM synthesizers controlled via MIDI by the sampler were used in the pads.

The voices present in the track is slogans referring explicitly to the Cabotronium and were produced through the use of a speech synthesis converter. Everything was written, sequenced and structured entirely with Elektron Digitakt, recorded live and subsequently reedited (using nine other Cabotronium samples), processed and re-mixed on a DAW.

Despite I’m part of the Cabotronium project from the very beginning of its development I decided to only use the samples provided to all other artists and avoid generating additional sounds. I mainly used the recordings to generate wavetables in order to use the Cabotronium timbres in a more melodic context. The only additional sounds not coming from the Cabotronium are the kick and snare.

I built all the melodies with 2-3 Cabotronium samples, the only things I added are a 606, a Breakbeat sample and the intelligible Atlantis for a few rounds of bass in the final part of the song. I inserted the intelligible sequenced from Numerology to give it more movement. The arpeggiated bass that is present almost throughout the track is instead that of the Cabotronium that I played, but which I left as it was from a tonal point of view (just a little eq-in to eliminate the higher frequency part).

Along with the main drum there is some percussive element that I have obtained from the samples of the Cabotronium, a sort of small bongo with an envelope on the pitch and a hi-hat made from the noise of the Cabotronium, both quite atypical to be of Roland matrix (Lol), easy to notice but very funny and in line with my aesthetic.

I like to think I make music in the background, “7NA” does not want to be complex, I started to relate to these sounds in the early 2000s, using basic instrumentation, vintage microphones, and recording mainly on a 4-track cassette, which I still use today both for recording and for part live “.

When asked if I was interested in participating in the compilation, I was afraid that I would have to do everything exclusively with the sounds provided, so I first tried to keep my background intact, integrating the sounds of the Cabotronium within my mode to compose, so I first made a piece of my own with my hip hop rhythms, melodies and the bass part played, on which I then inserted some lines of Cabotronium sounds. The structure of the song is very simple, it opens and grows, becoming a refrain, a pause as a bridge and then starts again, it was not my intention to create a complicated song, I play easy music and I like to be direct with the listener, since I prefer a ‘ melodic approach I used the sounds of the Cabotronium as a solo voice that goes on for most of the piece, and which integrates better with the other rhythmic and melodic elements, I also used the textures of the Cabotronium sounds to tie together the various set off.

When I met him back in 2014 we talked about literature and he told me about his love for writer Sylvia Plath. I made a reinterpretation of one of my favourite Plath’s poems, “The moon and the yew tree”, processing my own voice with granulation, different kinds of distortion, choruses and other modulations. This poem is so powerful that it doesn’t need a maximalist musical structure, so I worked by subtraction, using in the verses thin Cabotronium sounds with a big processing made by resonators, filters, frequency modulators and wave shapers, both on rhythmics and harmonisation.

The structure of the song consists of two distinct moments: an intimate, thoughtful one; and a desperate and soulful one, where I used the most harsh and distorted Cabotronium noises, that repeat themselves two times. In the middle, I processed Cabotronium sounds with modal synthesis, creating a sort of drunk, crooked and lonely lullaby to the moon, a third atmosphere that balances the dynamic ranges of the song’s structure. The song’s name is Kuu Ja Puu, which means “The Moon and the Tree” in Finnish. 

I always loved feed-backing mixers and circuit bent instruments as sound sources. I think Cabotronium is wonderful for the wide range of sounds it can produce and for his half-randomic nature. 

Basically, I cut and sew, taking small portions of samples, pouring them directly into the arrangement so quickly without worrying much about the timbre or the duration of the individual samples. I found myself after a thousand cuts to manage triplet samples with various lengths on a 121 bpm project. Lol

The way was the right one, I would later intervene on the timbre of the individual samples with equalizer and compressor, deciding which sound for the “kick” and which for “blips” and “glitches”. Reverse procedure compared to the traditional one. For the melodic parts I used a sampler that allowed me to act on the various parts, transposing and modulating with “lfo”, “pitch”, “offset” and duration.

Midi clip, nothing is quantized correctly and it is a beautiful mess, especially when the various textures are not quantized at all, I wanted at least to bring the unpredictability of the Cabotronium into a song more or less organized over time. I like the result

I mainly like caustic rhythms, distortion, straight kick, ignorant direct music without decoration, the opposite of how electronic music is considered today.

I usually use an analog mixer to create direct passages between the parts. For the song “Rorschach” I used the sounds of the Cabotronium, to create four melodic parts, which I alternated from the beginning of the track to the end, on this first draft I added a robust rhythmic part, the sound of the kick drum is obtained with the fusone of a Roland case, divided into two parts, a straight case, and a more dynamic rhythmic change, as I specified mine is a raw sound with mainly techno and ambient references, (nothing intelligent) the ambient melodic part grows progressively accompanying from a distorted sound always produced by the Cabotronium, which sounds like a scream that tears the piece in two from start to finish, this sample gave meaning to the whole composition. I had a lot of fun.

In the first place every single sound has been put in sequence, in order to be processed in a second moment using a granular synthesis approach. The result is a track where the developed sounds have brought to a title for a firing test of a spatial engine.

While discovering the Cabotronium archive I’ve found many insights, and I think they can lead to many ideas, especially for what concerns the cinematographic/filmmaking field.

My intent was to attenuate with different filters the harshness of the Cabotronium glitch sounds, to achieve a gentler, more distant sonic ambient, in order to shape the feeling that the title suggests as “Aurora”. So I think Cabotronium can be very useful, because from the chaos it generates, an unexpected idea can jump out and surprise you.

While for the rhythm part I chose to integrate a Roland 606, so that the track would show where part of my approach to composition comes from. I like noise, I have been working with Circuit Branding since 2000, and over the years I have been able to build my own sound also thanks to the use of customized instruments, I mean that having had the opportunity to work with new sounds such as those of the Cabotronium, (sounds that no commercial instrument in circulation can produce), is absolutely stimulating, it was the thing that interested me most about this project, as it naturally adhered to my creative approach.

I think that Cabortonium is a unique tool to unleashed the creativity of the performer. When I’ve been contacted by Emilio, I was excited about it, because it was an interesting challenge for me, as electronic producer, shaping a bunch of sounds, and make it in music, doing a breakbeat single, with a lot of energy in drums and in the bass. 

I think that Cabortonium is a unique tool to unleashed the creativity of the performer. When I’ve been contacted by Emilio, I was excited about it, because it was an interesting challenge for me, as electronic producer, shaping a bunch of sounds, and make it in music, doing a breakbeat single, with a lot of energy in drums and in the bass. 

Cabotronium is liquid; He is a  melted vinyl, a rusty spit on the well-tied knots of the “analog white collars” élite. And NO-fi is liquid.
Glory to the glitch and the unexpected. As Digitarian activists, all the holy sounds produced by the liquid and evocative voice of Cabotronium where treated with extreme mangling respect. 

We pushed them through spikes of liquid glass, cuddled by smooth fractals of iridescent aliasing artifacts.We glorified His voice branding his soul on a CD, and scratched away all the solid analog impurities
from His shiny, pure, fluid heart. Glory to the Cabotronium because He is NO. And NO is the word.

I love limitation in any creativity process and this led me even further: i decided not to add any other sound or sample but the Cabotronium. I worked with pitch and reverbs, nothing more than that, trying to find out melodies on noises. I think the cabotronium is something so nostalgic and aggressive at the same time that my instinct was the one of a prehistoric man against a tiger in the dark.

The samples were inserted in some vst plug in, small sound generators developed by me with VST technology. With them, once the samples were loaded, I was able to play both rhythm and synth-style melodic parts, played on a midi keyboard, live. The whole track was conceived and played live with very little post production.

Nicola locci, has been involved in music since the early 90s; as well as composer of electronic music, he is currently involved, in addition to the development of particular VST plug-ins, in the design and construction of noisy objects, from the idea to the enclosure that contains them, using the 3D printing technique, mainly drone machine and noise box, fully embracing the philosophy of “do it yourself” including the development of its website www.exagonal-rooms.com

I divided the edited cabotronium samples  in two categories: percussive samples and textural samples (mainly “long”sounds). I loaded percussive samples in a battery patch, and programmed grooves using simple midi (and a couple of automated delays). Then, I simply mounted and microedited textural samples on protools. There’s almost no processing on the samples, they are pretty much raw samples, just edited.  I made a couple of Buchla Music Esasel impros on top of the track, after i created the skeleton of the tune. A bit of edit on those Buchla impros and … that’s it. 

I’m an long time fan of the Cabotronium, Emilio made me know it when we were at SAE, in Milan. It simply is the holy grail of circuit-bended instruments, it’s unbelievable how many sound you can pull out from this machine. The samples we had available to produce this track were so inspiring and cool! Long life to Cabotronium.

Normally the sounds are obtained from samples, often of field recordings, then reworked and inserted in the sampler to create virtual instruments. In this case, however, the samples of the Cabotronium were the colors with which we could draw.

The samples are deliberately worked in many more or less invasive ways, in order to create in some cases, a connection with the real source, in others a complete deconstruction through, pitch, effects, layers. This is to create an ambiguous but constant relationship between the real and virtual environment. The actual composition is basically a live studio performance.

Initially, “guiding” samples are identified, those who inspire us something at that precise moment. Often the initial choice is to identify a noise that when inserted into a context becomes a melody: the challenge is to imagine the context, the world where that sound fragment will become a melody and take on a new shape. In this case there are some lines that act as a leitmotif and appear in different moments of the song and in the various environments created, as if they were the characters who inhabit this new world and whom we meet during the journey.

The last ingredient is not to set limits in a systematic way and to add all the characteristic elements of our sound (such as the use of the voice) which, if it is true that they often fall within the comfort zone, on the other hand help to weave a common thread and to leave a personal mark on our performances.