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Interview Future Music 03/02
> How are you?
...still a little tired after NAMM... we had some serious problems with the neuron demo units before the show... fedEX damaged all three units and we had to work through the night from wed to thu to get everything fixed again. But we really had a great show then. It finally worked all out and seem to like our product. So I'm rather happy and tired.
> What is your background?
I am an industrial designer and musician. I had experienced synthesizers from the age of 12 and it was always my plan to bring together my musical ambitions and my job as designer. So my diploma at uniuversity was a computer music workstation, that was presented to the public by German Keyboards magazine in `90. I started in `89 as inhouse designer with Waldorf Electronics, where I first designed the Micro Wave and then all follow up products until now, like the Wave, the Q Series, the Attack plug In, etc. In '95 I founded together with a friend of mine my own design buro
Design Box, from where I īve been working for many companies out of the MI industries, such as Steinberg, Alesis, Creamware, Korg, Antares, Line6, Prosoniq, Midiman, Novation, Access... At Design Box, we're doing both product design and graphic design.
> What did you design with the Andromeda?
I was responsible for the complete product design... how the casing looks, how the buttons and knobs look and feel and where they are located. I also did the complete product grafics, e.G. the "galaxy like" layout of the instrument modules were my idea. I've been working really close together with the Alesis R&D team.
> What made you decide to do the Neuron synth?
After designing many synths for other companies I more and more had the wish, to design an instrument, where I did not have to take any care of an R&D decision I did not agree with... In most cases, restrictions reg. usability, ergonomics or simply design are made out of budget reasons. Neuron is not compromising at all regarding its user interface, the overall look, or the quality of materials that we use. Neuron looks, feels and - obviuosly - sounds great. After finding Stephan Bernsee from Prosoniq Software in Karlsruhe / Germany as partner for the sound engine, I knew, that we had the chance to create a new kind of synthesizing musical instrument. My idea of the multilayered user interface and the neural network architecture from Stephan Sprenger really fit together like a hand into a glove. So at Musikmesse Frankfurt in 2000, we decidet to simply make it happen!
> These days it is quite unusual for small companies to start making new hardware? Why did you decide to go it alone?
Because I thought it was easy (what finally turned out beeing a little different). But in the beginning it is probably better if you don't know what exactly is waiting behind the corner. I had that dream of a non-compromising, new kind of synthesizer. After the long time Experience of working close together with many companies from a designers Standpoint. I was pretty sure, that I could handle all the problems that would probably come. Fortunately, we choose a quite uncommon way to develop Neuron. We've been using many 3rd party services and kept our own company cost as Small as possible. And I think, that finally worked out...
> How did you get the financial backing to do it?
Friends, who are part of the company now.
> What are the best bits?
...after we did not really have a lot of time before NAMM to bring in models into the Neuron, we just had a few basic sounds we could work on. It was very surprising to us, how flexible the soundengine can be. With a few mooves of the stick controllers, we were able to create an enormeuos spectrum of different sounds out of one / two models. It seems, that Neuron is capable of handling both the needs of the score writer and the HipHop producer plus the complete palette inbetween those two extremes.
> Why is it better than any other synth?!
...Neuron is different; it is a new kind of instrument. The basic idea was to give the musician a synthesizer, where he starts working on sounds that already sound great, rather then putting something together, that in the end may sound kind of great. Neuron is the first synthesizer, where parameters are created dynamically - depending on the sound you've been loading into ist resynators. From there you can then manipulate sonic material in ways, previuosly unknown. This is only possible with resynthesized sound. Neuron is perhaps the first "resynthesizer" that is really fun to work with and that delivers the sonic results, that musician expect. As we designed a totally new kind of interface, it may also be the inspiring tactile element, that people will like at Neuron. It is easy to handle, because it clearly tells the user what it does (e.G. through ist 13 displays and the graphic supported wheelcontrollers)... anyway, I don't really like the word "better" ... is it better then a Matrix 12? ...is it better then a Waldorf Wave? ...is it better then a Moog Modular System?... I don't think so... It is maybe after many years - an instrument that shows up really new ways of working with sound. And - as we could experience through it's first living hours during NAMM by ourselves, the soundengine together with the userinterface really feels like a soundmine...
> What is the future of music making?
Wish I could answer this question in German... it would be much easier. Anyway,- I try ...what was the history of music making...? It was, is and will always be a reflection of the times people are living in. Now is the Computer age... and people are playing music with computers. Still we handle the same scenario - rhythm and melody. The results obviously may sound different... Computer technology in music will appear more humain in the future. There will be more tactile control coming back to the desktop of the musicians. There will be more dedicated, special instruments with soul and character... There will be even more fun to play and experience music - even for "non-musicians".
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