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Sequences by Michael Klein - Techno Modular Synth PackDownload Now |
Artist interview: Samplesound meet Michael Klein?
Hi Michael, Can you tell us a bit about your musical background? How did you get into club music?
Initially i got into club music through hearing some commercial trance on some mainstream compilations when i was in my teenage years. I liked the drive and emotions that attached to it so i started to dig a bit deeper and got into proper trance music for quite a while. Back in the day when Tiesto was one of the first playing DJ shows to 20.000 people.
Afterwards I started studying audio engineering in Frankfurt and at that time i was also old enough to go out. So i spend a lot of time at the Frankfurt based clubs like Cocoon and Robert Johnson. I remember the first time I entered the Cocoon Club everything about Trance was forgotten and Minimal Techno became my new obsession...
Can you talk us through the process of creating your sample pack?How did you approach it and what was your workflow like?
I have been building a small modular setup for my studio for a while now. When I work with the modular i don't really sync it to my DAW and I don't work in a track context in this moment. I try to really focus on it and to do some sound design. Creating patterns and sequences that slowly morph around themselves. This way I ended up building a great library of loops. I also frequently started going back to some of the loops for my own productions which has shown me that these things can be pretty useful. And why not share it with the producer community in that case? So I'm very happy to work together with Samplesound to get these loops and samples out into the world.
What hardware and software did you use to create the sounds?
I used my constantly changing modular setup. For the sound generators I mainly used the VCOs from Verbos, Noise Engineering and Erica. When it comes to manipulating these sounds I played around with some resonating filters from Serge, the Verbos delay, distortion from Retro Mechanical Labs or Oto as well as a bunch of other small modules. For recording and editing I used Ableton afterwards.
Is there any particular software or hardware that you can’t live without?
I've used many software and hardware options over the years. At the moment I'm working ITB, using some midi controllers such as Maschine and a midi keyboard. I find this combination to be the best for my workflow today.
Is there any particular software or hardware that you can’t live without?
Definitely Ableton would have to be one to mention here. I am so used to its workflow that it allows me to work pretty fast. For the hardware it's hard to mention one piece with the modular system. It s the whole system that i love to use. It changed the way i make music quite a bit and i don't want to go back.
Were there any artists, labels or tracks that influenced the music you make today?
Ben Klock has been somebody who I have been looking up to for a long time now. The way he gets groove and some kind of sexyness into is dark productions as well as DJs sets is always very inspiring. But when talking about the sound of a modular of course people like Blawan or Peter van Hoesen are also a big influence.
Any upcoming projects you are excited about?
Yes, I have an EP coming out on Pan-Pot's label Second State which I have been waiting for a long time to come out now. It s a very high energy release which already got a lot of early support from DJs like Amelie Lens, Adam Beyer or Charlotte de Witte. So have a listen. It's called No Mercy EP.
