Name: Maurizio Dami aka Alexander Robotnick
Nationality: Italian
Occupation: Producer
Current release: Alexander Robotnick's Simple Music is out now.
Gear recommendations: Silent Way by Expert Sleepers to send CV-Gate from your audioboard; BOSS Re-20 Space echo. Small and perfect for live performances.
If you enjoyed this interview with Alexander Robotnick and would like to know more about his work, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.
What was your first studio like?
It was a small underground room where I had a 4 tracks tape recorder, my Gibson guitar and some non-professional electronics. I called it “The Crypt.“
How and for what reasons has your set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear for you?
Obviously your gear evolves according to your artistic life. But I never bought instruments just because I liked them but only because I needed them to produce what I had in mind.
At present my most important pieces are: WASP, TB303, Oberheim 2 SEMS, SH101, 2 MOTU 24io, Cubase, a PC, Roland tape echo. Very old stuff.
[Read our feature on the Roland TB 303]
Some see instruments and equipment as far less important than actual creativity, others feel they go hand in hand. What's your take on that?
Surely no instrument can help you produce good music if you are not gifted with creativity.
Knowledge of music, at least at a basic level, originality, passion, will and creativity come first. Professionalism and the use of professional tools are a precondition.
A studio can be as minimal as a laptop with headphones and as expansive as a multi-room recording facility. Which studio situation do you personally prefer – and why?
I prefer a personal studio that doesn't require a big investiment, where you can put only the gear you really need according the kind of music you produce.
From traditional keyboards to microtonal ones, from re-configured instruments (like drums or guitars) to customised devices, what are your preferred controllers and interfaces? What role does the tactile element play in your production process?
My favourite keyboard is the WASP. It's a capacitive keyboard with painted keys, unfortunately no one produces this type of keyboard anymore. I have developed a personal technique of playing it.
When I play as a DJ I carry around a laptop with Ableton live and two small controllers (nanokey-nanocontrol) that fit in the bag. When I play live I use the Novation keyboard controller.
In the light of picking your tools, how would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?
The music of the future always comes from the music of the present or the past.
Most would regard recording tools like microphones and mixing desks as different in kind from instruments like keyboards, guitars, drums and samplers. Where do you stand on this?
I rely entirely on my DAW.
The operations core with which I control my analog synths via CV GATE aew sent by some of my 48 audio outputs (2 audioboards by MOTU), with which I manage my analog outboard and with which I drive my MIDI keyboards etc. etc.
How would you describe the relationship between technology and creativity for your work? Using a recent piece as an example, how do you work with your production tools to achieve specific artistic results?
When I produce music at first I don't get too much into defining and sculpting the sound. Just writing ideas. But after a while that music is detached from me and I begin to be subordinate to it.
Now it is my composition that commands my head asking me to arrange it in the best possible way. Here technology comes to the fore.
On my current album Simple Music I often used morphoder by WAVE to create a hybrid between the vocoder and my real voice to give more life to my synthetic vocals.
Within a digital working environment, it is possible to compile huge archives of ideas for later use. Tell me a bit about your strategies of building such an archive and how you put these ideas and sketches to use.
After so many years of production I've got a huge archive of grooves, drums and sounds. Maybe it's not well organized but I often use grooves and sounds taken from my previous productions
How do you retain an element of surprise for your own work – are there technologies which are particularly useful in this regard?
Actually the result of my work always sounds like a surprise to me, never sounds like I had envisioned it in my mind.
Sometimes it's a good surprise, sometimes it's bad. C'est la vie.
Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. How much of your music is based on concepts and ideas you had before entering the studio, how much of it is triggered by equipment, software and apps?
Sometimes I have an idea before I turn on the computer. Sometimes I experiment with production tools and an idea comes up. It depends on the type of music.
For songs, the idea often precedes the activity in the studio. For techno it is often experimentation with machines that gives birth to the music.
Have there been technologies which have profoundly changed or even questioned the way you make music?
The advent of the DAW in the 1990s.
To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. Do you feel as though technology can develop a form of creativity itself? Is there possibly a sense of co-authorship between yourself and your tools?
I'm not using much AI, just sometimes for chords substitutions.
What tools/instruments do you feel could have a deeper impact on creativity but need to still be invented or developed?
An interface that transfers the music from your mind to the DAW.
