Name: Umru Rothenberg
Nationality: Estonian-American
Occupation: Producer
Current release: Umru's "GROUNDBREAKER" is out via PC Music.

If you enjoyed this Umru interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud. 

To keep reading, check out our David Rothenberg interview with his father.



What was your first studio like?

I’ve never had a separate studio.

I’m definitely still a bedroom producer, and I work very much “in the box” on a laptop and headphones.

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’m not fundamentally against gear or different studio environments. I do have chances pretty often to work in studios and try out various gear. It usually feels the same as finding some random sampling material or working with a new producer in that it’s a welcome way to generate new ideas but not part of my own setup.

It’s pretty basic and obvious but Audio Technica M50Xs are probably my most important physical gear—I just know how those things sound inside and out and they’re by far my most consistent sonic reference, probably to a fault. I have Adam monitors but don’t really use them enough or have a treated room to trust them as much, and an Apollo Twin interface, and that’s really about it.

That said, my latest track “GROUNDBREAKER” with Warpstr is probably 60% generated on Warpstr’s Elektron Analog Four, it’s basically playing all the synth melodies.

My biggest challenge with inputting unfamiliar gear is fitting it into my own, almost all digital sonic world but in this case it felt seamless from the start—I’ve worked with Warpstr for years and we have a really clear understanding of a sort of mutual sound palate. That’s one of the few synths I often consider buying and learning. But—much like the famed monomachine and SOPHIE—I think what I like about the synth is actually the synth’s user and their taste and familiarity with the tool, more than the device’s sound.

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?

I don’t consider myself a keyboard player or any other instrumentalist. More often than not I am drawing and clicking in notes, I’m usually not “performing” music into the DAW. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen.

I think “Superstar” by Aj Simons, is built over a synth melody recorded using the Capture feature on my Ableton Push, which I like but only actually end up using occasionally.



I guess I’m more of a DJ than any other kind of performer, and I do like to play CDJs sort of like an instrument, audibly stuttering the cue button before playing a song or using filters and effects more actively than DJs who are just aiming for smooth mixes, and I think that translates into my production. Even if I’m just using my mouse I do like to record automation or resampled audio of me messing with knobs that feels a bit more ‘live’ than clicked in automation.

Even just the classic laptop keyboard input for Ableton ends up being the beginning of a lot of my tracks’ melodies. It’s often the most immediate and quick way to get something down.

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?

Like SOPHIE once said in an interview, why wouldn’t any musician want to work with the most powerful tools we have access to?

I’m obviously interested in innovation in terms of music technology. But I think the best music usually isn’t the most original, never-before-heard thing. Using the most innovative tools doesn’t make you the most original musician, especially in an era where most tools, at least software, are relatively easy to access for everyone.

I still strive to make “pop music” and a big part of that is familiarity, a frame of reference. Pop songs don’t tend to have the most original, innovative chord progression, for example. This is the endless paradox of “experimental pop”, but it’s a fun challenge. I always strive to introduce more experimental sonics into accessible music that still functions in a pop context.

I definitely do also try to be acutely aware of what has a lasting, “timeless” effect, even in the short term. I was sort of raised in the EDM bubble of the 2010s, much of that music has aged terribly but I try and pay attention to what was special about the standout figures that seemed to last beyond that era.

I feel like I’m endlessly studying the work of Lunice and Hudson Mohawke, for example, who practically invented “festival trap”, something that’s inarguably cringe-inducing to most now. And yet their work holds up so much better to me than a lot of what was popular in that era. I was really honored to have Lunice do a remix on my last project, felt like such a full circle moment for me.

Out of these 4 qualities you mention, I have little interest in perfection. Nothing’s perfect and it doesn’t have to be.

Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I get categorized into “the future of pop” or similar names quite often (of course my first major production credit was on an album titled ‘Pop 2’) and while I certainly feel like I’m attempting to do something new more than following traditions, I am wary of claiming that title.



My music is of course heavily influenced, directly or indirectly, by existing electronic and pop music that I don’t want to reject. Continuing traditions doesn’t have to mean making things feel “vintage”, so the two aren’t mutually exclusive in my opinion.

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?

Certainly, and there’s experts at using each. I don’t consider myself one in either category though.

I don’t think I could mix an album for someone. It’s hard to distinguish “mixing” from composition for me because the most distinct qualities of my music are the way things sound. The composition of anything “pop” has to have been done before in some way anyway.

The limitations of my mixing skills also heavily inform creative decisions though. I tend to avoid mixing as much as possible by having relatively few sounds going on at once or conflicting in the same frequency ranges.  

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?

Part of it is laziness. But not being or aspiring to be an expert in most of the tools I work with, and seeking out new ones regularly, kind of keeps surprise in the picture for me.

I am a big fan of recording “randomized” processes like tinkering with lots of parameters, even just with my mouse, direct to audio, especially with weirder and less automation-optimized plugins to make sure any happy accidents aren’t lost, and then going through that recording for the best bits later.

I do have lots of “sound design files” that I like to pull pieces from to build up texture in tracks, but I’m always making modifications or selections to fit these into the track. For some it seems easy to pull in sounds from broad sources and end up with something cohesive but for me that cohesion is always the most effort.

For example in the title track of my EP Comfort Noise, there’s these washes of sound design that I ended up harmonizing with the chord progression using Ableton’s spectral resonator to feel like the textures didn’t distract too much from the melodic content.

These types of files don’t usually spark the beginning of a track for me though. I’m much better at building texture and rhythm over a melody or vocal than working the other way around.

The other category of this is melodic or more musical sketches, which are harder to generate “randomly” for me, at least when trying to keep pop songwriting in mind. I still feel new to producing in a session with people and I can be pretty slow at generating ideas. So having ideas ready to start from beforehand is great.

“Click” by Charli XCX was one of a few extremely basic melody ideas me and Dylan Brady put together hours before Charli came to my apartment to record, and the entire production of the song changed later. But it wouldn’t have happened without that melody inspiring the initial hook idea.



In rap production and a lot of pop, there are producers that are great at filling this role and are able to churn out these short, immediately catchy melody loops. I really envy that ability. It usually takes me so long to get a good idea going and I really try and study the modern melody loop as a concept, to be able to basically immediately inspire a full production and song from a 10 second file that has to leave ample space for vocals.

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?

All art is referential in some way but I find most AI generated content much more so. It’s really only being developed to emulate existing styles which can of course be pretty valuable in music but I’m not sure it can be classified as authorship or creativity. If anything it may become better at emulating existing music than we can but it feels like a tool just like any other.

Music already samples and interpolates older music quite naturally, I think it’s much more about co-authorship with the music you (or your AI tool’s datasets) reference than with your tools.

What tools/instruments do you feel could have a deeper impact on creativity but need to still be invented or developed?

I think maybe repitching and warping effects are a good one to mention. For a lot of artists I work with it’s a common task to try pitching a song to different keys, and whatever method you use to do that while retaining the tempo will have audible artifacts. Sometimes that’s cool, but I think that’s one thing that could be developed further technologically.

Pioneer’s CDJs have the best warping sound I’ve heard and that’s obviously very inaccessible for use in a DAW. This applies not just to repitching but also any effects that affect the tuning of sounds—I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between the most interesting “randomized” or textural effects or instruments and effective musical use.

I love things like flangers and grain delays that introduce new tones and resonances. But then fitting those into a song can be difficult if you can’t pitch the random sound you generated into key because it contains multiple individual harmonics that don’t happen to line up with your musical content.

I’m not exactly sure how this would look in practice. Ableton’s spectral resonator can be tuned to midi and there’s an effect called Pitchmap that attempts this type of thing but I think there’s definitely a space to make these kinds of tools more musical with no quality loss.