This time, legendary electronic music creator and Ableton co-founder Robert Henke, known in the studio as Monolake, joins us for a journey into his creative process, his love for expressive hardware, and his fascination with sound technology old and new. From growing up in a family of engineers to his influential career in Berlin's pioneering club scene, Robert Henke shares how engineering spawns art in his work. He reveals what he’d change in Ableton Live if he could start over, why hands-on hardware is still critical to his process, and what he'd build from scratch if given the tools and the time.
This time, legendary electronic music creator and Ableton co-founder Robert Henke, known in the studio as Monolake, joins us for a journey into his creative process, his love for expressive hardware, and his fascination with sound technology old and new.
From growing up in a family of engineers to his influential career in Berlin's pioneering club scene, Robert Henke shares how engineering spawns art in his work. He reveals what he’d change in Ableton Live if he could start over, why hands-on hardware is still critical to his process, and what he'd build from scratch if given the tools and the time.
Season 8 of the My Forever Studio Podcast is supported by Audient, and the impressive new Horizon range of audio interfaces.
https://audient.com/
https://audient.com/products/audio-interfaces/horizon-range/
https://musictech.com/
https://tyxstudios.com/
STUFF WE TALK ABOUT (SPOILERS AHEAD)
https://reverb.com/uk/p/roland-juno-6-analog-synthesizer
Electric Indigo: https://indigo-inc.at/
https://reverb.com/uk/p/ensoniq-asr-10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_SY77
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TR-505
https://reverb.com/uk/p/alesis-quadraverb-plus-black-2010s
https://atc.audio/professional/loudspeakers/scm300asl-pro/
https://atc.audio/professional/pro-subwoofers/scs240iw-pro/
https://www.expressivee.com/2-osmose
https://www.korg.co.uk/products/2600m
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O202853/p-231-print-mohr-manfred/
Chris Barker:
Hi, I'm Chris Barker.
Will Betts:
And I'm Will Betts, and this is the MusicTech My Forever Studio podcast, brought to you in partnership with Audient.
Chris Barker:
In this podcast, we speak with musicians, DJs, engineers, and producers about their fantasy forever studio.
Will Betts:
The guests must live with these choices, uh, for the rest of time, so they must pick the studio gear wisely and adhere to our rules.
Chris Barker:
Yes, those rules. Okay, so our guests will select a computer, a DAW, and an audio interface. Those are the free items that we let everybody choose. Then our guest will choose just 6 other bits of studio gear plus 1 non-studio related luxury item.
Will Betts:
But we must never forget—
Chris Barker:
That's right, 100% no bundles.
Will Betts:
Choosing something sold as a package of separate software or hardware as a single item is strictly verboten.
Chris Barker:
Okay, so our guest this time is no stranger to electronic music production as one of the creators of the most used production tool in the studio.
Will Betts:
That's right. He's often credited as being the founder of Ableton, or one of the founders of Ableton. And in the studio, he goes by Monolake.
Chris Barker:
This is My Forever Studio with Robert Henke.
Robert Henke:
Hello. Hello.
Will Betts:
Welcome, Robert.
Chris Barker:
You know about the podcast. I hear you've done some preparation, which is— which we'll do everything in our power to try and disrupt your list. I hope so. But before we get started, let's, let's go back to the beginning and tell us about your journey into music technology and music production.
Robert Henke:
Well, the story that I told numerous times is that I come from a family of engineers, and making music was not an option at all, or being creative in any way. But it didn't keep me from discovering electronic music when I was a teenager. And from that moment, I was lost for everything else because it had a deep impact on me. And Then I started to do some jobs as a student to be able to afford my first synthesizer, a Juno-6. And then I built a small mixing desk for it and used a Sony Walkman and a cassette deck to do ping pong with it and created soundscapes.
Chris Barker:
But you say engineers, you obviously mean in the traditional sense of the word, not audio engineers.
Robert Henke:
No, no, very traditional, very Siemens. And the career path was very clear that I end up at Siemens or something like that. And then I moved to Berlin as soon as I could after school. And that was in early 1990. And of course that changed everything because suddenly I became part of this whole new electronic club music scene there. And that changed my career plan and my vision of what I'd like to do a lot.
Chris Barker:
But do you think the sort of engineering element gave you that kind of technical side, electronic music was always going to be the one, maybe.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, I mean, I definitely made my peace with my engineering persona. And I take it as a tremendous luxury that I was introduced to that type of thinking very early on. Once I liberated myself from this idea that engineering has nothing to do with art, once that barrier was gone, it felt like very limitless. Because suddenly you're able to look at creativity in a very different way. And I think we will come back to that when I tell you what I plan to take with me.
Chris Barker:
And what were the artists that you kind of were infatuated with and inspired by then? I mean, you must have been introduced to a lot of new people when you moved to Berlin as well.
Robert Henke:
In Berlin, the inspiration was very twofold. I studied computer science at a technical university and they had a quite famous studio for electronic music. One of those places where they had a big VAX computer and Silicon Graphics workstations where you could do things that you couldn't do in real time. And also we got introduced to a lot of like canonical classic computer music. So the works of John Chowning, François Bayle, Parmigiani, Xenakis. those kinds of things. And that type of insane sound processing and micro-editing and resynthesis or whatever technology were available at this time only for people in those institutions because they didn't run in real time and you had to calculate something overnight to be able to have a physical model of a membrane. All these kinds of things were one part of my experience.
Robert Henke:
And the other part of the experience was, of course, going to places like Tresor or all the other new clubs and understanding that you can make music with nothing but a drum computer, delay, and a bassline. I mean, for me, it was quite a shock. I have to admit, the first time I went to Tresor, I was like, oh my God, this is hell. I never come back here.
Will Betts:
Interesting.
Robert Henke:
This is way too loud. This is monotonous. This is— it was— I was alienated. But it had a deep impact on me, and I came back the next day.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Was it just kind of trying to figure out what everybody else saw in it, and then it suddenly clicked with you?
Robert Henke:
No, actually, it clicked from itself, from within. But it was so different from anything else that I thought about music before. I was fascinated by complexity. I was fascinated by subtle things and by long reverb tails in the distant and dynamics and everything. And then you come to a place where everything is exactly the opposite, but something is centered around exactly the same thing, an experience of sound.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
And an experience of space. And then it became clear to me that what I'm doing is somehow in between those 2 poles.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. I mean, I had a similar clubbing when I first went to Berlin. And what I noticed was it's the whole package, isn't it? And what you can remove from pieces to really expose what you need to, and like it's the taking away of elements.
Robert Henke:
Absolutely.
Chris Barker:
Whereas I was definitely from a background where I thought you would add things to make things richer, but actually removing things was the key. And hearing them on those sound systems in that environment, it's hard to explain to people that have never done it because if you just listen to the same records, unless you've got an amazing home system, it's not the same. And it's like, it's, yeah, very hard to explain. If any of our listeners have never done it, you need to go. Even if you think you don't like minimal techno or that kind of heavy sound or abstract, it will blow you away.
Robert Henke:
It is really interesting how different the perception is. My wife is a DJ since 1989, actually, and Electric Indigo. And when she is DJing here in Berlin, I of course go and I listen to her sets. And there's moments where I think, this track is amazing. Who the heck is this? And then I ran to her and look at the display. And then I see something either I know or I don't know. And then I listen to it at home and I think, really? This is the track?
Chris Barker:
Yes, because exactly that, exactly that.
Robert Henke:
It's the perception is so different.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. So tell us about the first studio setup outside of using university equipment.
Robert Henke:
I mean, that was in the early 1990s and that meant step by step getting a small mixing console, a reverb, and an Atari running Notator and a sampler. So the really the very classical prototype studio setup. The sampler was an ASR-10, which was a really good choice. I mean, I just bought it because it was the hottest shit I could afford at that time.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
And ultimately it turned out to be a really powerful, beautiful sounding machine. And then there was a Yamaha SY-77 and a Roland TR-505 drum computer with horrible kind of cheesy rock sounds that turned out to be unusable apart from the fact that it had MIDI out. So this was used for sequencing other things and then it became interesting.
Chris Barker:
Oh yeah.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. And of course a QuadraVerb for reverb, which I also still love.
Will Betts:
Of course.
Robert Henke:
I think over the course of the last 30 years, I owned 4 Quadraverbs because, you know, they broke or got stolen or something like this.
Chris Barker:
And that's Alesis, right?
Robert Henke:
Yeah,
Chris Barker:
yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
It's also a favorite of early Aphex Twin, and it makes complete sense because it's a wild and very, in a way, unique sounding reverb that I really love. The beauty of this unit is that it's so playful. Everything can be controlled via MIDI, which at this time for a budget reverb was pretty impressive. They had all these multi-programs of pitch shifting, delays, and reverb and chorus. So in a way, it was a very different philosophy from, let's say, a more affordable Lexicon with the focus on room reverb. It definitely didn't sound good, especially for real acoustic recordings or something like this. Yeah. But for instance, it had a very cool graininess to the sound.
Robert Henke:
You could dial just zero for the diffusion, and then you got these discrete echoes. So every snare you played in it became this kind of granulated snare just out of the reverb. And that was nice.
Will Betts:
And were you using that on the early Monolake stuff? I mean, you've been using it the whole time, I guess. It must feature all the time.
Robert Henke:
No, definitely on Hong Kong and Interstate, it's all over the place. Yeah.
Will Betts:
Oh, well, we'll get to Interstate surely in a little bit. But I do want to ask you, you said you had this, the TR-505 to sequence things. What were you recording into at that time?
Robert Henke:
A DAT machine.
Will Betts:
Just into DAT? Yes.
Robert Henke:
And so the working process was, since this was still a duo with Gerhard Billis, that we were just jamming. You know, we met and we started jamming. And at some point, something interesting came out. And then we hopefully managed to hit record. And then we just recorded till the tape was full. So kind of 2 hours.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Or we gave up earlier because we felt it leads to nothing. And Gerhard had the opportunity to edit these things because he was a tutor at the Technical University. So we had access to the electronic studio at night, highly illegally, of course. And we did hide our files in some folder somewhere deep down so that no one would recognize that we're doing techno music in the holy grail of the electronic studio. But I guess everyone knew anyway. And so the music happened by editing long sessions. And this was our— the only way how we could do it. But in retrospective, and especially after listening to the old things again, Mm-hmm.
Robert Henke:
this has some inherent qualities because when you're permanently changing the settings of everything and then your way to make structure is editing, then there's each edit is also a change in color. And this is beautiful and very powerful.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. That's the kind of like the kind of hip-hop aesthetic, that kind of cut and paste thing that you have where like the whole vibe changes when it gets to a chorus, if you can call them that, or things like that. Because it's like, it's, it's like all of the settings on all of the mixer and everything, there's sort of, the lack of consistency between phrases is actually what makes it really cool. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
And does that ever sort of come back in the way that you create, or is that something you sort of left behind when you stopped using the DATs?
Robert Henke:
When it became possible to do multitrack recording, we really never looked back.
Will Betts:
Right. Okay.
Robert Henke:
Fair enough. Which is, well, I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I should look back. And I should revise my workflow. And in a way, I'm doing this now because I'm working much more again, or maybe much more than ever in a collage way.
Will Betts:
Hmm.
Robert Henke:
Where I record phrases, ideas, things without any musical context, just because I find an interesting sound. And I think, oh, this sound with these chords makes sense. And I just record it with no intention to make a piece at this specific point in time.
Chris Barker:
Just like making your own sample packs.
Robert Henke:
Exactly. And then when I'm in the mood of making a piece, I just click very quickly through my sample packs and whatever resonates, I just throw in. And I really like that approach because it seems to create quite a lot of different results in a very reasonable amount of time, which is good. But also it avoids this infinite loop of refinement of the of the atoms. Because, you know, either I like this sound or I replace it by something else, but I'm not gonna re-edit every microsecond of it.
Chris Barker:
Yeah,
Will Betts:
that's such a great tip as well, because I feel like I certainly spend far too much time trying to refine the idea and then you lose it. It's gone and it's no good. So yeah, to just keep moving, that's a great shout.
Chris Barker:
It's also a good method when you're not feeling inspired, maybe, I don't know, melodically, or you're not in the mood to make a track, it doesn't matter what genre it is, making sounds and recording samples is a way to open that door without putting yourself under the pressure of it's time to make a whole track.
Robert Henke:
100%. I managed to trick myself into becoming creative again exactly this way very often.
Chris Barker:
As somebody who built Ableton, it's It's interesting seeing the hardware there. Like you said, as you move forward in your journey, you didn't abandon that and you didn't become, all you need is Ableton Live now. I mean, did that ever cross your mind at any points? Were there points where you were, I've made this tool, I've made my perfect music-making tool and everybody else loves it too. Why do I need anything else?
Robert Henke:
Well, first of all, we can very much debate if it's perfect. It's certainly not. Because it's a product of many people involved, and— Yeah. Which is good. But I had a moment in time where I thought it would be wise to just use your laptop. The reason why I then came back to hardware is not a very rational one on a first glance. It is really more the feeling of, getting joy out of the fact that there's these machines that have their very own beauty. And I think the reason why I enjoy these machines so much is partially due to the fact that I understand and admire what kind of madness went into making them.
Robert Henke:
Like, I had the luxury to meet a few of the iconic creators of machines. So I talked to Wolfgang Palm, who built the PPG. I talked to, um, Dave Smith, who was a dear friend, and to a lot of people in the industry. And understanding where they came from and how they managed to create something truly astonishing with very limited resources is beautiful. And then you play with these machines, and just like everything, they are not perfect, but they radiate personality. And I feel when I'm playing with these instruments I interact with someone who put a lot of love in it. And that makes it a beautiful experience. And apart from the fact, of course, that it is a way of thinking about music that is not, at least for me, immediately connected to, okay, I have to create a result.
Robert Henke:
It is really more a playful thing. When I'm too tired to actually work on something, I can still go to one of these beautiful machines here, add some lush reverb, and play a few things just for myself to enjoy music as something that is just an expression of sound and harmony and melody without any pressure. And then there might be something coming out that I would never ever dare to put on a record, you know, some weird jazz harmonics that are ridiculously— where I would feel embarrassed if anyone would listen to. But it's liberating for me. And the joy I get from these things then radiates back to what I'm doing in software. What did happen to me very often in the past was that I bought a piece of equipment because I was curious about it. And then I played with it. And later I realized I could do exactly the same thing in software.
Robert Henke:
And then I started doing it in software. But I needed the detour via the hardware to appreciate the sound. That happens to me very often with my little modular rig where I patch things together. And at the end, I create a Max patch that does exactly the same thing, but has total recall and all the nice things that you can have in software, like having 20 voices running if necessary.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
But in order to get there, playing with the modules in the modular rig Is a really good starting point.
Chris Barker:
Let's start building this forever studio. So,
Will Betts:
location.
Chris Barker:
Where would you have your perfect studio, your forever studio in the world?
Robert Henke:
Okay, given the state of the world with global warming, this affects the decision-making process a lot because anywhere where typically German would dream of is probably a bad idea. Like Spain, I would probably not want to move there now. Italy, maybe, but not in the south. France, challenging. United States, let's not even talk about it.
Will Betts:
So we're running out of options,
Robert Henke:
Robert.
Chris Barker:
Berlin.
Robert Henke:
Somewhere, duh. I think this requires a very, very long, careful selection process. I want to be somewhere where there's mountains.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
Where I'm far away from tourists, but it's beautiful, where it's affordable.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, I've got it.
Robert Henke:
But all kinds of luxury, like good coffee, nice restaurants.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Henke:
As I said, very remote, but close to an airport.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, Scotland. You're in Scotland. You're in Scotland. Okay,
Robert Henke:
I'm in Scotland.
Chris Barker:
It sounds like Scotland.
Robert Henke:
Yep.
Chris Barker:
Sounds like, uh, you're doing a Paul McCartney, you're going to Campbeltown, you're going to the Mull of Kintyre. Like, yeah, when Paul McCartney left the Beatles, that's where you're going.
Robert Henke:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
Mountains, airport. There is a small airport, so that's fine.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. So we go there. Um,
Chris Barker:
okay.
Robert Henke:
So I wait till the UK is coming back to the EU and then, um, yeah.
Chris Barker:
Well, Scotland might be first. True.
Robert Henke:
So Scotland it shall be.
Chris Barker:
Yes. Okay. All right. Whether it's Scotland or not, you want somewhere mountainous, but we're thinking Scotland. Scotland. And what type of vibe is your studio? Are you— I mean, we can see on the Zoom for people listening, you've got quite a sort of lab-like studio behind you. Very white, lots of nice hardware. Very Berlin.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, well, it's a, you know, it's part of my flat, which is very Berlin, which has its pros and cons.
Chris Barker:
Would you change that aesthetic if you were in Scotland?
Robert Henke:
Actually, my dream studio would be a living room studio. So the idea that I have one large space, which is like really large, like 40 square meters or something like this, or 50 or even larger.
Chris Barker:
Like Real World.
Robert Henke:
Pretty much, yeah. Real World is a good role model where your studio is in there, where there's lots of plants and where you can invite friends to hang out and to make music together. Where you can step back and listen to music from a distance. So something that's very open would be my preferred place. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
It made me think of Real World straight away, that big sort of couched open space. Nice views outside.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. I would take that.
Chris Barker:
I'm seeing that. Are you seeing that, Will?
Will Betts:
Yeah. Is it sort of cozy, like a hygge vibe, or is it more like lots of natural light, big windows, vistas?
Robert Henke:
It depends. I mean, if the vista is on the ocean and the cliffs, then vista, or if it's in a forest or just nature around, then vista is fine. Could also be some soft hills, fine with that too. The other alternative would be the more Southern European Spanish version where it's very closed, fenced down to the outside, but inside is a beautiful yard with a big old tree and a little fountain. Mm-hmm. And stuff like that.
Chris Barker:
Like a compound.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, that would also work.
Will Betts:
Okay, we're going to have to pin you down to an answer at some point, but we'll— we can get there at the end. I'll give you a few minutes to stew on that.
Chris Barker:
The equipment choices might stir up the location anyway. As you will know, you get 3 items free at first: an audio interface, a computer, and a DAW, which, yeah, I'm guessing for you it'll be Logic or FL Studio or something like that. Ha! No,
Robert Henke:
actually, wait, wait, wait. I thought about that. And here's the catch.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
I choose Max MSP.
Will Betts:
Oh.
Chris Barker:
I mean, you would, you will, does Max not come with the full studio Ableton?
Robert Henke:
Yes, it comes with, in the form of Max for Live, it comes as part of Live. But I insist, I would like to just use Max.
Chris Barker:
Okay, okay. Wow. Tell us why.
Will Betts:
Yeah,
Robert Henke:
because since this is something that is hypothetical and it's something that needs to keep me busy for the next— Forever. Forever, yeah. And I mean, I expect technology to make sure that we are all living on a beautiful green planet and I continue living for at least 50, 60 more years. And the reason why I choose Max MSP and not a DLW is in Max MSP, I would have to build my own structure for creating structure, finishing pieces and everything. And that would be basically a fresh start saying, okay, let's forget about everything and start from the beginning and only take what I learned from the past, but trying to build something new without any concepts of tracks, of effects, of any of the musical ideas that are inevitably embraced by a conventional DAW and saying, okay, let's just start again from zero. And yeah, that would be something that I found interesting.
Chris Barker:
Okay, well, let's lock that one in then, Will.
Will Betts:
Well, so instead of a DAW, you're choosing Max/MSP only. What, so you're essentially building a DAW from scratch?
Robert Henke:
No, maybe. Because that would be stupid. Okay.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
Well. So the idea is for every piece of music or for every album, I would just build deliberate Max patches that solve that purpose.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
So let's say I make a piece that is only made out of samples. Then I build a sample player and something that creates structure in time that makes sure that the samples are playing back when I need them. And for the next piece, which is highly focused on, let's say, polyrhythms, then I built this thing that does polyrhythms. And then there's one granular player for some atmospheric stuff. And at the end, I place an object that does recording and that's it.
Chris Barker:
That's your DAP machine, basically.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. So that would be my concept.
Will Betts:
Love it.
Chris Barker:
Can we just go back a second to the building of Ableton? Because obviously it was, you know, hence the name, it was sort of proposed as a live tool essentially initially, right? I mean, do you ever think that it should have had 2 versions, a live version and a studio version? I mean, the combination of it into one software, and was that always part of the growth where you saw it?
Robert Henke:
You see, it's a little bit like with children. You can have ideas how they should turn out. But ultimately—
Chris Barker:
engineers for Siemens.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, exactly. But ultimately it's out of your hands. The moment you build something that is used by other people, people impose their own ideas and use the products in ways that you would not anticipate. And then of course from there comes requests and hopes and dreams and wishes, and this then shapes the development of the product, which then in return shapes your audience, which then shapes the product. So ultimately, very, very soon after the initial upbringing in the world, this whole thing becomes a— gets into a dynamic that is very much driven by a lot of different forces. And in a way, you can compare it to a big ship. You know, you try to steer it along the river, but ultimately the river is flowing and you can just try to make the best out of it.
Chris Barker:
This is a very politically correct answer. I'm enjoying it. I wasn't trying to get you to criticize Ableton. I just wanted to know your thoughts of what that moment was between live and then, I mean, was there a moment for yourself where you go, this is now a product that's, it's not for stage or it's not only for stage?
Robert Henke:
No, I mean, my role in the company was always anyway more of someone who is looking into details, and Gerhard is always the person who is responsible for the big picture. And hence my thoughts about the big picture are secondary anyway. But I think there was never really a discussion about in which direction to go apart from maybe one point in time when the DJ culture very much started to embrace new technologies. Basically, in a similar time when the CDJs came out and Native Instruments started to build DJ software. And there was a moment where we thought, if it would make sense to fork off a DJ version of Ableton Live.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Something, you know, like one of those classical DJ softwares. And we couldn't agree on a feature set that still would set us apart from the rest and still would be tailored enough to DJs to make sense as a separate product. And hence we gave up on the idea and I'm very happy about that.
Will Betts:
If you were to start over completely, and make a DAW from scratch today, do you think it would look different? And if so, like, how would it look different?
Robert Henke:
Oh, this is a tough question. I mean, I guess it would look different. Again, as I said, I'm the person for the details. So I would immediately attempt to simplify a few things. I would leave a few features out. I would make a few other things more prominent.
Will Betts:
Like what?
Robert Henke:
Well, something that is very over-engineered and very powerful in theory and practically, in my opinion, often not what would be more approachable is the groove pool. In theory, you could do crazy stuff with it. Practically, it keeps you from just applying a swing to something. And that is a bit of a tragedy of over-engineering, but it's in the world and we cannot change it anymore because there's people using it. Mm-hmm. So that is something you have to live with. I guess if I would have a piece of paper and think about it again from scratch, maybe a lot of things would come up that would be similar, a lot of things that would be different. But the first intuition here is probably a bad guide because as so often when you try to develop something, you have an idea and then you spend some time thinking about it.
Robert Henke:
And suddenly things get really complex. I mean, sometimes you have good luck and it's the other way around. You think something is difficult and once you start sorting it out, it simplifies itself. But more often the case is that the classical answer to, hey, why don't you people just add this and this feature is because if we would do this, then it would mean this for that and that for this. And then you end up telling this person for 2 hours why that simple button is not the option.
Chris Barker:
Yes, yes, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's software development all over, isn't it? Yeah. And user base expectations as well from people that don't develop.
Robert Henke:
It's so funny how much you can do wrong. You want to improve something very simple and a tiny little thing like when you solo a track, the track selection follows. That seems to be a no-brainer, right? I mean, when you solo a track, you probably want to see what's in the track. So until Live 12, this was not the case. You could solo a track and the track selection stayed at the last selected track. We figured out that this is not cool. So the solution is when you solo a track, the selection follows. Seems to be perfect.
Robert Henke:
Well, unless you do the same thing with a MIDI controller where you use soloing a track, for instance, to A/B between a master track and an unmastered track. Yeah. And every time you A/B, Your track selection switches. And that's just one little detail.
Chris Barker:
There's all these niche user cases.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. And there's millions of them. And
Chris Barker:
then you end up with every improvement, or what you think is an improvement, being able to give the user the option. And then that's more of a development headache. Like, you can turn it on and off in the settings. And then it's like—
Robert Henke:
The problem is then you get this pages of pages of settings. And tech support is gonna hate you for this because every single time there's a support request, you spend the first half an hour talking with the user, what exactly are your settings? Yeah,
Chris Barker:
exactly. Yes,
Will Betts:
it's like, Henkkaa!
Chris Barker:
Henkkaa! We've got your DAW, we've got Max MSP. Yeah, we now need an audio interface and a computer.
Robert Henke:
Okay, I don't care.
Chris Barker:
Okay, moving on.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, I mean, Look, my studio runs at an iMac from 2018, and I feel it's completely sufficient. So let's get just one of those Mac G4 cubes, which runs Cirklix 10 times around this machine, and we are good.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
And audio interface, you know, I'm 57 now, and my hearing stops at a ridiculously low frequency. I really don't care about audiophile. Anything that has a decent sound and is affordable and potentially portable should do the job.
Chris Barker:
And what about multitracks? Do you—
Robert Henke:
Yeah, let's have— I mean, here is a Matrix Halo Mobile I/O, 2 of them, that gives 16 analog in and out channels, which is fine. But I would probably go for an RME. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Rockford Fosgate. Top-end RME. Solid German engineering. Um, no frills. It does the job.
Chris Barker:
Good drivers forever.
Robert Henke:
Exactly.
Chris Barker:
The Neat drivers.
Robert Henke:
Yes. So that would be a thing.
Chris Barker:
What's the top? What are we looking at, Will, here? Let's, uh, let's upsell some dreams.
Will Betts:
Hmm. Let's see. We're looking at, I think the Fireface UFX3 USB is one of the bigger ones. I think that has How many ins and outs does that have? It might not have enough I/O for you. It's about 2 grand.
Robert Henke:
But I decided, look, I mean, if I can only take 6 items, then I don't need many, many I/O.
Chris Barker:
True.
Will Betts:
Okay, it's got 12 analog ins, so you should be absolutely fine with that. Yes, okay. Let's go with that one. Okay, that's good.
Robert Henke:
Okay, let's go for that one.
Will Betts:
Done.
Chris Barker:
RME locked in. Okay, so that brings us on to the first Actual item of your 6?
Robert Henke:
So assumption is studio is in a space where I don't have to talk with neighbors about issues.
Chris Barker:
Nope.
Robert Henke:
So I want to get the biggest ATC studio monitors plus the dedicated subs in stereo. So I want to have full range with extremely beautiful low end and enough headroom to play something loud if I feel like it.
Chris Barker:
Nice. We're in real world again, aren't we, with these big old ATCs?
Robert Henke:
Maybe, yeah.
Chris Barker:
Lovely.
Robert Henke:
ATCs is great. You know, it's something that is not vintage. I mean, you know, I would buy the current models and not 20-year-old ones, which means they should last for a while. They sound great. And I feel comfortable whenever I hear them. I feel comfortable that what I hear on them is real, whatever that means.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Plus it can give you the full Berlin techno club vibe if you need it.
Robert Henke:
Exactly.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice.
Will Betts:
Perfect. So the big ones are the SCM-300 ASL Pro. Those are the ones with 2 big woofers, uh, and then a mid-range and a, um, tweeter. And then you'd want the subs as well in stereo, did you say?
Robert Henke:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
That's okay. Wow. I'll figure out what that that sub is exactly, but it is going to be enough, surely.
Chris Barker:
It's going to be enough. Yeah. Okay.
Will Betts:
It's got to be enough. And do you want them sort of freestanding or do you want them built into the walls?
Robert Henke:
I would say freestanding because I want to have them on a beautiful rolling metal construction so I can roll them around when I feel like changing my studio, because this is one thing that I really want, that my space is flexible.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. Which means, you know, if I want to invite people to have a good time or watching the movies with full sound, then I want to get rid of everything. And if I want to have the speakers outdoor because it's nice to have them outdoors, I want to roll them out. So my—
Chris Barker:
This is very living room vibes that you wanted. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Exactly. Yes.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Perfect.
Will Betts:
I love this. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So not soffit-mounted. Okay, good.
Robert Henke:
But of course, the room should not look like it, but it should of course have perfect room acoustics. So things that look like completely untreated rough walls are in fact perfectly shaped and calculated walls with perfect reflections of everything.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, of course, we would obviously Obviously have all the perfect acoustics for you. Yeah. Thanks.
Robert Henke:
I appreciate it.
Will Betts:
We'd get that, those scientists who've been figuring out moth wings to use their genius brains to turn your walls into completely acoustically wonderful.
Robert Henke:
That's nice. So I can adapt the acoustics by putting more or less rotten fruit juice in the place.
Will Betts:
I'm not sure that's exactly how it works, but yeah, I think that's kind of the idea.
Chris Barker:
Cashmere walls, loads of moths. It sounds great, but it's hell. It's hell in there. As soon as you switch on a light, it's nuts. Well,
Robert Henke:
you have to make compromises. I mean—
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah. Sounds great, but no lights. Or it's mental in there. It's like the Crystal Maze, but with moths.
Robert Henke:
It's weird. It sounds so great, yet no one wants to record in there.
Will Betts:
It's weird. It's so weird.
Chris Barker:
Moth Studios. I like it. Okay. Let's move on swiftly to item number 2.
Robert Henke:
Yes, I need a keyboard. And since I only have 6 items, I cannot— no, I mean, there's a lot of nice vintage stuff here, but I need to have something that keeps me busy for a few years to come. So I choose the Expressive E Osmosey because that is super expressive. You can play with it. And the sound engine, apart from being a nightmare to program, is extremely capable. And so I think that would be a good choice.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Yeah.
Will Betts:
And so you've played a bunch with one of these then, I take it. Do you have one in your studio right now?
Robert Henke:
I have one. Yeah. And I'm not a classical player. So I thought this is not an important factor. I mainly bought it because of the engine and the physical modeling capabilities and all these kinds of things. And I started very soon to miss that type of keyboard on pretty much everything else I have.
Chris Barker:
Oh, really?
Robert Henke:
Because these slight pitch modulations you can get, they are beautiful. And the fact that you can modulate a sound by pressing a key deeper after the fact again and get all these kinds of complex modulations on a per-note basis. That's nice. It's just a matter of fact.
Chris Barker:
And has it made it onto any of your records yet?
Robert Henke:
Yeah, on the last one, on Studio, it's used quite often.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
Will Betts:
Any specific tracks we can sort of listen out for?
Robert Henke:
It's all over the place, so I don't know.
Will Betts:
Listen for the bends, basically.
Chris Barker:
Listen for the bends. When it gets bendy, it's that.
Robert Henke:
No, actually, it's I use it very subtle because I also have a cultural issue with this kind of noodling, bending rock solo. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
So
Chris Barker:
I know what you mean.
Will Betts:
That's the second time you've mentioned physical modeling now. It seems like, is this something you love, physical modeling? Because it doesn't always come up.
Robert Henke:
It was a bit the holy grail or one of the last big frontiers when I was still at university. Everyone tried to come up with ways to make physical modeling more accessible, more stable, these kinds of things. So it was really the— there was a moment in time where a lot of research went into, let's get the perfect piano model out of a physical model so that you don't need samples anymore. You don't need to have gigantic libraries of samples, which still sound static. But you have something that really, really is a convincing Steinway grand piano based on the mathematics behind it, or a trumpet, or anything in between. And then, of course, the promise that once you nailed this, you can morph from a snare drum to an orchestral timpani and back to a woodblock within one note.
Chris Barker:
Have you seen the— is it Anukari, the new—
Robert Henke:
Yeah, yeah. That goes pretty far in this direction.
Chris Barker:
Yes, it's, for anybody listening, it's worth Googling Anukari. It's like physical modeling, build your own physical modeling. So you can have a mallet at the front and an object.
Robert Henke:
But of course you can get lost in there.
Chris Barker:
Yeah,
Robert Henke:
yeah, of course. Which is always the challenge with those kinds of things. So the next step would be to have something that allows for those kinds of instruments without the tedium of changing 500 parameters that ultimately make not such a big deal effect.
Chris Barker:
Were we on item number 3 now, Will?
Robert Henke:
Item number 3 is a surprising one, I hope. It's a Döpfer fader box. So it has just nothing else than 16 MIDI faders. The reason is I need something that allows to express myself. And as an engineer, faders is an appropriate choice. And 16 faders in combination with Max allows me to do whatever I want. And it allows me to think about music again in a very different way. A fader could play a melody.
Robert Henke:
A fader could shape a chord progression. A fader could be a dramatic evolution of a sound. A fader could be speed or density of events or whatever. Yeah. So if I have 16 faders and Max, I can create myself an environment that allows me to actually perform music, to create music, whatever.
Chris Barker:
But why this specific one?
Robert Henke:
I'm using it since I bought my FaderBox when it came out, I don't know, 30 years ago.
Chris Barker:
There must be more fader options or things with, you know, pots and things that—
Robert Henke:
Yeah, but I like the fact that it's really just 16 faders and they are reliable and they work. And they worked for 30 years, so I'm confident they will work for 30 more years.
Chris Barker:
Yep. Or forever.
Robert Henke:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Forever. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Lovely. No thrills.
Will Betts:
So Döpfer make this, do they?
Robert Henke:
They made it. I think it's really called just either Döpfer MIDI Fader or Döpfer Fader Box. And it's really just 16 faders that send out MIDI CC and that's it.
Chris Barker:
And they're probably quite hard to get hold of now, are they?
Robert Henke:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
They haven't been made for a while. No, you
Will Betts:
can't find one anywhere. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
And it's a good size. The faders are close enough so that with one hand you can, for instance, if you configure 8 of them as a graphical EQ, then with one hand you can just apply the EQ without even thinking.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Okay. So you've— and this came out, what, in the '90s, did it?
Robert Henke:
I assume early 2000s, '90s, something like this.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. 2006 would be my guess.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
Do I get a price if I'm getting better? 2002.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Will Betts:
You get a prize for us never having it been selected before on the show. So that's— Oh,
Robert Henke:
good.
Will Betts:
Yeah. This is a new one. This is a new one on us. Yeah.
Robert Henke:
Awesome.
Will Betts:
So you've literally got one hand on the fader bank.
Robert Henke:
Yes.
Will Betts:
Playing with different parameters. Do you always map it the same way or is it sort of different every time? Do you try and build muscle memory? How does that work?
Robert Henke:
For my live performances, I always have the 8 leftmost faders is indeed my graphical EQ on the master, which is a very helpful thing to have. If I like to play loud, then sometimes my pieces have some frequencies that are a bit piercing, so I can just automatically remove them. It's kind of like automatic gain control. Nice. Or if I feel like now is the time where the kick really needs to be kicking in, then I just raise the 120 Hz. And if the PA is really massive, then I raise the 50 Hz. And if the low mids are really annoying, then I remove the 300 Hz. Stuff like this.
Robert Henke:
It's quite powerful to have this, especially if you use it for 20 years with always the same settings. So it becomes a part of your body in a way.
Chris Barker:
And they do, they do do a 24.
Will Betts:
Do they?
Chris Barker:
24, I think, is dope for you. Yeah.
Will Betts:
Yeah, I'd say
Chris Barker:
dope for
Will Betts:
the Pocket Fader, I think it's called, is it?
Chris Barker:
Okay, nice. Well, yes, never been chosen before.
Robert Henke:
Great.
Chris Barker:
Let's, uh, let's move on to item number 4.
Robert Henke:
Uh, since I'm only using Max MSP and no, uh, audio workstation. I don't have the luxury of having all these beautiful effects and reverbs and everything. Hence, I need—
Chris Barker:
Your choice, by the way. Your choice.
Will Betts:
You've made your bed, Robert.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, yeah, I know. I guess I can't go back. No, I'm not a particular fan of the specific effects unit I chose, but I chose it because it's It's very powerful and it probably does everything I could need for the foreseeable future. It's an Eventide H9000.
Will Betts:
Great choice.
Robert Henke:
It's— I find it pretty ugly in comparison to the older Eventide units that are more iconic. You know, it's a computer in disguise. It's, you know, it's either it is a computer and has a color screen and all the menus, then why is it a 19-inch rack mount thing, or it's an effect unit, then it doesn't need to have a fancy display. Then it— but anyway, it's my way to get around the lack of built-in effects of my not-DAW.
Chris Barker:
Okay,
Will Betts:
perfect.
Robert Henke:
And I really like the sound of what Eventide does. So that's—
Will Betts:
Yeah. Do you have one right now?
Robert Henke:
No, I don't have an H9000. I have A mighty H3000, you know, the classic.
Chris Barker:
Classic.
Robert Henke:
And I have an Eclipse that is slightly younger and slightly more powerful. And that's what I have.
Will Betts:
Okay. So why not go with the H3000 then? What are you missing between that and the 9000?
Robert Henke:
I'm pretty sure the 9000 allows me to do things that I don't even think of with the 3000.
Chris Barker:
And if it's a computer, you could probably get inside it and hack it.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, it's more future-proof.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, exactly. Okay, now we're moving on to item number 5.
Robert Henke:
Okay, I was thinking I want something analog and I want something that is playful. And somehow I thought I want a classic. And my choice of the classic for the new studio would be the Korg reissue of the ARP 2600.
Will Betts:
Lovely.
Robert Henke:
The reason is in a way it's limited. It's not a big modular thing, which actually is a bundle in my opinion. So yeah.
Chris Barker:
A big modular would be a bundle. Yeah, correct. Well spotted.
Will Betts:
Very much so.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. It is one thing that has been created by one person more or less with a specific idea of how things should work together. So it has all this nice criteria of being something with personality. It has a lovely sound from what I can tell from playing with it a few times. It's versatile, it's inspiring, and it's open enough to probably keep me busy for a while. And it can deliver a lot of the bread and butter sounds I might want to sample to then use in Max. And so if I want to have a nice electronic percussion sound, I can get it out. If I want to have a nice bassline sound, I can get it.
Robert Henke:
If I want to have some arpeggiator things, I can get it and so on. If I want to have polyphonic stuff, well, then I'll record something in a looper in Max and layer it. So, you know, it should do the job.
Chris Barker:
And why not an original?
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
It has MIDI.
Chris Barker:
Ah,
Will Betts:
okay.
Chris Barker:
Nice.
Robert Henke:
Also, as much as I like vintage gear, I have my fair share of repair duties. And if it really comes down to making music, I'd rather work with equipment that has a bigger chance of lasting for a while.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Will Betts:
Well, speaking of repairs, are we going to talk about something, a large piece of equipment you repaired not too long ago?
Robert Henke:
You mean the big fridge? It's a fascinating piece of engineering. coming from a mindset of, I don't care what it costs, let's build it. Not me, but the people who built the Sönkevier Poly Sampling Mini Tower, where mini is a kind of, you know, mini, if you think about large mainframe computers, then it's mini.
Will Betts:
Is
Chris Barker:
that what we can see behind you on the right?
Robert Henke:
It's exactly with the orange Buddha figure on top.
Chris Barker:
Yes. It is the size of a fridge, just for people listening.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. So there's a 19-inch rack mount thing with black front panels and a fancy Synclavier logo on top and the red power button. And if I turn it on, it heats the room.
Chris Barker:
Okay, got it.
Robert Henke:
The sampling sounds indeed insane with 100 kHz sampling rate, and when you transpose it down, it really just slows down the readout from the DAC and no interpolation. And this is something that has some very own brutal, uh, quality to it. If you want to experience it, Grace Jones' Slave to the Rhythm is basically Synclavier sampling nonstop. And Electric Café from Kraftwerk, the whole album is Synclavier sampling. So, boing, boom, chuck. That comes all out of that machine.
Chris Barker:
Kate Bush as well? Was Kate Bush—
Robert Henke:
No, Kate Bush was on the other side of the fence with the Fairlight.
Chris Barker:
The Fairlight.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, there was always this Australia versus US. And if money didn't— wasn't an option, I mean, the struggle of it, then you had both, of course.
Chris Barker:
Yes,
Robert Henke:
so of course. Um, I would not choose this one simply because despite its, uh, grandeur, it's limited. And I mean, I would like to have it in, in my living room studio if I can have another item, just for the fact of it looks cool and it's really fun to operate.
Chris Barker:
No, no can do. No, no rule breaking.
Will Betts:
There's only one left, I'm afraid.
Robert Henke:
Then I stick with a poster of it on the wall.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So does that bring us to our final item?
Robert Henke:
Oh my God, yeah. The final item, ladies and gentlemen, the final item.
Chris Barker:
The final studio item anyway. And then we have a luxury, which we will get to.
Robert Henke:
The final item is a one-of-its-kind item. Hmm. It's my little 8-bit computer I built as a clock generator for my CBM project, which is a 1 MHz computer with 32 kilobytes of RAM, which makes only sense to be programmed in assembler, and which has a dedicated 2-channel 8-bit digital-to-analog converter board and a vintage speech synthesis chip.
Chris Barker:
Ah.
Robert Henke:
And I would want to carry this with me. But since this is a bit further in the future, I want to have the never built but planned 8-voice version of it.
Chris Barker:
Okay.
Robert Henke:
Which would turn this whole thing into a polyphonic kind of reenacting of crazy early '80s technology. machines, which I then can program in assembler to do all kinds of weird things. So it could do, it couldn't do sampling, but it could do everything the PPG could do. It could do all kinds of crazy digital percussions. So that would be my instrument of choice.
Chris Barker:
Wow. And this would be triggered via your computer, via the Mac, via Max and your faders?
Robert Henke:
That would be controlled via Max, yes.
Chris Barker:
Okay, so what kind of '80s gear is it referencing then? Like PPG and sort of wavetable synthesis, kind of?
Robert Henke:
Yeah, that would be something easy to program with it.
Chris Barker:
Easy for you, easy.
Robert Henke:
Easy in terms of, okay, could be done.
Chris Barker:
Okay,
Robert Henke:
that's my definition of easy here.
Chris Barker:
We need to give this bit of equipment a name.
Robert Henke:
It's called Firebird.
Chris Barker:
There we
Robert Henke:
go. I call this my Because it has a red display and also the Firebird is a beautiful mythological item. So it kind of makes sense.
Chris Barker:
Yes.
Robert Henke:
So the story behind it was that for this project where I'm performing with 5 computers from 1980, like the CBM 8032 project, one of the computers is a step sequencer or it runs as a step sequencer. But in order to work, it needs an external clock signal. And at the very beginning, I generated this clock signal by simply using an LFO from a Eurorack. Then it turned out that this is not stable enough because this project is an audiovisual project and there's some graphical things that need to be in sync over a long period of time with the sound. And
Chris Barker:
you would get drift, would you, with the—
Robert Henke:
I would get a drift and that was not satisfying. Then I built a very simple clock generator by myself, which was also kind of working, but not really. And then I thought, I have so much experience now with understanding how these old computers work. Why not building myself a little computer? And this is so typically me. I come up with these crazy ideas and then I'm just stubborn enough to do it. And of course it took me longer than I thought.
Will Betts:
How long did you think it was gonna take and how long did it actually take?
Robert Henke:
I thought it's a question of 3 months and it took me maybe 9 months or so. But of course, I did also other things in between.
Will Betts:
Of course.
Robert Henke:
The thing is that once I had this thing, I could add options to it that I didn't foresee at the beginning. For instance, now I could have a swing. And now I could control the tempo from the sequencer so that each piece or even each scene in a piece could have a different tempo. And on top, since it's a computer system, I could do all kinds of other things. And that led me to the idea that I would like to add a sound synthesis card to it and then a speech synthesis card and those kinds of things. So I can now rebuild this kind of classical '80s speak and spell type of things, you know. Are you ready?
Chris Barker:
Yeah, that's nice. Nice impression.
Robert Henke:
And if I had 8 voices of this controllable, then it would be really a lot of fun.
Chris Barker:
Um, tell me, uh, why would you build this as hardware, apart from it just being fun, which is completely allowed, um, and not just build it in Max?
Robert Henke:
It would be so easy to do in Max.
Will Betts:
It's the challenge!
Chris Barker:
He loves the challenge. Yes, yes, yes.
Will Betts:
Games without frontiers.
Chris Barker:
Yes, exactly. Yeah, if it's easy, then it's not worth doing.
Robert Henke:
Exactly. Yeah, you know, like, I mean, you, you don't go to a halfpipe and say to the little girl with their skateboard, say, why do you do this? You know, you could just take your bike and go from the other side to, you know—
Chris Barker:
Be much easier without you being on the skateboard.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you could just walk on the other side. Yeah,
Chris Barker:
I always think like tennis, like if you got rid of the net in tennis, it'd be so much easier, the game.
Robert Henke:
Exactly. Yeah.
Chris Barker:
So, okay, good answer. Okay, well, let's do a little rundown, Will. Uh, so take a listen to Will and his rundown of your studio and see what you think, and then we'll, uh, go on to your final luxury item, which isn't a bit of studio kit. Okay, take it away, Will.
Will Betts:
Okay, we're in a 50+ square foot open-plan living room studio. in Scotland, full of plants with a view of mountains, soft hills. Did you make a decision? Are we going compound? You tell me.
Robert Henke:
No, we don't go compound. We go, uh, because we are countryside, I guess. So we are green fields.
Will Betts:
Green fields.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. Like a hedge maybe and something like that. And a
Chris Barker:
single hedge.
Robert Henke:
I don't know. Something It might be mountains. Okay. Maybe mountains.
Will Betts:
Mountain views. Okay. Lovely. Uh, for your computer then you have chosen a G4 Cube. For your interface, you have chosen an—
Robert Henke:
Actually, no, wait. G4 Cube is, is, is, sorry, old people talking. It's an M4. The G4 Cube would not do it.
Will Betts:
Okay. M4. You've
Chris Barker:
got away with that because all through this I was thinking G4 Cube, that is bold. But yeah, looks great. Okay.
Robert Henke:
Oh yeah. Was this, this was the white one with the, with, right? Oh, nice. Oh, that would be awesome. No, M4, sorry. I thought
Will Betts:
you were going for a very specific aesthetic there. Yeah. Okay.
Robert Henke:
No, no, I'm, my masochism has limits.
Will Betts:
Okay, so your computer is a Mac M4 Studio. Your interface is an RME Fireface UFX3 USB 3. Your DAW, astonishingly, is Mac's MSP only.
Robert Henke:
It's a no W. Look, Mom, no W. So
Will Betts:
for your 6 items, you've chosen for your speakers a pair of ATC SCM300 ASL Pros and a pair of SCS200iW Pro subs.
Robert Henke:
Mm-hmm.
Will Betts:
For a keyboard, you have chosen the Expressive E Osmose. For your controller, it's slightly unusual. It is a Derpfer Pocket Fader, 16-fader box. For effects, you have chosen an Eventide H9000. For your second synth, you have chosen the Korg reissue of the ARP 2600. And your final studio item is a piece of equipment made by you, a Firebird, Although, are we going to call this the Firebird 8 if it's 8 voices?
Robert Henke:
Yes, we call it the Firebird 8, which will be built once the place is ready.
Will Betts:
Perfect. Okay.
Robert Henke:
Actually, you know what? 8 voices is so yesterday. Let's make it 16.
Will Betts:
Ah, yes. You have sold yourself, Robert Henke. So Robert Henke's Firebird 16. It is a computer with 32 kilobytes of RAM. 8-bit, programmed with speech synthesis. What more to say? It sounds like an extraordinary item. We can't wait for you to get started on it.
Robert Henke:
It's something like the PPG, but not, plus something very different, but not, if that helps.
Chris Barker:
That's good. We'll put that on the box, in quotes, Robert Henke. Okay,
Will Betts:
so then that
Chris Barker:
quote never made it onto the Ableton Live packaging, did it?
Robert Henke:
It comes with this Warning, fully customizable.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, warning. That's true. That's true. Okay, well, now that the studio is locked in, we've just got the, the studio kit, I should say, we've got your luxury item, which can be anything. What are you thinking?
Robert Henke:
I thought my luxury item would be a lovely green plant. But since we already agreed that this is kind of— we already have the plants, I can basically Because you mentioned the plants already, so I'm fine with that being not the luxury item. I would like to have a piece of art. Yes, please. An inspiring piece of art. So my choice would maybe be an original plotted drawing from one of the computer graphics pioneers. So something that has something to do with my way of thinking and my programming and everything. So Perhaps a plotted drawing by Manfred Mohr or something like that.
Chris Barker:
Okay. Amazing. That's exactly why we had this unique luxury item element to this podcast. And you're one of the few people that have taken it seriously and not just had a revolving bed or something. So brilliant. No disrespect to Beardy Man there for the revolving bed. We did like it, but yes, lovely. That is so nice.
Robert Henke:
What is a revolving bed?
Chris Barker:
A bed that revolves. I don't know why you would want that.
Robert Henke:
You mean turning around like a turntable?
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Henke:
Like horizontally?
Chris Barker:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not topically, not on its axis, not like one of those Da Vinci kind of— That wouldn't be very restful, would it?
Robert Henke:
Yeah, it depends. I mean, you can adjust the gravity.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, okay, okay. So
Robert Henke:
yeah, if you are in zero gravity, but maybe he was—
Chris Barker:
I think he was more thinking like the sort of '70s kind of Motel honeymoon suite style.
Robert Henke:
But then the cheesy CRT television needs to rotate too, right?
Chris Barker:
Yes, of course, the whole thing.
Robert Henke:
And the minibar.
Chris Barker:
Yeah,
Will Betts:
yeah, see, this is engineer thinking. This is—
Chris Barker:
okay, well, that is the Mifer of a studio. We have built it. Are you happy?
Robert Henke:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I need to rethink the revolving bed, of course, now because—
Chris Barker:
No, let's keep the bit of class with the artwork there, I think. That's a nice touch.
Robert Henke:
I mean, a nice sofa, would also be nice, of course.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, we can get you a sofa. I mean, you need a nice sofa to look at that bit of classy art. Exactly. I'm just happy we ended on a nice classy note with the art world, that it wasn't
Will Betts:
super
Chris Barker:
sleazy or weird.
Will Betts:
Anyway, before we let you go, Robert, you must tell us about the reissue of Interstate. And maybe tell us about the show that's coming up in Barbican in November.
Robert Henke:
Okay, these are very, 2 very different things. The one is pointing at the past. And the other one is the amazing future. So quick nod at the past. I'm super happy that Field Records decided to convince me to make this reissue because I had the chance to listen to my music again, which normally I don't do because I always feel awkward when listening to my own creative output after a while. And I was positively surprised that I still kind of like it. And I managed to do some remastering of some of the tracks, which normally, you know, remastering is a kind of a tricky business because why attempting to improve something that already is a classic? There's a huge potential for actually it becoming a failure. But in this case, the original mastering was done with very little knowledge and not very good equipment.
Robert Henke:
And therefore a lot of detail and dynamic was just squashed out of it. And I had the opportunity to find a few of the original session recordings and I managed to re-edit them. So there's a few tracks on the reissue that have a quite different sound. And I believe a better sound. with more detail and nicer. And that's something I'm really happy about. And as I said, I'm really happy about the fact that I still think that this is music that is unique enough to stand the test of time, which was a surprise to me because I didn't expect it, to be honest. So very happy about it.
Chris Barker:
Take us into the future, these shows then.
Robert Henke:
The future is that after this performance with the old computers that I mentioned, with which I was touring for the last few years.
Will Betts:
This is the Commodores, right? These Commodore computers.
Robert Henke:
Yeah. The issue is that these machines are huge and old, and I can only tour within Europe because we have to carry them around in a van and be really careful with them. And I decided a few years ago that afterwards I want to do something again that is audiovisual but with lasers, because that is easier to transport in a plane.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Robert Henke:
And I've worked since almost 3 years now on that project. And a year ago, I decided that I'm finally in a stage where I can attempt to make a date for a premiere. And well, the premiere is November 7th at the Barbican in London, which is fantastic. And I'm really happy about that. And I am still in the process of putting bits and pieces together. It's as usual, it's a bit of a technical ambition what I'm doing there, writing my own software for controlling the lasers, writing a lot of audio plugins for the sound and trying to, again, to do everything by myself.
Will Betts:
Wow.
Robert Henke:
But the beauty of it is that it has a chance to become something unique again. And that is just a side effect of doing it all by myself.
Chris Barker:
Of course.
Robert Henke:
Yeah, I cannot simply use an existing tool and say, oh, this is a great effect, I use it. I need to come up with my own stuff. And this is one of the motivations I have for doing it is that in the process of developing something from a technical side, I come up with artistic ideas that I would not come up with if I were just using existing technology.
Chris Barker:
I think that is a Beautiful, beautiful thing to end the podcast on that, because in a world where we have so much access to different technology, it shows. And to skip a lot of tasks to get to what people think is the end result, it's like by skipping ahead, you're often missing the beauty in doing it yourself.
Robert Henke:
Also, I think there is a quality in the decision-making process that is involved here. Every decision for something is a massive decision against a lot of other options because it takes time to build stuff. And that means I scrutinize my ideas a lot before I start building. I have a whole notebook full of ideas and sketches of things, but only a tiny fraction of those things I finally decide to throw my energy on. And that means I think a lot about, does this specific thing I'm attempting to do really help me? Do I really believe that at the end I have a result that justifies the effort? And this is a good filter.
Chris Barker:
Yep. Yeah. And that's what we're missing is filters a lot in today's tech, whether it's consuming music, listening to music, making music, it's curation, filtering, sitting on things before we race to get to the end result, I think is important. I agree.
Will Betts:
Yeah, I think it's a lovely way to wrap that up and bring it back to the beginning as well. Do you find the art within the engineering? I think that's, that's a beautiful bookend.
Chris Barker:
The art in the engineering. Exactly. Well, all that's left to say is thank you so much, Robert Henke, for coming on our podcast. We have loved it. I hope you did too.
Robert Henke:
I had a great time. Thank you so much. And see you in Scotland.
Will Betts:
And at the Barbican.
Robert Henke:
Yes, of course.
Chris Barker:
Yeah. And at the Barbican. Yes.
Will Betts:
All right. Thanks, Robert.