The emergence and subsequent domination of digital tech in the world of audio and visual production is, by all measures, the standard across those deeply intertwined industries. In innumerable ways, it’s given creatives an unimaginable war-chest of tools, programs, and instruments, and it has revolutionized the conceptual and concrete realities for producers across numerous disciplines. In spite of this, or rather as a result of the increasing novelization of pre-digital A/V tech, a die-hard community of DIY enthusiasts, tech purists, and artists interested in anything out of the zeitgeist have coalesced around the collection and use analog music and visual production equipment. Here in New York City, two upstart artists have begun to mingle both ends of this analog spectrum; Channel.3 and Subphylum have combined the brains and brawn of their analog equipment and mutually raw creative visions to produce “Empire”, showcasing dusted, hand-crafted rhythms and a living, glitched-out rendition of the song’s artwork.
Working within the confines of analog production is both immensely challenging and deeply gratifying; while the communities around A/V analog gear are numerous and consistently available, and the resurgence of interest over the last five or so years has seen a number of boutique manufacturers spring into existence, the barrier to entry on either end is a fairly sturdy wall made of cash and gumption. Once you’ve actually gotten your hands on any of the gear in question, the next uphill battle is figuring out how it works. Much like the freeform nature of their digital counterparts, analog synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, and visual modules can be used according to their prescribed functions, but are often extremely capable of modification through hacking, circuit-bending, and general craftiness. The extent to which novelty plays a role is however much or little the creator is looking for, and the slew of both pragmatic and ingenious combinations and outcomes that come from utilizing analog production tech is the high-anxiety reward that comes from accepting the wide room for error in a performance context.
Alex Carro’s approach to visual production is the meticulous and daunting Channel.3 project that takes advantage a new wave of analog visual gear and some significantly dated equipment with few, if any, modern iterations. The result is an intense panoply of asymmetrical visual art that is as organic as it is synthetic. On the other end of line is Max Burstein, the hands and mind behind the Subphylum project. Utilizing an array of hardware samplers, keyboards, and Kaoss Pads, he achieves a truly vintage profile across the numerous beats, flips, and tracks in his personal catalog. Their combined efforts gave the Subphylum track “Empire” a new lease on life, pairing it with a sliced and sizzled music video that showcases the generative randomness of the Channel.3 setup.
In order to get a better understanding of the complexities under the hoods of these interlocking analog adventures, The Rust took advantage of the opportunity to pose some succinct questions to both artists, and break down the barrier to understanding the challenges and rewards of analog production.
Channel.3
The Rust: Can you trace your love affair with visual tech back to its roots?
Alex Carro: I probably couldn’t bring you to something specific but as long as I’ve been seeing live music I have always thought that both visuals and light production was pretty cool and something that I wanted to try my hand at. As far as the analog direction, it stems through my love for Pretty Lights, and seeing Greg Ellis begin to incorporate elements of analog video synthesis into those performances really piqued my interest, as it was something pretty cool that not many people are doing. From there I kinda just started finding Facebook groups and different online forums about the topic and that led me to other great artists trying to do similar things, some in the more glitchy realm such as BPMC and Tachyons+, and some in a more digital but still not computer-based realm such as Phil Baljeu and even people who are using water and oil on projectors like Liquid Light Lab.
The Rust: What was the catalyst for going in an all-analog direction, given the growing accessibility and ubiquity of digital visual production?
Alex: In terms of design, I just think it has a really raw feel to it. There’s something really creative and fun in its limitations that I think brings the best out of my workflow, like sticking with one hardware synthesizer instead of working in a DAW. With that said, it definitely brings about a lot of challenges, like the mass of equipment I need, the difficulty in getting gear sometimes, and just working with older finicky tech. But that’s also part of the fun. In terms of a live setting, I can’t think of something that could possibly be a better medium for me to work with. It’s all basically being created on the spot, so it’s never exactly the same and is always influenced by the music, both with me patching sound directly into my system and also emotionally with how I want to change the different routines and visuals that I am making to fit the feel of that particular show. It’s honestly pretty meditative.
The Rust: How did you begin to hack away at collecting the gear? Did you roadmap a potential setup?
Alex:I did a pretty good amount of research about different modules and their capabilities and how I would want that incorporated into my set up, and I designed a whole rack on modular-grid and started saving money and was all excited, and then realized it was damn near impossible to get your hands on any of the gear I wanted or thought I wanted. So I had to switch gears and I started to try and track down as many modules that could present a complete “voice” as possible, meaning I can do the majority of the creation of an image within that singular module, and then the other modules could be brought in to add flavor if desired. This way, I could get right to work with the piece of gear in question, rather than have it sitting around collecting dust waiting for another module to eventually come around.
My biggest outlet for this was literally seeing patches that different artists are posting in forums that had elements I liked, and asking how they went about it. After that, you start to get a feel for what the machines do, and then you try to get certain bits that have specific functions. I really have to give a huge shout out to the people that work at and the community surrounding LZX. They are all amazing and super willing to answer questions and provide insights all the time and those lessons both big and small have been priceless.
The Rust: With that said, can you tell us a little bit about how your setup functions?
Alex: Sure it is basically a 4 channel mixer not too dissimilar to one a dj would use, except my incoming sources aren’t songs, they are modules. I can mix the signals using different keyers or a simple crossfader to get different and interesting effects. The two main modules I have been using at this time are Structure by Erogenous Tones and Memory Palace made by LZX. I sometimes layer in the Fortress (made by Phil Baljeu and LAX) with the Memory Palace for an 8-bit flair. My third input is either of the previous modules but fed through one of 2 glitch modules first that allow me to add a lot of texture and other interesting effects into the mix. The last input is the output itself. This may seem useless but if you mix the same image over itself in the proper way you create a feedback loop that creates some pretty dreamy effects. My other big module is the Sensory Translator by LZX which is essentially a band pass filter which takes in the music from the artist, breaks it into 5 bands based on frequency, and allows me to patch that into different parts of my visual as control voltage (ex. I can make the visual zoom in and out to the bassline of the song). I also have cameras to manipulate incoming footage of the artist or the crowd just to add another fun layer of complexity and source material.
The Rust: What’s your methodology for designing a visual performance? How do you account for the generative randomness that analog visual production is so known for?
Alex: I tend to think of it like a jam band honestly. I have a “setlist” of visuals I want to play (with a few extras because time dilation always messes me up and I work through my set way too fast) and I have a loose idea of how I want to go from one to another. From there I kind of let my mood determine how I want to alter the basic parameters of the patch, whether it be color or layering in a different element, patching voltage control to a different part, whatever. But really it comes down to knowing your modules as any good musician would know their instruments and having fail safes in place if something goes hell wrong , and whenever you work with glitching wires, it can and will.
The Rust: What’s your current reach goal? Is there a point that marks a finish line for this kind of project
Alex: I don’t know, really. To be honest, I just want to play live as much as I can. I really love it, it’s super exciting, nerve wracking and definitely pushes me further creatively and emotionally. There isn’t really an end game or a plan to it. I just started making this stuff and was playing around at my house while my roommate DJ’d for friends, it got to a place I felt like I wanted to show more people to see what they thought, and then I did the live stream with you (Squalpat) and Zach followed closely with the set with 5am in Delaware, and I was like wow I need to do this as much as I possibly can. The rush and excitement of performing in a live setting like that was just unbelievable. So for now, if I can keep doing that, especially with my incredibly talented and inspiring friends like you guys and Max, however that works out I’m happy.
Subphylum
The Rust: How do we get to Subphylum? What was your initial draw to “beats” music?
Max Bustein: I started producing in 2015, before then I was doing some DJing. I grew up on mostly hip-hop and electronic music so I feel like making beats was a natural progression of my interests. I feel like people have different definitions of what beats music is but at the end of the day it’s all variations of hip-hop, I consider myself a hip-hop producer first and foremost. There’s a lot of sub-genres of hip-hop I like to make as well as other styles of music inspired by hip-hop so I am never short of inspiration. The producer community is really an amazing space to be a part of, I would say that has to be the best part.
The Rust: How do you approach your music? Is there a consistent spark that gets you in the lab?
Max: I try to work on music every day. The constant spark for me is the ability to start something new at any moment really. Whether I hear a track that inspires me or a sample that I want to flip I always find a reason to work on music. My goal has always been to break boundaries between different sounds and genres, that's the DJ in me. Learning new styles and trying to make different types of beats from dancefloor bangers to chill beats keeps me on my game. I think it’s important to pay attention to your roots, but not to box yourself in.
The Rust: What kind of influences do you draw from? What informs your style of production?
Max: My favorite artists growing up were 90s and 2000s rappers. Back then I didn’t really pay attention to producer culture, but I was listening to a lot of stuff produced by Dj Premier and Dr. Dre, so I’d say they were my biggest early influences. Lately I’ve been into drill and boom-bap, I've also been making a lot of trap and phonk beats. I also love weird bass and club music. Some of my other favorite producers are Metro Boomin, The Alchemist, MK the plug, M1 on the beat, Pretty Lights, Kenny Beats, SOUDIERE, Dj Yung Vamp, Tipper, COPYCATT, bsterthegawd, Ghosty… to name a few.
The Rust: You’ve got your hands on quite an assortment of samplers and analog music gear; can you tell us a bit about your equipment?
Max: I sold a lot of my samplers and analog gear to help finance the studio I am now working out of but right now my main pieces in the setup an MPC Live 2, an SP404 sx, a Make Noise 0-Cost, a Kaoss Pad, an old Roland JV 90 Keyboard, and of course a turntable. I also have an original Midifighter-Pro CueMaster and a Traktor mixer, but that's digital stuff. I've cycled through a good amount of analog stuff and samplers though, a lot I have sold, some broke in the process that I still have. Some favorites were the MPC2000XL and the SP 555, some others I liked were the SP303, SP808, MPC1000 w/ jjosxl, and the Virus TI Snow. I am building a booth in my studio right now so I am taking things one project at a time. I don’t think you need all that to make amazing music though.
The Rust: What about your live sets? How do you approach your performances?
Max: I like to use my performances as an opportunity to test out the music that I’m working on at that time. My go-to loadout has been my SP404 with either my PT01 turntable or a Kaoss Pad but lately I’ve been having fun including my Traktor Z2. I hope to incorporate more of these elements all together as things progress.
As a Duo
The Rust: What brought the two of you to collaborate in the first place?
Alex: Max and I were catching up at the Return to New Yiddy show in the city and he asked me what i was up to and I showed him some visuals I was making and everything kinda developed from there.
Max: Alex has always shown love for my music, he showed me some visuals he was working on at a recent Rust show and it was a wrap.
The Rust: On both of your fronts, sampling is often the name of the game; what does that mean to you? How do you envision the way in which you ultimately utilize your samples of choice?
Max: Sampling is at the essence of synthesis and the heart of what producers do. A sample can be anything from a loop of a song to a single drum hit or tone. Oftentimes I hear a song and know right away I’m going to sample it, but sometimes I browse loops online or I make my own samples, there’s really no wrong way to do it. That being said, your sample selection can really make or break a beat. Having organized folders of samples helps speed up your process and mix, that’s why all of the best producers I can think of have full libraries of their own sounds, as well as sampled sounds already sculpted the way they like them.
Alex: I like to throw in some loops from different artists I like and mess around with them a little throughout my set. Generally if I’m not going to go all original with the visual I will start with something I like and try to add my own flavor into it, whether that be different effects or adding generative images over it in different ways.
The Rust: Do you find there to be a natural bridge between your styles of music and visual production, especially in light of the consistent choice of analog equipment?
Alex: Definitely, I think there’s a lot of similarities in the grittiness and the organic nature of both our styles. It was a lot of fun jamming and seeing how those styles meshed before ultimately putting pen to paper so to speak. Then going back in a live setting after we had that better understanding, I think brought out a lot of cool new ideas.
Max: I love analog gear so when Alex pulled up with the eurorack controlling the visual modules I knew what time it was. Immediately he showed me some stuff that fit the vibe I was looking for and after a few conversations, we were able to really dial in a specific style. We glitched out some black and white images and after some experimentation, ended up with these cool cathode ray tube esq vhs glitches w/ the color streaks.
The Rust: At this point in the development of our communal scene, visual and aural art are barely an arm’s distance from one another; how do you walk across that aisle to cooperate? What are you thinking about when you begin to sync your projects together?
Max: I wanted to work with Alex because he showed me video clips of visuals he already made that I resonated with, so I trusted him to do his thing. I think that mutual trust between artists is essential to really vibe right and reach a mutual vision. Something I have learned over my career as a graphic artist and musician is that adaptation and going with the flow is a key element to working with other people and encouraging creativity amongst both parties. Alex really prioritized making a final product that I was happy with and was able to capitalize on working with the constraints that I gave him while taking things to his own level. I would bet to see more collaborations in the future.
Alex: At first we started just jamming, playing out tunes and getting a feel for what we were both doing and how it fit together. Then we sat down and Max talked about some things that he liked that came out for that jam and different things like that and we went from there. It was pretty cool actually all the color in both videos comes exclusively from the glitch module which is something I’ve done a little but not to this extent before and had it not been for Max challenging me to work in a black and white space, I don’t know if I would have dug that deep in it so it’s just one of the great things about collaborating with a great artist who also has a keen eye for design.
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