Archetype Of A Synthesizer - The Haxan Cloak

"Recently, Moog had the honor of sitting down with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor [see the bottom of this post], the genre-defining music innovator, master synthesist and Academy Award winning composer. In the interview, Reznor recounts his intimate relationship with the Minimoog Voyager, which he feels “is the archetype of what a synthesizer is and should be.” Through personal stories, Reznor reveals his decades long history with the instrument and how it has shaped the way he views and creates music.

The video is set to an original score by British electronic music producer, The Haxan Cloak, co-producer of Bjork’s Vulnicura.. Befitting the occasion, the artist used a Minimoog Voyager and a prototype Mother-32, Moog’s newest synthesizer, to create the score.

'I made the track in a unique way that I never have before.

I have had modular synths for a long time, and consistently produced music with them, but purposefully never had a ‘keyboard-based’ setup because of not wanting to treat them in such a ‘traditional’ manner (purely for reasons of self-limitation).

Having the Voyager allowed me to utilize a more responsive approach of seeing the picture and essentially ‘playing’ along to it. I then took those results and used them to modulate other parameters and processed them further. The Mother 32 was used extensively as a sound source alongside also.

The Voyager is a synth I have always been fascinated by, but unfortunately never had the opportunity to own. I knew people that had them, but my first physical encounter was actually on the recent Bjork tour. I used it for a lot for recreating basslines from her back catalogue, which it did effortlessly.
It’s such an incredibly versatile synth and has already become a uniquely indispensable backbone of my studio.' - The Haxan Cloak"