Endorphin.es - Shuttle System by Audio_units / Beatworx from Bangalore, India

Published on Jun 25, 2018 TheEndorphines

"In the framework of our interviews within the final of Life is a trip contest, we spoke with our participants are from Bangalore, India: two talented brother duo - Ashwin Baburao and Ashrith Baburao: Audio Units / Beatworx Studio.

- How did you come to use synthesis in your music?
When we first started making music, about 8 years ago we would use more loops than synthesized sounds and were quickly running out of new ideas. We realised for electronic music to sound good and uniquely ours, we needed to use traditional (subtractive synthesis/sampling, etc) and non-conventional methods (additive/FM/granular, etc) alike to generate ideas and sounds.
We also figured that these sounds could be more human-like if we incorporated modulations to add expression like with most physical instruments. Besides, we come from a background that’s more about curiosity and being musically inclined rather than being formally trained so making electronic music seemed like the right choice and a whole lot more fun than learning to play the piano, no regrets!
Out of sheer need to be more creative and to find "our" sound, we started to mess around with VSTs and quickly got into the analog and semi-modular realm and the rest is history.

- How did you use the SHUTTLE SYSTEM in your track for the "Life is a trip“ contest?
We would switch on all our gear and have a jam with the Shuttle along with our other synths while recording everything in the process, a few audio files later we'd zero in on what we like the best from all of it and make loops/samples to use in the track for the contest as well as for our future productions.
In this particular track we used sounds recorded from the Shuttle to make percussive loops, textures and transitional effects. We've got a few more tracks incorporating bass and lead sounds from the Shuttle too, which we hope to release in the future.

- What part of working with the endorphin.es SHUTTLE SYSTEM did you like best?
The Shuttle System was our first hands-on experience with a full fledged modular synth after years of messing around with Reaktor, semi-modular gear and other recent digital modular software, so thankfully the learning curve wasn't too steep.
The Furtherrr Generator is unlike most oscillators and the possibility to mangle analog tones with harmonic variations (with waveshaping) was a sheer treat to the ears, classic and futuristic at the same time. This proved useful for unique synthesized flavors, otherwise impossible to achieve with regular synths or plugins. The filter section in Grand Terminal is a wild beast, and can go from tame to bizzare with extreme ease. We quite like that along with the twin function generators, and especially how snappy or loose they can be customised to sound.

Also the Shuttle Control module is absolutely nuts with the capability to generate various function signals (like additional LFOs/Clock/Noise/Random), as well as converting MIDI to CV signals from your DAW, controlled through a friendly web interface into a format that any synth/eurorack module with CV/Gate inputs could interpret; converting automations/MIDI CCs/etc. into CV/Gate outs which we extensively used during our time with the system and had a lot of fun doing so.
It’s hard to pick a favourite module but in a nutshell, we love the system as a whole and how it pairs up with other semi-modular gear.

- How do you think the SHUTTLE SYSTEM can improve your music making in the future?
We often get some whack ideas when doing sound design, like modulating various parameters with one another or repurposing the function of a certain parameter and so on. I’d say these things are fairly simpler to do with the Shuttle as compared to other modular/semi-modular systems provided one can grasp the basic principles of modular synthesis.
We love the idea that sometimes certain accidents lead to interesting musical/technical discoveries, like patching that ‘wrong’ cable into the ‘right’ jack or vice-versa and with the Shuttle System there’s always room for this. We find it extremely useful that the system is fully self-contained and portable enough for live and stage use too, and goes without saying it’s one good looking piece of kit!"