Workspace and Environment: Ignatius

I just noticed that we breached the 100k visitor mark a while back and this blows my mind! Thanks for everyone that has dropped by, sent an e-mail or commented on our page. Sorry if I've been slow at replying to e-mails but I think I got them all this week! It really means a lot that I can say my agoraphobia and slight misanthropy teamed up to make something informative and interesting. With all the corny thanks out of the way I got one for the weekend here is Ignatius!

How long have you been involved with making music?
since 1995/6. that's when i got my first synth and started making sounds and recording them or just saving patches figuring i'd use them later. what motivated me was just to hear new sounds. i had a good friend/housemate who was a DJ and was always bringing home records and another good friend who worked at a record store who has a completely insane record collection. so, there was always tons of stuff to listen to and explore and get stoked on. so, yeah.. i just wanted to make my own sounds and stuff that i heard in my head and just generally learn how to make electronic music. i always gravitated to the weirder darker stuff and wasn't really getting my fill of that from going to clubs etc so that probably played a part in it too... plus it's just fun. that's what keeps me motivated. making new sounds and jamming and creating weird patterns being surprised by them when they all fit together into a track. plus it's self expression and i need that.
i was born and raised in florida. i grew up in miami and lived there until i was 25 or so then moved to san diego to work in a recording studio and lived there for about 7 years. 3 or so years ago i came up to portland. i've had my studio in half a dozen places. usually half in the kitchen and half in the dining room. i only once had it in a spare bedroom until now of course where i've finished out a room with some acoustic panels and a bit of room isolation.


Where can we find your work?
ignatius is the name i've worked under the longest. tunes can be heard at these links:
http://www.virb.com/ignatius
http://www.myspace.com/sleepdepfun
http://www.buriedintime.com/
http://www.ignatiusmusic.com/
i do have a side project or two that revolve around live jamming then recording and editing. A friend, who goes by [SiK], and I have a weird acid x0x box type project that we work on from time to time called !!!Dica but we haven't edited down the hours of material we have yet. We did take a bunch of left over bits and make sample packs that we sent out to friends who in turn made tracks in many styles. The outcome of that is called "Acid Offspring" and is the 4th release on the label i run called Buried In Time

What are your current favorite pieces of hardware?
I've been pretty hooked on the elektron monomachine for a couple years now. it integrates with other hardware really well and is just so easy to get around and fun to jam with. once you spend some time with it you can get some great sounds out of it. i'm really getting into the MPC 1000 w/JJOS2 lately though. i've never had an mpc so it's a nice change from other ways of working. it's easy to get around on but has some nice features for processing/shaping and getting expressive results. plus it's small and stable and gets me away from the computer more. it's hard to say what a favorite piece of hardware is. usually it's whatever is in front of me but i do gravitate towards the elektrons + the modcan and the waldorf microwave XT though the evolver is always surprising and perhaps the best bang for the buck in a synth ever.

What are some softwares or plugins you prefer?
Audiomulch is what i've used most in the past 7-8 years. it just makes sense to me and i love having a non-notebased sequencer to work with. it's great for so many things but i use it mostly for composing entire songs and getting crazy w/the automation of snapshots of the various contraptions and VST's then record all of that and put the files in logic for mixing. I use Live some too for editing since audio editing in logic can be cumbersome some times.
i use the logic plugs often. i like sculpture and the ES2 though all the plugs are useful and can sound good in the right context. the ringshifter is great. I use kontakt in logic as well. it's great to stuff it with samples from the hardware and then use all the sound shaping/filtering/modulation etc that kontakt offers. NI stuff is generally really good for that kind of thing. i like weird delays and filters. the PSP stuff is great. I like nitro a lot. Also, uh-e filterscape is really awesome and does some great things to drums and is great for adding movement to anything really. the audiodamage stuff and smart electronix stuff is really cool too. I love the soundtoys plug ins. there's not much like those out there. They just sound 'natural, warm. analog' and can so some great rhythmic delay things and the filters/pitchshifting is awesome. the URS eq's are really nice. i like the classic EQ bundle with the A and N series eq's.

How does your physical space and surroundings influence your workflow?
i like a nice secluded dark place so i can forget about what's going on outside my little space. if i'm distracted i just can't get things done. but i guess if i had a big quiet room w/windows looking out into a forest or lake or something i might like that too.. so far i haven't been in that situation. I think i might like making music on the bottom of the ocean as well.

Could you describe what you might think your ideal location would be?
well, i think i'm pretty much there though some times i'd like to be an hour or so away from a small city. in the woods or on a mountain or something. some place where i can walk out the door and not see another house or person and wander the woods for inspiration or something. be some kind of nerdy monk.

What was the first piece of hardware you remember obtaining? The last?
i bought a yamaha cs1-x in 1995/6. since then any kind of synth that has a matrix editor interface has been a cakewalk. the last piece of hardware was the MPC-1000

What is on your current 'wish list'?
hmmm. there's always a module or two for the modcan that i'd like. i have been waiting for my cyndustries quad low pass gates for over 2 years so i guess that's what is high on my wish list. but if i was dreaming i'd say a 20 channel tonelux rig with 8 eq's and 4 compressors and a small 500 series lunchbox to go along with it. but really i'm happy with what i have and i'm not lacking for any sound shaping tools...though a chandler germanium compressor would be nice. that and audiomulch 2.0 :)

Do you have a mobile studio setup?
it depends. if i'm going to see some family then i bring something. either a laptop or an elektron but if it's a trip not conducive to bringing gear then i grab the yamaha qy-10 just to noodle on. usually i just read when traveling unless i have some kind of deadline or am on some kind of creative roll.

Do you have a setup for live performances?
for a while it was just a laptop running audiomulch with a patch that i had tweaked for a while. I would just press play then improvise. After a while though i kept improvising the same type of thing and i got really bored. I played an ambient set a while back with the laptop + audiomulch and the monomachine. that was nice. Lately i've just been jamming with friends w/the elektrons and some roland x0x stuff. I'm working on a new audiomulch patch and i finally bought a controller so i'll design the patch around the controller and maybe plug the monomachine into the set up some how and see how spontaneous i can get. improvisation is the fun part for me but it's nice to have some safety nets.

Have you ever heard your music being played at a random/public place?
i have some friends who are DJ's who have play some of my tracks from time to time. that's always cool to hear. Also, at decibel festival in seattle a few years ago they played the entire first release from Buried In Time outside of the auditorium where they do the ambient showcases. that was cool since i had just handed out a bunch of them the day before.

Are you involved in any sound work outside of your own projects?
I track vocals for friends now and then and it's nice to work in that capacity where i'm just trying to capture someone's performance. When i lived in san diego i did some sound design here and there but nothing high profile. It was enjoyable when that work would come along because it broke up the usual things i was doing like working long hours on other people's music as an engineer/assistant engineer or studio manager or just being the guy who ran things in the studio.. I used to do a bit dialogue editing as well. I'm not motivated to go seek out that kind of work anymore as i don't care for the pressure or tedium and would rather make my own tunes for their own sake. Not that i haven't considered writing a bunch of 30/60 second jingles in a certain style and try to license them and I'd love to score some goofy indie sci fi or horror film. that'd be fun. Being in a commercial studio can be great as well.. about 50% of the time anyway. there are always compromises.