Photo Contest Winner - Fritz Marial
“I was a bass player for 30+ years. A combination of chronic stage fright and changes in life (marriage and fatherhood) put me in a place where I needed a new creative direction, something I could do on my own at home. I had been heavily into pedals and a friend suggested I try eurorack. I was thoroughly intimidated by it, but after awhile I tried a Moog Mother 32 and then it became an obsession. I've been building this rack for a couple of years. The main focus is the bottom row of the top half of the case, the musique concrète section, made up of two Morphagenes, a Nebeulae v2, and now a Sample Drum. In the lower right section of the bottom case I've created a low-budget mixer of sorts with the Acid Rain Navigator and four Northcoast Modular Flint Faders. I primarily create abstract pieces, though I don't have a particular focus on any one style. I generally start from scratch and let the sounds lead me to wherever I end up. One thing I do want to figure out is how to make Jazz with modular, how to channel Nate Smith's drumming, for example (Marbles!). I guess I want to create a mash-up of Terry Reilly, Delia Derbyshire, Nate Smith, Nurse With Wound, Todd Barton, and... everyone else.
I unpatch completely (except for a few clock and trigger patches) between every piece so everything I do, for the most part now, is one pass with minimal mixing in Sonar. While some of my patches take more or less time, most of my patches come together within a few hours and I don't obsess much. I do not use MIDI at all. I utilize two ALM/Busy Circuits S.B.G.s to integrate two separate signal paths through my pedal board.
There is much to be said for having a smaller, more focused rig, but as someone who is unlikely to ever perform I like to have as many options available as possible. I've enjoyed experimenting with sound with eurorack more than at any time since I first picked up a bass. The possibilities are endless and there is always something learn. It's also tailor-made for a gear fetishist. It's been a life-changer, creatively, for me. I feel very fortunate to live in Seattle (and the PNW in general) where the modular scene is incredibly welcoming. That said, I've found that to be true of the eurorack/modular community at large.
While I do have a bandcamp page, it is currently just a placeholder until I have a properly mixed and mastered cassette to put out into the world. For now, my experiments and sketches can be found on Soundcloud, and I occasionally post videos on Instagram” - Fritz Marial
https://soundcloud.com/baltergeistsound
https://www.instagram.com/baltergeistsound/