Interview with Matt Thibideau aka Coordinates

Interview with Matt Thibideau aka Coordinates

24 July, 2008 | 8.12AM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: Dylan Joseph

Open Concept Recordings artist Matt Thibideau (aka Coordinates) sits down to give us an exclusive interview with some insights into his production aesthetic and influences.

OCR:  You’ve been making electronic music, programming synthesizers and such for how many years now?

Matt:  I have been making music for roughly 18 years now.

Once you became serious about making music and began to realize your potential, what kinds of goals did you set for yourself?

I was very young when I decided this.  My goals were to get a CD out and leave Wallaceburg (my hometown) as fast as possible.

What was your first instrument you learned to play?

The Bontempi Air Organ which quickly switched to (my brother) Mark’s Casio PT-1.

It’s always great to see and hear the two of you performing together, but are there any differences in your song-writing process working by yourself as opposed to working with your brother Mark?

Matt:  Well our approach can be very similar, however we tend to go for different sounds.  Our approach to arranging is slightly different also.  I think when Mark and I work together we simply blend our different sounds together. 

It’s very easy for both of us usually.

Pros and cons?

Being my twin brother makes it very easy as I already have an idea of what he wants to bring to a song or mix. 

When I am in doubt of a certain sound or mix, he generally has a solution, and vice versa. 

This makes for a really polished sound, sometimes more effort than I put into my own mixing.

If you had an opportunity to work with any one artist for a day on a studio session, who would it be?

This is a tough one…

Neither of them are techno producers— Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode) or Brian Eno

Apart from other musicians, who would you list as inspiring people in your life?  And if you like, what about them inspires you?

I can’t really say that there are a lot of individuals that inspire me. 

Obviously there are tons of musicians. 

But I can definitely say that modern art, architecture, sound design are the main inspirations. 

Day to day occurrences tend to have more of an impact on my music.

As always in your work, ‘16 Steps’ was done completely with hardware instrumentation, recorded through a real studio mixing console, no virtual instruments

Yes, correct.  All of these tracks - like all of my previous and future work - have been mixed in a analog environment.

Why does this approach continue to appeal to you while so many other artists have abandoned hardware for plugins and virtual synths?

This approach (hardware) still sounds best. 

Still to this day all of the high end studios still use analog consoles at some point in their signal path, even if it gets recorded back into ProTools. 

I love the sound, how the synthesizers go out of tune a little, how much character each one of them have.

The analog synths can have a mind of their own and that contributes to the sound. 

Old 12-bit samplers have crunch and often use voltage controlled amps and filters.  Their virtual counterparts don’t. 

So often “8 bit” crunched down in a plugin doesn’t sound the same to my ears.  This is noticeable in a live situation more so.

Why have artists abandoned this?  Who knows.  Affordability?  Reliability?  Keeping up with technology and current trends.

Each to his own I guess.

Seems that “all that is old is new again” and 80’s production aesthetic is prominent in certain circles.  What do you think of this?

I think only certain aspects of 80’s production can really be achieved.  After all, we have abandoned tape. 

The limitations that existed in technology contributed to the production of that sound.  Reproducing it in a laptop isn’t quite the same.

If it was done in the way it was back then it would hold a higher value to me.

If you were to sum up your personality as any one synth, which synth would you be?

HAHA!  Perhaps the Oberheim SEM.

Here is a small list of my favorite synths…

Current:  Dave Smith Prophet ‘08
Vintage:  OB-8 or Jupiter-4
Monophonic:  SEM
Sampler:  Emulator II
Drum Machine:  TR-808
Digital Synth:  Yamaha SY77 or PPG Wave 2.2

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