Plugged In: Cari Lekebusch

Plugged In: Cari Lekebusch

4 February, 2011 | 5.58AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: cari lekebusch, plugged in

Cari Lekebusch‘s discography reads like a who’s who of techno, with releases on Drumcode, Truesoul, Harthouse, Svek, and many more, along with his own H. Productions; no matter where the Swedish producer turns up, though, and no matter in what style—writhing techno, gloomy tech house, electro, acid, old-school minimalism—what always makes one of his tunes recognizably Lekebusch is the sheer sound of the thing. His sound design is simultaneously sumptuous and brittle, enveloping and unnerving; he can give the most familiar sonic motifs a subtly alien sheen that brings them to life.

In this installment of Plugged In, Lekebusch talks about his fondness for analog drum machines and explains the vocoder’s central role in his production setup, bringing depth to everything from leads to kick drums.

Cari Lekebusch

I have been testing and trying all kinds of different equipment since the early ‘80s, and I’ve never really had just one favorite piece of gear. I guess I’m more of a trackhead rather than a gearhead. Nowadays I change my sound generators regularly and combine them with EQ, filter, tube and compression techniques, as well as various effect techniques. There are actually not really any machines that would change my sound drastically, when left out.

Between 1990-2000 my studio was mainly analog, and nowadays I mix some analog into my digital studio setup. My favorite gear has always been analog and semi-analog drum machines, also worth mentioning are the new digital drum machines like the Maschine from Native and also the Swedish Machinedrum. Another thing I always was very keen on is all kinds of ways to vocode sounds, and I have owned many types of vocoders. There is one, especially, that is made in Sweden by a guy that now is involved making the Nord Lead at Clavia, called BV-12 Vocoder. It’s a very clean, efficient, analog vocoder with typical source control and an output channel plus a 12-band filter.

It could be considered very rare, I’m not sure how many were made but I guess around 20-30 units. I got my unit through some friends of mine back in the ‘90s; they knew the creator of it [Peter Jubel]. They used to have a project group called Spacelab. To my knowledge, he is still working with Clavia making all their new goodies.

It’s major fun creating all types of sounds through vocoders, anything from pads and vocals to drums and effect returns. Imagine vocoding the effect return with some drums—the possibilities are endless. And I always try to switch the control signal with the source signal or even split the sound and then send it into both source and control to let the sound vocode itself. Done a few mad bassdrums vocoded as well, with some static phaser on top. This can create amazing kicks that seem to pop out of the speakers. It can be tricky to get the source signal right, though, when vocoding bass drums!

Here is one track with a good vocoded and phased bassdrum and some other subtle vocodations:

Cari Lekebusch, “Mad Poet” [H-Productions]

Here are some more with vocoded drums, vocals and other sounds:

Cari Lekebusch, “Djini Sez” [Truesoul Records]

Cari Lekebusch Cari Lekebusch, “Black & White” [Truesoul Records]

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