eWire: Karate interview

How important is such equipment to you?

Hardware just rules. There's no getting around it. This may sound materialistic, but I'm really in love with my gear. There's really no greater joy than playing loops through a dub echo and getting that backbeat sound. I do that for hours when I have time, and it's really one of the only things I do for myself to relax. Over the past few years I've had some really good luck finding equipment in backwoods thrift stores and music stores. Jodi and I have been working on building a small hard-disk remix "studio", and it's finally coming together. We've actually acquired some gear that's worth something and that could offer some sounds that are hard to come by. The finishing touch happened last week on tour when Jodi and I found a Roland TR-808 in a junk store in Toledo for $150! I had never even seen an 808 in real life, let alone owned my very own. I think I blew my thrift store karma for at least the next ten years.

What are some hardware and/or techniques you think are essential to your music?

Well, it depends on what kind of music job I'm working on of course. Obviously for the bands, the guitar and amp are crucial. For beats and all that, I definitely am in love with my dub echoes. Between Jodi and I we have five, and they all have some really beautiful ideosyncracies. Each one is different. Other than that, I'd say analog synths. I have a Roland JX-3p, a Novation Bass Station, and a PAIA Fatman, and all of them have tons more balls than anything of that physical modeling shit. All the hype on knobs is so true -- knobs rule, and there's no getting around it. You just can't do the same stuff with a sampler that you can do with a real analog piece. Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Do you prefer analog equipment over digital?

Well, I don't think there should be such a dichotomy. I put analog synth sounds on a dub echo, and then put that onto hard disc and fuck with it forever with CPU delay, and then mix to 1/4 inch tape. It's always funny to me when everyone brags about their "true analog" vinyl, when they don't even know their shit was mastered in Sonic Solutions which involves high-res digital media. I'm all about analog and most of the records I make come out on vinyl, but I think that hard disc is a media that is really coming into its own, with all the prices falling, and all of the amazing software that's around. Software like Logic Audio and all of the amazing CPU-based synths are really going to change the way that we hear and make music I think. What people tend to forget is that the guitar was also a weird and idiosyncratic technology that changed the way music was produced.