88 - Dexba

Author

Giannis Kampiotis
June 23, 2023

Artist Interviews 🎢 Studio Tours πŸŽ›

Hello music people πŸ‘‹

Today in the spotlight, Dexba

Coming from Italy, he has his hands on almost everything out there but, he has a personal connection with every piece of gear in his studio. A lot of gems in this interview 🎢

Read Time: 12 minutes πŸ“°

Studio

Gear List

I put my hands on most of what's currently on the market, but things like the SOMA Lyra-8 and Pulsar-23 are definitely what shaped my current Dexba persona.

But I guess you can see from the studio picture there is probably too much to list :)

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Interview

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

My name is Giorgio Castelli, I am from Italy, and I go under the name Dexba for my music.

The name was meant to be a temporary, silly username for a small project, but then people started recognizing me by that, so here we are now!

I started my music journey thanks to my parents, when I was six they enrolled me in a music school, where I learned music theory, singing, and cello, and I got my degree 15 years later.

After that, I found out about synthesizers while playing in some pop band with my electric cello, and what impressed me the most was the feeling of relaxation of not being forced to play carefully and correctly every single note, being able to lay down tracks, use sequencers, and explore always new sounds.

As of today, music is not even close to providing me with any form of income, but that's mostly because I definitely spend more on music than I get from it (in monetary terms). My day job is being a psychologist.

Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?

Without a doubt my Zoom F6 recorder.

99% of the time I rehearse one or two times, and then improvise, and all my focus on gear is being able to go from the idea to the finished result in the shortest amount of time.

Acquiring a recorder that doesn't even need to have levels set was the best purchase I've ever made.

Now I don't need to fiddle with computers and audio interfaces, set up a recording session, worrying about clipping and trashing recordings.

On, Rec, Play.

What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?

That has to be the Meng Qi Wingie 2.

I bought it almost as a cart filler, given its price, when I got the Wing Pinger, but when I got it, something snapped inside of me.

I went from being almost afraid of microphones, and ambient noise, using my voice and loopers, to building a eurorack system with the sole purpose of interacting with surrounding noises and acoustic instruments.

I was so pumped about it, that I quickly made the [now official] video tutorial for it, and that got me in contact with the great person behind these instruments, Meng Qi. This (virtual) encounter also prompt me to start a BiliBili channel, where now I can interact with Chinese followers that knew me already, without having proper access to my videos and music.

So yeah, I think you can't get much more out of a $120 piece of equipment, am I right?

Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.

The key word is "immediacy".

Music to me, now, is like photography: it must capture that moment, and the more you work on it, the more you interfere with the moment, the less "picture" the recording is.

I've tried producing in the past, in the more common meaning of laying down a track, working this day on one layer, refining another layer the next day, mixing and mastering, and so on. But it didn't work for me at all; I felt disconnected, I felt like I was doing some desk job, and at the end of the process, I was so far away from where I started that I couldn't recognize my ideas anymore.

Now I am trying more and more to embrace my workflow: catching a mood, picking up an instrument that could work with that mood, having some one-to-one session with the instrument and by the end of the day having a meaningful recording of the moment we shared.

That's also why you usually see me playing with one instrument at a time: it's a relationship, a duet, and I want to frame that in my recordings.

What is a production technique that you always come back to?

A bit following the previous answer, I tend again to treat my music as photography, or videography, even better, given there is movement and climaxes in it.

The first thing they teach you is that you should always try to get the image right in camera; yes, you can always edit it a bit later, but in doing that you're technically getting a worse result than getting it right in the first place.

So that's my production technique: it has to be good as it enters the recorder, everything after that shouldn't almost be needed.

How would you describe your style?

When I first started using synth, I thought I should have been a synthwave guy. Bombastic 80s bass riffs and all of that.

But seems like my inner soul had different plans since most of my productions revolve around emotional, dark, thick, cinematic atmospheres.

These days I am coming back to many acoustic instruments, even though I am still allergic to traditional samplers, so I rely mostly on granular for my integration of instruments like the cello, and traditional Chinese flutes like the xiao or the hulusi.

What is a big challenge you have as an artist?

Probably the biggest challenge to me is the amount of content that needs to be produced in order to remain somewhat relevant.

It is too much, way too much, especially in a market already incredibly saturated, the form of media consumption/production we have these days is nuts.

Unfortunately, as everybody knows, quantity is the enemy of quality, and I am always torn between increasing my output in order for people to get to notice and know me more, and decreasing my output, to focus on what really matters, the project I am fully satisfied and care about.

There is no correct answer, unless I made music my full-time job, dividing myself into a producing person and a promoting person, releasing at least an album every 6 months, YouTube videos once a week and Instagram posts every two days.

Still trying to strike a balance in this messy situation ;)

Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?

Absolutely.

I started with software, I lasted probably one month, because I am a musician, not a composer, and only composers can visualize melodies to put directly on a software.

I grew up playing the cello, singing in a choir, doing music not making it.

So hardware synths gave me back that tactile feeling I was missing, and with that, I got my music back too!

Plus, but probably even more importantly, I can't state how much meeting other gear enthusiasts, trading instruments, and sharing knowledge, has shaped me into the person I now am.

Now I am finally happy of being able to give back, through tutorials, private lessons and so on.

Hardware synths changed my life, and only for the better.

One tip on how to spark creativity?

Spend quality time with your instrument of choice.

Get to know it, but not in the usual RTFM way, because most of the time the manual only tells you what the instrument can do for you.

What can you do for that instrument? What can you put into it, asking for a reply, for a duet?

Sometimes you will get the good stuff, sometimes the bad stuff, sometimes happy accidents from the machine side, and sometimes you will end up in territories you didn't even know you wanted to explore.

Enjoy the ride!

A book, movie, article, or album that has inspired you?

I grew up listening to Depeche Mode (what a surprise, huh?) and Dire Straits in my father's car, but probably the first time I cried for a recording was when I discovered some old vinyl records of some rendition of The Death of Γ…se by Edvard Grieg. It was probably back then that something switched inside of me, and I can feel the echoes of that piece in my music today: simple, slow progression, full of meaning and passion.

Anything else you'd like to say?

I would just like to add a small thought about music in general.

Through music, I've met most of the people I am surrounded with now, and even people I've known already who weren't into music got into music after spending some time with me and realizing how much fun can come even from the tiniest, most stupid instrument, that being an inexpensive flute or a modular system.

Through music, I immediately felt at home even when I moved to Vietnam, building strong and meaningful relationships, because music is the ultimate universal language.

I've supported myself during hard times through music, both in an economic and spiritual way, so please, people: get in touch with music, the music-making process, even just whistling or finger drumming on your desk, it will pay you back a million-fold.

Where can people find more of your music and connect with you online?

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