Artist: Crossing Mind

[mars]

Artist: Crossing Mind

Date: 2010-02-18

By: draeke

 

Interview posted here with permission of the artist.

 

1) Can you tell us a bit about your main musical influences?

My major influences were at first Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and some Trip-Hop like Massive Attack, Archive, Portishead. I like strange ambient tracks but i always need some melodies, an emotive vibe within the music.

 

I entered the world of goa trance with some piece of Earth Nation, Astral Projection, Etnica, Praña, Man With No Name, MFG, Transwave, Total Eclipse, Platipus Records artists, Blue Room Released artists and some others.

 

It was only later on that I discovered Sphongle, Infected Mushroom, X-Dream, Jaia, Asura, Deedrah & Juno Reactor among other but I have always loved the low tempo tracks at end of each Trance album. I love the groove, the melodies and the atmosphere of those end tracks usually found in albums.

 

 

2) What was your goal when you were creating music?

My secret dream was to release the ultimate low-tempo piece of music with all ingredients of a good goa hit, like a trip, with some beautiful psychedelic melody, big evolutions of sound and with some small ambient breaks in the music. Something unique, well built, rich but not repetitive so not to be boring for the listener. (This ideas were used also for my mid tempo tracks).

 

My favorite low tempo track is: Tandu - New Aura; this masterpiece from Trip Through Sound was my objective for a long time, very groovy and melodic but also very trancey and with a beautiful introduction with a bass that sounded and had the vibes of a TB303.

 

 

3) What about the up-tempo tracks?

I'm not very comfortable with high tempo, first of all because I'm not Mozart or a robot to find and play melodies at 150 bpm and that's because I play all the melodies, the bass, the arpeggios and the synth riffs live.

 

 

4) Did you produce your music with VST or with real Hardware?

I use hardware synthesizers and I record them within Cubase on MIDI.

I only used MIDI at the beginning and just after a long time I started to use some audio instruments together with MIDI in Cubase. So, everything I created up to year 2002 was just MIDI, the pure old-school way.

 

The only down-side of this is that is not so easy if you want to remix your own tracks.

 

For drums or strange FX sounds, I used individual samples or sometimes some loops.

 

4 or 5 of my tracks (iridium zone, cyclotron, liquid life, darkness, trans'up) were converted from midi only in Cubase to multi-tracks audio projects in the program called Acid, but it's a hard work to do...

 

 

5) Which are your favorite synthesizers and what was your setup when making goa tracks?

My favorite synthesizers are the Microwave 2 and the Waldorf XT (but I like a lot also the Pulse and the MicroQ). I also used Clavia Nordlead 1 and the Roland JP8000 plus some software samplers. A bit later on I started to use some VST but I don't like much how they sound or work as I prefer real instruments with many buttons and to tweak all together with Cubase in MIDI at the end.

 

Nowadays I could produce a goa track only with the "orange" Waldorf Microwave XT, Cubase on Windows and a soft sampler for Drum Loops and FX.

 

For example, the track "Remembering Natalia" (2007) and "Happy Living" were produced only with Microwave 2, Cubase and some VST Plug-ins (delays, reverb, Absynth, Halion, Kontakt).

 

In the years 2000-2003, I used a creamware audio card, that is like a virtual studio in your computer to mix and record all your external synths, like a modular studio in your computer.

I didn't want to use a digital or analog hard mixer becasue I wanted to save all parameters of a project on the computer so to be able to recall them anytime.

 

 

6) When did you learn to play music?

I learned music on piano and some arranger-synthesizer when i was 14-16 years old. After a long break, I bought a Roland mc-303 and I started to discovered electronic music in 1994.

With the money from my first job in 1998 I decided to buy some synthesizer and make music but just like a hobby and because I love machines, technologies and analog sounds ,

 

I never made any money with my music and therefore after 2004 I decide to stop making music for long time and sold a lot of my synthesizer, but sometimes the "virus" comes back, like in 2007 when I restarted to produce some low-tempo music.

 

But now I wish to restart to produce some music because I discovered that I have some fans )).

 

 

7) Have you ever performed live? Are you interested in doing so now?

In 1998, I had a proper live set (an illegal party in the forest behind Cannes) and there I played my first trance tracks (Blind and Outland), it was an interesting experience. But I had to move too many instruments from my studio for this live, like a big analog mixer that was very heavy and required a long time to be properly installed, especially when you don't sleep and you have to play at 6:00 am .

 

In 2001, I participated to a small private party for my friends and again I performed live, this experience was better (I played Cyclotron, Trans'up, and Iridium Zone), and to answer your final question... yes, I'm interested in performing live.

 

8) Have you tried to release anything?

In 2000, I went to London, with my first audio CD to find a label, I tried Dragonfly Records and another, can't remember exactly which one, maybe Matsuri Productions or Flying Rhino Records. but it was a deception... nothing happened.

 

 

9) Did you produce other kind of music?

I tried to produce some house music like the track "Sweet Dawn", but it was my own interpretation of house music.. I tried to create some psytrance because a friend of mine, Cosmo Chaos produces it (i think he still does) but I'm not very interested by this kind of music (too noisy, less melodies, too boring).

 

And finally I also tried to create something similar to trip-hop: tracks like "Mist of Love" but it then became "Darkness" when a friend put his song/vocals on it (I re-arranged the track so that it was possible to sing on it). So at the end there is goa and trance, and yes, it's the only kind of electronic music (for dance and mind) I like, mid-tempo and low-tempo (110 - 140 bpm).

 

 

10) Tell us something about your private life, and do you go to goa parties?

Actually, I'm 36 years old, I live in Nice and I'm working for services for retailers and retail banking. I am a specialist in the maintenance of computer hardware for stores and this led me to move a lot for my job between Marseille and Menton.

 

No, i don't go to Goa parties. because in south of France, there has never been a place for it... I think.

 

Salut!

Stephane, Crossing Mind