ARCA / DRONE MACHINES

There aren't many artists out there as innovative and groundbreaking as Arca: her style of production and visual design is visceral, dark, bleak, but always intriguing & exciting. She's produced amazing solo works as well as music for Bjork, Kanye West and FKA Twigs, to name a few.

When she asked us to build her some machines I immediately jumped on it. We've worked on this now for the past 8 months working with Alejandra and her creative team and we focused on building some industrial controllers that would interact with her DJ setup, allowing her to make broader more physical strokes with levers, sliders and large knobs.

There are 5 total machines: 1 Fader, 2 Throttles and 2 Platters all rack mounted above her DJ setup with the table suspended from the ceiling by chains. The aesthetic of Drone Machines (the small gear company birthed from Author & Punisher) is raw, industrial, with heavy machine components.

Functionally, there is MIDI, USB, DSP Audio output and CV/Gate and they are completely open source. Many thanks and shout outs to the team at Drone Machines working with me who helped on this project as well as the other devices we are making: Adam Reed-Erickson (mechanical engineer), Jason Begin (sound designer, producer, composer), and Hanri Thayyil (firmware engineer).

Click the link below to learn more:
https://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/arca