Hello and welcome the first 20 QUESTIONS which is a series of interviews with the same 20 questions for makers in the modular, synth and music tech community.
For this first instalment we have Lavendel Kranz of Schreibmaschine, a synth maker, musician and game designer. You may have seen her colourful purple panels, logic modules and micro odd numbered step sequencers in the 1U format. Check out her work at https://www.schreibmaschine.berlin, on Instagram or Bandcamp and lets get into it!
01 How would you introduce yourself to someone who has no idea who you are and no idea of the modular, synth, & music tech spaces?
At the core I’m just someone who likes making things. I’m a musician who creates instruments and is trying to make a living doing that. I spent over 20 years in the video games industry. I was a designer on some games you have probably heard of like FarmVille and Candy Crush Saga.
02 How would you introduce yourself to someone who is aware of modular, synth & music tech worlds?
I’m a modular synth designer. I specialize in making compact 1U and Eurorack modules that are playable with a clear interface. My current lineup of designs feature a lot of sequencers and logic modules, many of which can interface directly with the Turing Machine & Leibniz ecosystems.
I orbited the music industry for a long time before jumping in. I worked at a punk radio station when I was 17 (KVHS 90.5 The Edge). I interviewed musicians for a metal magazine, and used to busk Irish folk music on the streets of San Francisco in college. I even did some hand modeling for Native Instruments.
03 What were your early influences for getting into what you do now?
My first influence is my dad. He was an electrical engineer so when I first started playing his guitar he taught me how to read a schematic and we would build guitar pedals together from Godbout Electronics where he used to work. He got me into computers and music at a young age and helped me build my first stringed instruments.
The first vinyl I ever bought was Switched on Bach by Wendy Carlos. Back when you could buy most used vinyl for $1 I didn’t know what a modular synth was at the time I just thought the cover art was great. Growing up I mostly played punk, metal, and folk music but I also had a love for anything strange and experimental, so I found Brian Eno, Rick Wakeman, Stars of the Lid, and lots of old prog rock with ripping keyboard solos.
When I moved to Berlin I ran a woodworking studio in my free time where I built stringed instruments. Derek Holzer of Macumbista was in a neighboring studio where he built noise boxes, Benjolins, and was using old Vectrex consoles to visualize his music, all of which I found fascinating. As I got into modular music, and instrument design Derek was a great source of technical information and patching wisdom.
04 What was the first thing you created?
The Brainiac was my debut module, it is a boolean logic module but with 8 inputs rather than 2. It does all 6 classic boolean operations like AND, OR, XOR but also has new ones like Majority & Minority which trigger when more or less than half of the inputs are high. Its logic reacts to the number of inputs that are currently being used and can be expanded to calculate many more logical outputs as well such as >,<,=,!= , and Binary Coded Decimal outputs.
Like many of my modules it can be used on its own or as an expander to the Turing Machine, normalling the 8 internal logic gates of the Turing to its 8 inputs. An upcoming revision of the circuit similarly integrates the Leibniz Binary Subsystem from XAOC.
05 How was that first product received and what was the ‘scene’ like as you released it?
Early on in the pandemic in 2020 was when I started seriously studying electronics and starting to develop my first serious modules. I got to show my work at Superbooth 2021 and most people I showed it to didn’t really get it at first. I think many people have a negative gut reaction to anything mathematical and would say things like “logic is too complicated for me” or “I don’t use logic because I play by feel” which was a surprise to me because I play my logic modules by feel all the time. When I got the chance to demo the modules to people, they tended to walk away with more interest and understanding.
So I figured the most interesting path was rather than pivot to what was popular, I should try and make logic popular by releasing interesting approachable logic modules and showing people what they can do.
The scene was exploding at the time. I think we all remember being stuck at home taking the time to pick up a new hobby and for many people that was music making. From a developer’s perspective we were in the middle of the chip shortage, which grew into an all-component shortage. As someone who mostly uses 1970s tech I was worried whether anyone would keep manufacturing those old chips.
06 How did making that first product influence the next one? Any lessons learned to pass onto others?
When I’m trying something new I always end up picking a project that is way beyond my skill level because it needs to be exciting enough to drive me to learn everything I need to finish it. Creating the Brainiac got me into CMOS, which got me into 8 bit computer architecture and what I ended up with is a really powerful logic machine and the drive to create the whole 8-bit logic ecosystem I’ve been working on for the past 6 years.
The Pulsate (an octal pulse wave oscillator) came out of a need to drive the 8 input logic of the Brainiac. The Pulse Blender came while reading the CMOS Cookbook trying to find a chip for the Brainiac and stumbling on the CD4019. That chip used to be used in 4 & 8 bit computers to select between busses which I didn’t know at the time, I just saw the logic diagram and thought “I bet if you plugged lots of square waves into that it would sound cool”.
My top lesson I want to pass on is that you don’t need to be an expert to get started. Pick a project that is beyond your skill that you are excited to make and then learn and collect whatever tools you need to make it happen. This applies to any craft in my experience.
07 Would you say you make things for yourself/yourselves? How much community influence comes into play with new ideas?
As a musician, all of my module designs fill a gap in my own rack first. Sometimes it’s a new idea I can’t pull off with any available modules like with the Pulse Blender & Brainiac, and sometimes it’s taking a classic module and making it as compact and efficient as I can like with the Discrete or the Mixteen.
The community that influences me the most is the community of other module developers. My first designs came out of my love for Tom Whitwell’s Turing Machine and wondering how far I could push it. In practice all modules will be patched to modules from another developer so I want to understand what everyone else is doing. I’ve gotten inspiration from seeing a niche that isn’t being served, and from wanting to add functionality to modules I love.
08 How do you decide on the value ranges for the controls or CV inputs on your modules?
Since Eurorack doesn’t have rigid standards it comes down to how my modules play with others. My octal logic modules had pretty hot outputs at first but to work as expanders to the Leibniz System I needed to pull them down to 5 volts.
The prototypes for the 3-5-7 step sequencers initially had a range of 0-5v but with such tiny sliders they were hard to dial in so the final version is only 0-2v so you have a 2 octave range for melody.
In the end I settle on the values through lots of playtesting and making compromises to focus on the way people are likely to use the modules and what they are going to patch them into.
09 Generally speaking, what do your products offer that others don’t?
They can be used as expanders for modules you may already have. That’s not something you see very often.
Octal logic is also a bit unique to my products. There are lots of octal modules out there simply because you can fit 8 rows of jacks pretty easily into a Eurorack panel and lots of chips come in octal packages, so I try to make modules that either generate, or combine 8 signals to help fill out that ecosystem.
10 How has the global shake up of parts shortages and rising costs affected your design decisions?
As a small manufacturer I think the fact that I’m usually ordering the minimum order quantity for my small production runs plays a bigger role in the price I pay per component than any general rising cost of components. Also I’m helped by the fact that all of my modules are analog so far and using older chips. This means I’m not competing for microcontrollers which are more in demand so I haven’t faced supply issues so far.
11 How do classic instruments and designs influence your own work?
When I built stringed instruments I used to build instruments that imagine alternate histories like what if old instruments never lost their popularity. This was behind the design of my electric lutes, and mandolins, and my 3D printed banjo.
I am starting to apply this mindset to my synthesizer work as well and also draw inspiration from the other instruments I play. For example I have some prototypes in the works that mimic acoustic drum techniques.
12 Do you find inspiration in areas outside of the one you work within?
I originally got into modular synths because of my work in games. My specialization in the games industry is game balancing, and systems design. This is basically coming up with all the rules and numbers in the game. For example if you are fighting a dragon, we need to know things like…
- How much damage does your sword do?
- How much health does the dragon have?
- How often can you swing your sword?
Each of these things has an effect on how the game feels. If it is too hard it is frustrating, too easy and it’s boring, so it is a mix of math and psychology to get the game feeling just right.
When I first saw a modular synth I was struck by how similar a lot of the modules were to functions I used in Excel for balancing games. Things like envelopes, logic, CV itself all have analogues in the code of games. So for many years as a creative lead, I would teach my designers how to play a modular synth so they could have a physical object to practice their design intuition on and start to develop muscle memory for how changes can cascade through a large interconnected signal path.
Now working in the other direction there is a lot synth developers can learn from games. One is to take direct inspiration from things like evolutionary game theory. I have some rough plans for game theory modules that run simulations like the Hawk & Dove problem.
Game creators also spend a lot of time thinking about how they present information and affordances. Like what information does the player need to make a decision? When the player does something, what feedback lets them know what is changing? How does the player know what will happen when they push a button?
13 What would you do if you weren’t designing and making gear?
I still love the craft of making video games and it’s a skill I have honed for so long I would love to continue doing it in the future.
I also loved making stringed instruments when I had a good woodshop to work in. It’s an even smaller niche than what I’m doing now so it would absolutely be a long shot but I still have so many ideas for interesting stringed instruments if I get a chance to build them again.
14 Whose equipment besides your own inspires you and why?
I’ve already mentioned XAOC and Tom Whitwell (Music Thing).
The Euclidean Circles from Vladimir Pantelic (VPME) is my favorite module. It has such an intuitive interface that even though it isn’t “one knob per function” it still doesn’t need knob labels. It also inspired the visual aesthetic of my brand because when you watch someone play live, even in the darkest smokiest venue you can always spot it in someone’s rig, it’s that iconic.
Andrew from Nonlinear Circuits was a big influence on me with his huge collection of weird and wild logic modules.
Dieter Doepfer as well. He can get really compact like with his octal VCA which basically never leaves my live case, but he also isn’t afraid to take up space when it means making a more playable instrument.
15 What was the last product you created?
The Discrete is my latest release. It’s a classic boolean logic module in a very compact format. It does all 6 boolean operations (AND/NAND OR/NOR XOR/XNOR) These kinds of logic modules are really powerful and useful for more than just rhythm quantization and square wave blending. In a recent demo I plugged a bass guitar into the Discrete to make a glitchy octave fuzz effect patching the OR output through a clock divider.
16 Rather than ask “what’s next?” Where is your current inspiration and thinking for your future?
As someone with ADHD I can’t predict what I will be obsessed with enough to focus on next. I try not to fight it and so I just see where my ADHD takes me and trust that it will be something interesting. That being said, I have made a list of instrument ideas and I use a ranking system to help direct my focus a little bit. So there are some directions I won’t be surprised if I end up going in like…
- Finding an odd rare piece of synth history and making an accessible reverse engineered version
- Dual percussion modules and trigger manipulators that play nicely together
- An 8-bit computer but for music
17 What’s a piece of music you’d like us to check out?
I recently revisited the album “Locust Abortion Technician” by the Butthole Surfers and it really hit me how much of an influence they were on me. Especially the song “22 Going On 23”
The music I make now is a bit closer to Stars of the Lid’s “Music for Nitrous Oxide” which also heavily features drones and found audio, but hearing “22 Going On 23” reminded me of where I got permission to mix in interesting sounds I found or get repetitive with a big slow heavy melody.
18 What is something unrelated you’d like to mention for people to check out or be aware of?
Transgender people are under attack all across the world right now. The UK and USA are especially dangerous for us and the fearmongering against us there is having ripple effects in policy and hate across the world. The statistics bear this out but even from my perspective here in Berlin there has been a sharp rise in how often I am getting physically or sexually assaulted in public. It has gotten to the point where it sometimes happens 3 times per month not to mention the daily leering, and insults directed at me.
Basically all of us are having a hard time, so support trans creators, go to a local protest, offer to help get your trans friends get home safe after the gig or do their shopping if they don’t feel safe outside.
19 What’s a question you wish I had asked?
How do you pronounce your name?
My legal name (Lavendel Kranz) is a little tough for English speakers. LaVENdel has the emphasis on the “VEN” and the “el” is pretty short so it does NOT rhyme with Rivendell. Fun fact my name is a compound noun that means Lavender Wreath.
Schreibmaschine is the real challenge though since Germans tend to pronounce all their letters. Here’s an example though.
20 What’s a question you’d like me to ask the next guest?
What is your process for deciding what to make next?
Thank you to Lavendel for taking the time to answer the questions, watch out for the next one, check out some other interviews on the blog and head to https://www.schreibmaschine.berlin for all things Schreibmaschine.
