Project Pablo

Montreal artist Project Pablo has been making waves over the past few years with a string of quality releases on labels including 1080p, Royal Oak, Magicwire and, most recently, Ninja Tune offshoot Technicolour. FM caught up with him to find out how he creates his melodic, rough-edged brand of house music... When did you start making music, and how did you first get started? “I started recording music when I was 19 using Ableton. The first bit of ‘gear’ I acquired was an Axiom 25 MIDI controller that I purchased from my good pal Devin. Like everyone else, I was a die-hard fan of Boards of Canada, Radiohead and Burial, and inevitably made some awful attempts at copying them. The product sounded like some scrambled version of downtempo electronica; too many changes never letting the groove ride out. I couldn’t seem to focus on a single idea.” Tell us about your current studio setup… “I recently left a great shared studio here in Montreal. It was a properly treated floating room with loads of gear laying about, so I never felt the pressure to update my setup. This is where I recorded Hope You’re Well, and other upcoming releases. Since September I’ve been making music at home, with a slowly evolving setup. In terms of hardware, I’ve been using a various digital synthesizers: Roland D-550, Yamaha CS1x and DX7. For VSTs I love to use Absynth, all the free TAL synths and FM8. I process everything in-the-box, with native Ableton plugs and a library of UAD plugins. I’m really comfortable with my current flow, but am working on altering this, by adding more rack mount synths and a small board to mix out of the box.” Hope You’re Well features a lot of clean, digital synth tones – what draws you to these kinds of sound? “A lot of that record was made with analogue synths (Juno-106 and Moog Minitaur), but then heavily processed to alter the timbre away from the usual analogue sound, giving it the digital-like quality. The diversity in timbre is what draws me to digital synthesis. I’ve got nothing against analog synthesis, I’ve just enjoyed messing around with digital sources a lot more lately.” Your tracks are often built around several intersecting melodies – how do you create these? “I usually hit record and riff off an idea I have in my head. Quantising and adjusting notes happens depending on the track. It really just feels like writing notation the oldfashioned way. Writing countermelodies usually happens through live experimentation though – the result sounds more natural. I don’t own any hardware sequencers, but I have written some parts with them when making tunes with friends in other studios.” What dream bit of gear would you love to have in your studio? “As mentioned before, I don’t really dream big in the studio, but I’d love a Waldorf Microwave XT.” How do you get a new track started? “The flow varies from time to time, but I usually build a palette of sounds, then start with percussion and move from there. Sometimes I’ll just record as many different sounds as I can from some hardware, with no tempo or overall vision in mind, and save them in a folder to sample or rework at a later date.” What are you currently working on? “This week I wrapped up a 12" slated for release early 2018. Other than that I’ve been trying to work in a bunch of different styles and tempos that make me feel uncomfortable, and collaborate with different people that make me feel comfortable.”