Michael William Gilbert

People ask me about the instruments and effects I use on my projects. While I've been somewhat reluctant to discuss this in the past - not because it's secret, but because people tend to over-focus on tools rather than sounds and sonic landscapes - I thought I'd share what I currently use in my studio. I'm not formally endorsing products (with the exception of all the Eurorack modules and cases by Tall Dog Electronics), but these are all excellent studio tools, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to fellow musicians or composers.

I have a Eurorack modular synthesizer as my main instrument, shown here sitting on top of
the older Aries modular synthesizer:

The overall system changes from time to time, and is in process at the moment as I figure out a balance that I want for modular synth live performance. It includes all of the Tall Dog Electronics SE series modules: uBraids SE, uClouds SE, uRings SE, and uo_C SE (Ornament & Crime). All of the modules are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 and are designed, manufactured, and sold by my son Dan at Tall Dog Electronics. More info and availability at http://www.tall-dog.com/

For many years I have also owned a classic/vintage ARIES modular system (as shown above), which were built from kits in 1975-6 and then further modified by Carl Fravel. Within the past few years it was fully restored by Dan Gilbert. It will be going up for sale to fund some new equipment for more recordings and live work, including:

The ELTA Music Solar 42N: https://www.eltamusic.com/solar-42f a very idiosyncratically unique synth from Riga, Latvia, which I'm looking forward to trying out in live performance soon. So far it's been been very trippy and engaging to play! I'm combining it with a Windows11 Chuwi minibook which runs a single instance of Native Instruments Kontakt for manually triggered clips created for the performances, and for additional percussion using Sonuscore’s Fragments. Its output runs directly into the Solar for processing.

I just finished a new album with it: https://michaelwilliamgilbert.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-music

We have a studio manager here! Her name is Alibi. She has a
specific interest in anything in the studio she considers edible.
 

Sirius (Siri), our previous studio manager, passed
on after 12½ years of excellent service. ♥︎

…and once upon a time there was Jeep's Little Corner, too.