Musician Sage Bava is seen here with the Arturia AstoLab keyboard
French equipment company Arturia, which calls itself “Explorers of sound”, is like a secret weapon for artists. The company's artist page lists a wide range of top acts praising Arturia, from Trent Reznor, Liam Gallagher and legendary DJ Carl Craig to funk icon Bootsy Collins, Kimbra and electronic group Disclosure .
What makes Arturia so beloved by musicians? According to Fredric Brun, CEO of Arturia, the company's goal, as in its new AstroLab keyboard, is simplicity. Musician Sage Bava, an accomplished pianist, says they've achieved this with the keyboard, making it an excellent addition to any music library.
“The sleek and absolutely beautiful design perfectly blends simplicity with technology. One of my biggest complaints about using keyboards is how complicated the options can be and how unintuitive they feel. The Astrolab is different. Despite the plethora of options to choose from, it feels incredibly intuitive, making setup and creative flow easy,” says Bava. “I've always been a fan of Arturia and his ability to make vintage sounds accessible while creating the future of sound. Their work has a timeless quality, and the Astrolab keyboard is no exception. It combines the best of both worlds, allowing you to explore classic sounds and push the boundaries of music production. I was incredibly excited to try out the Astrolab keyboard because it offers so many possibilities. Its intuitive design and extensive capabilities have the potential to inspire countless new ideas. With this keyboard, the creative possibilities are endless and I can't wait to see where my music production journey takes me.”
I spoke with Brun about the company's relationship with artists, the benefits of being in a smaller town, how they built the AstroLab, and more.
Steve Baltin: Talk about the relationship you have with artists and how you work with them on product development and the feedback they provide.
Fredric Brun: Yes, artists, of course, it's the artisan's relationship. I'm a violinist to begin with, and it's so fundamental to making good instruments and to fueling the energy and passion in the company that we've always been interested in exchanging with artists. When the company was much smaller, I was doing some of that. I'm not so much anymore, but I remember arguing with artists like Herbie Hancock or Jean-Michel Jarre, who really helped figure out what was key for them. Today, a part comes from Alexis [Le Clerc], which you just saw, is really in charge of understanding what artists need, getting to them, sometimes writing stories with them. They are also product managers. So we have a team of 15 product managers, and they'll go to London, to Los Angeles, stay a week after NAMM, visit studios, and really understand the trends and their needs. Having said that, we are in a small town in France, we are near Grenoble, which is in the south-east of France. So we also have the opportunity to talk with local artists, but not often with major artists in this city. This is perhaps sometimes a limit to what we can see.
Baltin: Do you think you get the best of both worlds by talking to major artists and getting the local small town vibe?
Brun: Yes, that has a benefit. Sometimes you also need to reflect, step away from the limelight and make sure you talk to people and try to create and link what is feasible, what is new in general, technically, also from a sociological point of view. Not necessarily listening and bringing what the musician is asking for, but also bringing something different that they might not necessarily ask for. I like this position. I agree with you that there are advantages to being in a smaller town.
Baltin: One of the advantages of being in a smaller city is fewer distractions and more opportunities to work. Let's tie it to the new AstroLab and what you were looking for to build it.
Brun: We are a very hardworking company. At first we were engineers. So, in the beginning, we were more attracted to the technology. This is a very dangerous trend in the company. We tend to forget about users. We have this tendency to go back to the product and the instrument and that's something we're trying to change. We're still looking at, “Who are these users?”
Baltin: Using a musical analogy, often the best songs are made for the artist first. Then the audience finds and falls in love with the music. Do you think Arturia products work because they are made for you first?
Brun: You're right, I think that's true. I think the fact that many of the team make instruments for themselves; they know very well what they have been using in the market for years; there's a lot of passion, they'll go for beers after work, it's a young team, and that's great. I think this helps make unique products. It's different in a lot of ways, and I know it's served us well. You're right, there's magic in doing things for yourself first, because at least they'll be consistent with what a person wants and that's a good start for the rest of the planet.
Baltin: What do you get out of it when you use AstroLab?
Brun: I have spent a lot of time with AstroLab. The vision of being able to go from studio to stage and have your sounds embedded in hardware and potentially in the cloud is something that probably came about over 10 years ago. I wrote the first note about this probably 10 years ago. The circle in the center is something I saw from this. We sat down with Axel Hartmann, he's a designer in our industry, he's done a lot of work with Moog, by a lake in Switzerland. We were there for two days, tried drawings and came up with the designs. A lot of the experience was back and forth with the team and imagining how we would use it. That was something I was really a part of. He wasn't the only one. Pierre was very important in making sure we kept it simple. But it's always very important to make something that will please maybe 30 percent of the people 100 percent rather than 80 percent of the people 50 percent. You'd rather be radical, and we said, “It'll be simple. You don't have to do everything. But at least what he does, he does well.”
Baltin: What did you get out of it when you first used AstroLab?
Brun: I liked the clarity. It is written on the buttons: piano, organ, etc. I like that you just look at the machine and you know what it's going to be. And one of Arturia's early successes, when we did Mini Moog recreations, pianos, etc., was that it was simple for people to understand the value of what we were bringing. If you have a product called Mini Moog V, you understand that you will have a software recreation of the Mini Moog with the same sounds. Here's some of that. You have a keyboard, so you understand that you have a keyboard. It is written piano, you have wood, your effects. It is very simple to understand just by looking at it. That, to me, is a relief because I feel like technology is so much in the way and so much presence and oppressing us, creating pressure to install and update and whatever, that if you avoid having that layer of technology in the way, This is great. So I like that. So I like that it's all about exploration because you go into the product, you can try one sound, try another, tweak the sound and you're on a journey to find your sound and discover your playing. It's good because there is nothing complex about this. For me, the best instrument is the piano. It is so simple and at the same time very powerful. You can create so many things with the piano. So, if we're able to get close to that, I think we're complying.
