MEET THE ENGINEERS.

In the Dream Machine EKX, you’re not only blending a Rhodes* and a celeste – two fundamentally different instruments – you’re also using a marimba and a xylophone when layering sounds in presets. Where did the idea come from?
Viktor: When listening through what we already had in our line of instruments for EZkeys, we realized that we were lacking something with more of a mallets vibe. We wanted that bright and piercing tone of a celeste, but like the sonic explorers we are, we of course couldn’t settle for “just” a sampled instrument.

Mikael: When we started working on layering different instruments, we realized right away that the Rhodes* and the celeste were a perfect marriage. They shared some pretty similar sonic qualities while they had an essentially different attack and tone. Together, they complemented each other on several levels. To add even more character and an extra ounce of percussive feel to it, we decided to use use a xylophone and a marimba as additional layers for several of the presets.

Were all these instruments sampled like traditional EZkeys instruments?
Viktor: The Rhodes* and the celeste are multi-sampled with as much velocity detail and sensitivity as all other EZkeys instruments. You can pull up either of them and use them individually – both are amazing instruments. I personally love how they come alive when combined, though.

Mikael: To keep the size down and the usability in focus, the the xylophone and marimba are not quite as detailed, which was the plan all along. We wanted the product to be based around the two leading characters of the Rhodes* and celeste while the other two would fill in the gaps and add that extra bit of creative power.

Listening to the presets in this product, the tonal range is pretty spectacular. It goes from subtle lullaby-like sounds to menacing and nightmarish. What was the thought process?
Viktor: Not all dreams are nice and cloud-like. They can be claustrophobic and quite horrifying also (laughs).

Mikael: We wanted to make a product that catered to a broadest possible range – something that could fit just as seamlessly in in pop song as an ambient soundscape or soundtrack. But as always when it comes to sound, it’s all about context and how someone ultimately applies these sounds in their creative space. That’s the good thing about creativity, it’s completely arbitrary.

To make this collection of presets as broad as you could, you also invited several outside producers to help out (Alexander Juneblad, Addeboy vs. Cliff, Andreas Estensen).
Viktor: Even though you may have all the tools you can wish for at arm’s length, it’s always challenging to reinvent yourself after a certain point. It’s also great to add an outside element. None of these guys were involved in the initial process of actually preparing the sounds, so it was like a blank slate for them. They could just start painting with sound with no preconception or restriction.

Mikael: EZkeys Dream Machine comes with more than 40 individually crafted blends of sound, so it’s a quite massive body of work. We have some truly talented people that we’ve worked closely with for other projects, so it was an easy call to get them involved. Some of their sounds are lightyears away from my own, so I think lending more than just a couple of guys’ creative mind space to the product was key in order to make it as broad as it possibly could be. The sounds really deserved it!

What are the effect chains in the presets built on?
Viktor: Anything and everything! The tools we have available in the backend of EZkeys to make presets include a complete array of effects and saturations. One thing that I particularly like is how some of the presets use different attack times and swells between the included instruments, making the stroke very articulate and unique.

Mikael: Delays, reverbs, filters, distortion, EQs – you name it. For some presets, a variety of effects were used while some have the instruments in complete tonal focus, with possibly just a hint of some saturation.

What’s your favorite thing with EZkeys Dream Machine?
Viktor: The width. It’s a perfect instrument for anything from shrill leads to ambient pads. Actually, I can imagine it in pretty much any context.

Mikael: I agree! Creatively, this truly is a dream machine.