Who are you at Neutone?

My name is Matthias, like many others in the team I am a bit of a generalist when it comes to Neutone. I actually have a background in media art and have been exhibiting works about the social aspects of AI and social media.

What do you work on?

I’m mainly working on user interfaces and feel most comfortable programming for the web. At the moment I’m working closely with our designers on the final touches for Morpho and I am responsible for the UI for Neutone Gen and the design and engineering for Neutone Cocoon. But I also work on other design related tasks: for example developing the Neutone identity so that we are able to integrate multiple products but still have a cohesive look. This was (and still is) quite a challenging task but Alvaro from nuevo.tokyo created a beautiful foundation on which we are building on.

For this I was drawing custom typographic elements (I hope you like the new logotype) and I defined colors and gradients to be used in our plugins. Of course I’m not taking decisions alone and the whole team is often involved in deciding the looks we are going for.

Why are you doing this?

I joined Qosmo in 2022 and was able to ship the original Neutone (now FX) plugin to version 1.0. It was demanding getting to know a new codebase but everything worked out in the end and I learned a ton. This project also got me hooked into other electronic music instruments and I’ve been jamming on the Dirtywave M8 tracker since. I hope to integrate Neutone Morpho into my music and make generative livesets with it. I aim to create intriguing interfaces so more musicians and artists can create new weird sonic experiences.

What do you hope Neutone Morpho offers artists/musicians?

I think Neutone has the chance to define a new wave of computer-based instruments that feel alive and react with controllable randomness. It is a challenging balance act between complexity and simplicity, and more often than we side for simplicity. Musicians should be able to open the plugin and start playing with it immediately. For all the sound design nerds and experimental musicians however we want to give low level access to the models so they can tweak it in unexpected ways.

What’s next in store?

Morpho 1.0 is just the beginning 😉 We already have a bunch of features and new plugins laid out which I’m pretty excited about.

What are you listening to these days? 🎧

I honestly listen to more DJ sets than individual albums or tracks. The boiler room set of Josef Tumari was on my speakers quite often in the past year. Another hidden gem for me at the moment is Hjärngymnastik from Kiskelfacit who is digging through the house, techno, electro scene pre-2000. I also love what my friends are doing and am super impressed by DJ Balduins new album Concrete Mimosa released on KANN in Leipzig. Apart from all the smooth housy dance music, I’m really into experimental electronic music festivals like Unsound in Krakow or CTM in Berlin. The last concert that blew me away was by the Peruvian-born artist Ale Hop who created absolutely mesmerizing feedback loops with her guitar and synthesizers at the Timcheh festival in Cologne.