Mirwais

"Impressive Instant" opens with out-of-phase synth LFO sweeps, panned hard left and right [3]. Light and transparent, the sound forms a backdrop for the entire length of the track. "Those are from the Nord Lead, run through a lowpass filter," says Mirwais. "The Nord Lead is an impressive machine because it's so simple."

The bass part on "Impressive Instant" is elusive, seeming massive and muted at the same time. "It's more of a sub-bass tone. There isn't much information in the mid or high range," explains Mirwais. "It's all from the Korg Prophecy. It's my secret weapon, an amazing synth. It's the Minimoog of the millennium. It has the most incredible bottom end, and it's very flexible -- though it's not easy to use. I just use the straight sound; I don't process it."

The organ-like suspended voicings behind the vocal are from the Waldorf Microwave XT [8]. "It's a kind of fake Rhodes sound on the Waldorf," he says. "The part is kind of a church organ vibe, but the church organ sound was too obvious; there was too much characteristic of the sound in the track. We needed something more dreamy and discrete."

"I used a Waldorf Microwave XT, Korg Prophecy, Roland JD-990, Clavia Nord Lead 2 Rack, and an E-mu E6400.

who's playing lintronics modified synths ?

Helmut van Aaken, Germany

Andre Abshagen (PET), Germany

Kurt Ader (KARO), Germany

Mirwais Ahmadzaï, France

Thomas Aichberger, Germany

Malik Al-Badri, Germany