Aroon KarunaInterview
Experimental musician, intellectual property attorney
Adapted from Aroon Karuna's interview on Uses This, published 27 October 2017. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
As a musician: I use a Heath & Allen ZED-12FX for mixing my various bits of gear and recording them via USB into the computer.
Instead I do all of my monitoring with a pair of Grado SR325s.
In travel and non-studio situations I like Master & Dynamic ME05 in-ears.
I started out strictly using software since it was all I could afford as a student, but after purchasing my first dedicated hardware synthesizer in 2008 (the Dave Smith Poly Evolver), there was no turning back.
Arturia MatrixBrute - this interview with Marc Doty about his love for the MatrixBrute contains no hyperbole.
Dave Smith Prophet 12 - a modern polyphonic analog/digital hybrid that has vast sound-shaping capabilities.
This modular synth has a Moog Mother-32 as its foundational module.
It provides all the basic modules you'd want to start out with in top-notch Moog quality, including an oscillator, filter, envelope, mixer, LFO, sequencer, and keyboard, and provides 32 patch points that allow the instrument to really get experimental when combined with, say, a Make Noise MATHS.
Elektron Machinedrum - modern classic drum machine.
Elektron Analog Four - a 4-voice analog synth that allows each voice to be programmed and sequenced separately.
Teenage Engineering OP-1 - this looks like a kid's toy, but it's surprisingly deep and powerful, and sounds simply amazing.
Nord Modular G1 - the G1 comes in the form of a cute hardware synth with keyboard and knobs, but under the hood is a virtual modular that you can program on your computer.
Madrona Soundplane - this is a controller, but it's not a MIDI controller.
Productivity
I'm fairly boring and utilitarian - I use Microsoft Word for most of my work, even though it frustrates me more often than not.
Notes
Coding & Development
Design
As an attorney, I like OmniGraffle for creating patent figures.
Media
As a musician, I started learning how to use music software in the 90s with Cakewalk Pro.
I discovered the power of VST plugins shortly after, then Ableton Live around 2004.
The main part of my computer workflow outside of the Live environment is Audacity, a free, open source program I use for sample editing.
Native Instruments Reaktor - Reaktor always seemed cool, but relatively impenetrable to me.
Madrona Aalto - For my money, this is the best software plugin instrument ever made.