Musician Sage Bava is seen here with the Arturia AstoLab keyboard
French-based gear company Arturia, who call themselves the “Sound Explorers,” are like a secret weapon for artists. The company’s artist page lists a wide range of top-tier 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 among musicians? According to Arturia CEO Fredric Brun, the goal for the company, like on their new AstroLab keyboard, is simplicity. Musician Sage Bava, an accomplished pianist, says they have achieved that with the keyboard, making it an excellent addition to any music library.
“The sleek and absolutely beautiful design seamlessly blends simplicity with technology. One of my biggest complaints about using keyboards is how overly complicated the options can be and how unintuitive they feel. The Astrolab is different. Despite the vast number of options to choose from, it feels incredibly intuitive, making setup and creative flow easy,” Bava says. “I've always been a fan of Arturia and their ability to make vintage sounds accessible while also creating the future of sound. Their work has a timeless quality to it, 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 a multitude of 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 it takes my music production journey.”
I spoke with Brun about the company’s relationship with artists, the advantages of being in a smaller town, how they built the AstroLab and much more.
Steve Baltin: Talk about the relationship you have with artists and how you work with them on developing products and the feedback they provide.
Fredric Brun: Yes, artists, of course, it’s the relationship for the craftsman. I’m a violinist at first, and it’s so core to making good instruments and to nurturing the energy and the passion in the company that we have always been interested in exchanging with artists. When the company was much smaller, I was doing a part of that. I’m not so much anymore, but I remember discussing with artists like Herbie Hancock or Jean-Michel Jarre, who really helped figure out what was key to them. Today, part comes from Alexis [Le Clerc], who you just saw, he is really in charge of understanding what artists need, gets it to them, sometimes writes stories with them. It’s also the product managers. So, we have a team of 15 product managers, and they will go to London, to Los Angeles, they will stay after NAMM for a week, visit studios and really understand the trends and their needs. This said, we are in a small city in France, we’re close to Grenoble, which is in the Southeast of France. So, we also have a chance to talk to local artists, but not often to major artists in this city. That’s maybe, sometimes, a limit to what we can see.
Baltin: Do you feel like you get the best of both worlds talking to major artists and getting the smalltown local vibe?
Brun: Yeah, there’s benefit to that. Sometimes you also need to reflect, step away from the limelight and make sure that you talk to the people and try to create and bridge what is feasible, what is new in general, technically, from a sociological standpoint as well. Not necessarily listen and bring what the musician asks for, but also bring something different they might not necessarily ask for. I like this position. I agree with you there are benefits in being in a smaller town.
Baltin: One advantage to being in a smaller town is fewer distractions and more opportunity to work. Let’s tie that into the new AstroLab and what you were looking for in building this.
Brun: We are a hard-working company. We were engineers at first. So, early on, we were more attracted by tech. This is a very dangerous trend in the company. We tend to forget about users. We have this tendency to get back to the product and the instrument and that is something we are trying to change. We are still looking at, “Who are those users?”
Baltin: Using a music analogy, often the best songs are made for the artist first. Then the audience finds and falls in love with the music. Do you feel like the Arturia products work because they are made for you first?
Brun: You’re right, I think it’s true. I think the fact many in the team make instruments for themselves; they know very well what they’ve been using in the market for years; there is a lot of passion, after work they’ll go for beers, it is a young crew, and that’s great. I think that helps make singular products. It’s differentiating in many ways, and I know that’s served us well. You’re right, there is a magic to making things for yourself first, because at least they’re going to be consistent with what one person wants and that’s a good start for the rest of the planet.
Baltin: What do you take from it when you use AstroLab?
Brun: I’ve spent a lot of time with AstroLab. The vision of being able to go from studio to stage and having your sounds embedded in hardware and potentially the cloud is something that came probably more than 10 years ago. I wrote the first memo about that probably 10 years ago. The circle that is at the center is something I saw from that. We sat with Axel Hartmann, he is a designer in our industry, he has done a lot of work with Moog, by a lake in Switzerland. We spent two days there, we tried drawings and we came with the designs. A lot of the experience was just back and forth with the team and envisioning how we would use it. This was something I really was a part of. I wasn’t the only one. Pierre was very instrumental in making sure we kept the simplicity. But it is always very important to make something that will please maybe 30 percent of the people 100 percent rather than please 80 percent of the people 50 percent. You’d rather be radical, and we said, “It’s going to be simple. It doesn’t have to do everything. But at least what it does, it does well.”
Baltin: What did you first take from it when you used AstroLab?
Brun: I enjoyed the clarity. It’s written on the buttons – piano, organ, etc. I like the fact you just look at the machine and you know what it’s going to be. And one of the early successes of Arturia, when we did recreations of Mini Moog, piano, etc, it was simple for people to understand the value in what we were bringing. If you have a product called Mini Moog V you understand you’re going to have a software recreation of Mini Moog bringing the same sounds. Here you have a little bit of that. You have a keyboard, so you understand you have a keyboard. It’s written piano, you have timber, your effects. It’s extremely simple to understand just looking at it. That, to me, is a relief because I feel technology is so much in the way and so much presence and oppressing us, creating pressure for installing and upgrading and whatever, that if you avoid having this technology layer in the way, that’s great. So I like that. Then I like everything is about exploration because you get into the product, you can try a sound, try another one, tweak the sound and you’re in a journey to find your sound and discover your playing. That’s nice because there is nothing complex about that. To me, the best instrument is the piano. It’s so simple, and, at the same time, it’s so powerful. You can create so many things with the piano. So, if we’re able to get close to that I think we’re delivering.
