Solid State Logic 'On-Location with Lisa Bella Donna'

Lisa Bella Donna's latest album Travelogue captures several long-form sonic photographs of the artist's recent travels across the United States: from the Smoky Mountains in the Southeast, to the plains of the Midwest to the striking coastline of the Pacific Northwest. During her first on-location recording adventure, she was accompanied by a close friend, a custom modular synthesizer case and the new BiG SiX desktop recording console from Solid State Logic. Despite not having access to her fully appointed 'Mothership' recording studio in the Appalachians, she embraced the self-imposed limitation of having only a few bits of key equipment with which to create.

Her new album — which consists of four long-form instrumental tracks — harkens the Berlin School of electronic synthesis form with its sweeping ambience and dreamy, swirling sequences. While Travelogue was created using a 'limited' choice gear including the SSL BiG SiX, (4) Moog Mother32s, a DFAM, (2) Mavises, an ARP 2600 and other equipment, the resulting sound is massive and glacial, inviting the listener on his or her own sonic journey.

“Each piece of music has its own little galaxy because of every new place we went would just create this whole set of impressions and another new spirit," she says. "Everything was recorded and mixed in real time into Logic using the BiG SiX, which I had with me everywhere I went. When you are using synthesizers, there is whole other spectrum of possibilities that can be leveraged when you push a console like this, or if you pull something back to let other elements breathe. It is part of the craft of creating contrasts in my music."

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