DivKid's Month Of Modular Issue #13 October 2016 | Page 10

INTERVIEW

And I wasn’t a community of engineers and musicians – I was running one of largest

advertising agencies in Latvia. But then, I still wonder, how it happened, I accidentally met genius people who are engineers and musicians, and now they are in Erica Synths team: Janis is engineer for most of our digital stuff, Kodek makes demos, plays gigs on Erica Synths gear, tests prototypes both from musical and functional perspective, Anastasija is my ex-student (I teach marketing in a university), she takes care about marketing and

logistics, Ralfs tests every single module that comes from the factory and does cases

assembly. And in similar way few outsourced engineers appeared. Eduards aka D-tech, genius engineer and self-taught composer and blues piano player, used to work in huge company that develops high-tech communication devices, but, as he works almost

exclusively during night-time and music is his true passion, he’s more happy to work for Erica Synths and I’m happy, I met him.

On the other hand, we have like 5-6 electronics assembly companies of different size here, few PCB producers (I can get prototype PCBs in 3 days), companies that can make front panels, and a friend of mine owns a silkscreen company. All those are small-medium

companies and therefore I can keep production processes effective and short. And within last year their doubts “who a hell buys all this crazy shit?” have been leveraged, and they kind of admire Erica Synths for what we do together.

During soviet times Riga Musical Instruments Factory (RMIF) was the largest musical

instruments producer in Soviet Union, so I want to make Riga great again! In terms on synth reputation, of course.

- Do you have any connections to tube amps or bits of tube driven vintage gear? I'm wondering what led you to develop the Fusion series.

In my early DIY experience back in 80-ties I made some tube stuff, but that doesn’t count. The inspiration for Fusion series and early designs came from Aivars Kreivics, DIYer,

engineer, self-taught musician and sound engineer. He was a mastermind behind monster drum machine RMIF ES25 that was being developed in Riga. Only single prototype was built in 1991 before factory gone bankrupt. Check it out here: www.ruskeys.net/eng/base/rmifes25.php He was 65, when I met him performing live in festival Night of Wonders, organized by Kodek in his small hometown, on his creation – one of kind synth HIDRA built solely on vacuum tubes (https://soundcloud.com/senators-1/sets/hidra ) .