 Edge of Dawn's humble beginnings started off in 1998 as Mario Schumacher's solo project. Influenced by bands like Nine Inch Nails, Covenant, Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy, Front 242 and Depeche Mode, Mario released two web only demo albums in 1999, Sleep and In Fear of the Unknown, through mp3.com. After honing his song writing and production skills, Mario decided to join forces with a vocalist and found the right person in Seabound front man Frank Spinath. Since then, Edge of Dawn has become one of Germany's hottest underground tips for intelligent Electro.
Signing with Dependent Records in Europe and Metropolis Records for North America, the duo released their debut EP, The Flight [Lux] in late 2005. Seldom does a band achieve such contrariness in such a short amount of time and even more seldom does the musical quality stay so high. With the waters tested, Edge of Dawn quickly began working on the full-length debut Enjoy The Fall which was released in May 2007. Edge of Dawn join FXpansion to discuss ‘Enjoy The Fall’ and their views on music software.
FX - How did you first get interested in making music?
'GURU is also a great plug-in with a lot of creative potential – definitely one of the most powerful software beatboxes.' MS - Grown up with Rock music and always having the desire to express myself artistically, I first started taking guitar lessons and playing electric guitar. When I was about 13, I discovered a tracker program running in MS DOS. This application was a clone of the famous ModTracker for Amiga with four channels. It was so exciting being able to create complete songs in my computer based on a couple of samples. Later I started making music with FastTracker which could handle 32 simultaneous tracks. Eventually switching to Logic PC in 2000 felt like a quantum leap: now I could comfortably integrate my hardware devices and use DirectX and VST plug-ins.
Now things got serious: I spent the following years learning how to
produce songs which can come up to my own demands.
FX - What was your inspiration behind your latest album ‘Enjoy The Fall’?
MS - Musically, my main aim was to create a very diverse and dynamic album which covers a lot of emotions. I have drawn much inspiration from a couple of synthesizers including a Minimoog Voyager that I bought last year and several plug-ins as well as film soundtracks and a huge stack of CDs. Our approach was pretty open-minded and we really enjoyed incorporating many influences.
 Lyrically, the album revolves around the Borderline personality disorder (BPD). Our singer Frank who works as a professor for psychology has created a story focussing on a main character who is afflicted with BPD and his wife is driven to the brink of insanity. The album weaves the imagery of their fatal relationship: The woman eventually ends her nightmare by pushing her partner out of an open window in an act of self-defense.
FX - How has music software affected the way that you make music?
MS - I was really fascinated by the idea of using the computer as a production tool from the beginning. It was so much fun figuring out how all those weird tools worked. On the other side, I enjoyed getting my hands on hardware equipment, so I built up a small studio with a few synths, an analog mixer, a mic and a preamp as well as a couple of FX and dynamic processors. My first real synth was an Access Virus A which opened a new universe of sounds for me.
I’ve kept track of the evolution of music software for over ten years now. Although I wouldn’t say I would have never started making music without music software, the almost unlimited creative options of music software definitely had a major influence on the way I create music. I’m still impressed which great-sounding productions can now solely be achieved in a PC. Now I prefer a combination of the intuitiveness of hardware synths and analog devices as well as the flexibility of software: the best of both both worlds, so to speak.
FX - What FXpansion products do you own and how do you use them? Do you have any favourite techniques that you find you use all the time?
MS - My arsenal includes GURU and BFD with the following expansion packs: Deluxe Collection, Percussion and the 8 Bit kit. I really appreciate BFD’s flexibility - it’s so great that it’s possible to set up your own kits. Furthermore, it’s really exciting to import BFD grooves into Cubase and use them as groundwork for new grooves, too.
'BFD delivers great, vivid drum tracks which are an excellent fundament for further processing and experiments' GURU is also a great plug-in with a lot of creative potential – definitely one of the most powerful software beatboxes. I’m using it for a couple of beats in our most recent song – you can deconstruct or completely destroy beats with the tempo multipliers, filters and effects. The user interface is laid out very well and the brilliant step sequencer is remarkably easy to use – I'm sure GURU would be an excellent live solution supplemented with a good MIDI controller. The nice sound library is also worth mentioning.
A couple of weeks ago, I’ve also tested Orca for a German musician’s magazine and was really hooked by its massive sound as well as its unusual look. So I’m looking forward for the FXPansion plug-ins to come! ;-)
As to favourite techniques – often, I just experiment with plug-ins and try to use them a little different as they were meant to be used which can result in unpredictable and surprisingly weird new sounds. GURU can also be used effectively to chop up vocals or pad sounds, for example.
FX - What do you use in combination with BFD?
MS - I enjoy combining electronic structures with acoustic sounds – so BFD was a welcome addition to my electronic setup in order to realize my vision of 'organic Electro'. BFD delivers great, vivid drum tracks which are an excellent fundament for further processing and experiments: so the whole palette of plug-ins is used: compressors, equalizers, filters, distortion, delay, reverb, LoFi and FSU plug-ins…
FX - Do you have a favourite BFD kit that you have customised?
MS - Actually, I have created a couple of setups from scratch with the kit pieces I like most - I especially like the kits with a tight Rock sound. When I want to use acoustic drums in a song, I first step through my custom kits. Then, I might replace some kit pieces with those I like most in the context and adjust the individual drum and mixer settings.
FX - If you could create a plug-in that would change your life in the studio what would it be?
MS - That’s quite a tough question since there’s already so much excellent software available. ;-) To my mind, there’s not very much that’s really 'new' to be desired anymore. Nevertheless, there are a lot of things that still can be improved. Especially when it comes to synthesizers I still feel the need for dedicated controllers which allow more intuitive control. Moreover, I believe, there’s still scope for improvements in the area of modular plug-ins: NI’s Reaktor for example is very flexible, but I prefer the intuitive GUI of the Nord Modular editor – a combination of both would be great. Another VST plug-in on my wish list is an intuitive step sequencer which generates MIDI data to control my analog synthesizers.
Concerning BFD I would love to see the addition of typical effects like compressors, filters and equalizers available in the plug-in. This would reduce the needed effort to incorporate the drum kit in the song context and make it easier to obtain the specific sound you want.
FX - What have you got planned for the rest of the year? Do you have a worldwide tour lined up?
MS - Not at the moment, but that’s basically a matter of time (and of course of having enough petty cash *g*) - both Frank and I would really enjoy performing our songs live. Right now, we’re working on an EP containing exclusive songs and remixes which we’d like to release later this year. I’m currently working on a song for the upcoming Bruderschaft EP “Return” as well. Bruderschaft is a collection of global artists collaborating as a charity-based project targeting cancer research and treatment, led by DJ Rexx Arkana and featuring full-time members Seb (Icon of Coil/Moonitor/Zombie Girl) and Dracos (FGFC820). The EP will feature contributions by Assemblage 23's Tom Shear, System Syn's Clint Carney and at least two other well known vocalists yet to be announced, along with several well-known remixers. I’ll also be doing a couple of remixes this year.
Photography By Claudia Schoene
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