Andy Martin Breaks the Frame

What connects Berghain, dub legend Lee Perry, and the "ancient astronauts" theory – which suggests that pre-Hispanic Americans were visited by aliens? At the center of this Venn diagram you'll find Andy Martin. The producer builds connections between genres and places with his unique techno sound, which combines rich textures with elegant arrangements and a deep dub sensibility.

In this interview, Andy shares some of the influences behind his releases, and describes how Bitwig Studio's flexible architecture helps spark inspiration. He also invites us into his Guadalajara studio to demonstrate his streamlined setup, which uses Bitwig's touch-screen capabilities with a handheld gaming device – so he can keep producing on the road, and even on his parents' sofa.

There is a strong dub influence on your music. Where does it come from?

I'm Mexican, but my dad is Jamaican. So I grew up listening to reggae and dancehall, and later I discovered dub. For me it's the blueprint of electronic music: instrumental tracks where you push the bass and drums up front, and experiment with effects. Even though it's a super old music style, I think it's still a big influence on electronic music now. If you take the same ethos today, you can do really interesting stuff. Back then they probably had only reverbs, delays, phasers – nowadays you can do more complex sound chains.

It's interesting to think what the pioneers of dub would have done with a modern DAW.

Definitely. I feel like that's part of pushing forward, you know? Whenever a new style comes, there's a frame of what's considered correct – like techno, for example. The more hyped it becomes, the more framed and square it becomes. Instead of saying, "I want to do traditional dub, or traditional techno," I think it's interesting to break down that frame.

Do you hear much dub in modern techno?

Lately there's more artists doing this dubby techno vibe, especially in the bass scene. It has always been a big thing in the UK, but recently I've played at interesting bass music festivals in Germany, France – like Pe:rsona. It was super interesting. Somehow, dub is always in the music. Sometimes it's more obvious, sometimes less, but it is always there.

You've collaborated with two key Jamaican musicians: Lee Scratch Perry and Gavsborg. How did those collaborations happen?

Around 2017 I wanted to know if there was anything new and interesting going on in Jamaica, and I discovered Gavsborg's collective, Equiknoxx. He had this kind of experimental poetry on his Soundcloud, so I approached him, and that's how we ended up doing "Plato & Caves."

Then two years later I did "Revolution" with Lee Perry. For me, it was a total achievement. It's funny, because in Mexico, Lee Perry is not such a key figure – I was not aware that he was such a big influence all around the world. The goal was to mix two worlds: like, could I play a track with Lee Scratch Perry in Berghain? The whole collaboration was done remotely. I sent the track to him and he sent me 30 minutes of vocal material.

Your music takes inspiration from ideas outside of music. Your album Antiguos Astronautas offers a sci-fi perspective on native American cultures, for example. What do these influences bring to your music?

The idea comes first, it's a kind of guide. That leads me to how a release is going to sound. In the case of Antiguos Astronautas, that gave me a frame to work in, so each track would sound similar. Right now I'm working on an experimental downtempo EP for a French label called Traverse. The concept I figured out was to take musique concrète and make new music out of it. This gave me the palette: vintage, but also modern.

When you sit down to make music, how does it start?

I get bored very fast if I do the same thing with every track. Sometimes the best ideas come to my head when I experiment – maybe a process change, sound design, something like that. I get excited about it, and then I start doing a track around it. If it doesn't work out, then I have a cool preset for my library.

This week I was working with Bitwig's XY FX container device, where you can have four different effects in the slots. I was wondering how I could make patterns with it. Somehow I ended up with a kind of delay that has different delay FX in each slot. And that led me to making a track.

Are there any other effects that you find particularly inspiring?

Lately I've been experimenting a lot with convolution reverb. I find that really interesting, that you can take the sound of a violin and use it as an impulse for a convolution reverb, for example. I also tried putting four different convolution reverbs in the XY FX container and morphing between them. That was really inspiring.

Do you find that Bitwig's flexibility helps you with this process?

Yeah, definitely. For me, one of the biggest keys of Bitwig is the fact that you can modulate everything with everything. So it becomes kind of a modular DAW. You can end up doing really complex things so that the song will never be the same the whole way through. There are little movements: envelope, cutoff, waveform, whatever. And the difference with other DAWs is that it's very efficient in CPU. You can have like 20 LFOs and it's okay.

Do you use a lot of plug-ins, or native Bitwig devices?

I would say 50-50. There are some synth plug-ins that I use a lot in my production. Then there are Bitwig features that other things don't have. Like voice stacking, for example. Being able to spread different voices in a delay, so that each voice has a little difference. I find that really interesting.

I'm really fond of the filters in Bitwig, and being able to build whatever you want in The Grid is amazing. The last thing I built that I'm using a lot is a tap delay with voice stacking. Every voice is a different delay, and a step sequencer defines the speed of the delay. So I spent a whole week building that, and then I use it in most of my tracks.

Your music is very controlled: every element is essential. When making music with a DAW, it's easy to keep adding sounds. How do you keep things simple?

When I started making music, I had that approach of adding more and more sounds. You end up with tracks that have 50 channels or something, which is a mess to mix. And sometimes if you have too many things going on you can't perceive small details, like the modulation I mentioned.

As I got more experienced, I found that I like to make music where every sound has a special purpose in the composition. Because some tracks have… it's more like a distraction factor, where you have maybe a bass loop running, and then they throw everything on top: special effects and cinematic sounds. But at some point, it doesn't make any sense, you know? I like to make tracks with the minimum amount of sounds that have a very interesting structure.

When a track is more stripped back, how do you know when it's finished?

It has become a more intuitive process lately, but in the beginning I was struggling. I have a very good friend who is a painter, and he told me this quote that I found super interesting: a piece of art is never finished, you just abandon it. You could always be tweaking these little elements, and you always have this feeling that there's something missing.

In dub music – steppers music, really dubby raw stuff – space is one of the most important things in the track. There's really few elements: the kick, the bass, effects, drums, and that's it. All the interesting stuff is happening in the effects.

Tell us about the handheld gaming device that you use with Bitwig's touch interface.

It's kind of an alternative to Steam Deck, from Lenovo. A few years ago, a friend showed me that there was this guy using Bitwig on a Steam Deck. And I thought, I would love to, but I also have all these VST plug-ins that I want to use. And then I saw this device that runs Windows. Using an app called Keysticks, I mapped the joysticks and buttons to do things in the software. I've mapped combinations of keys to shortcuts: delete, play and stop, whatever.

How did you find the change from your computer to the touch screen interface?

Really intuitive, actually. This was my main computer for two years. I bought it around 2022, and then I figured out it was more powerful than my M1 Mac Mini. Everything runs really well on it. So I sold my computer, and went directly to this.

It has two USB-C ports, so you can attach a keyboard and a bigger screen. I also got some XReal One Augmented Reality glasses, which give me the advantage of having a massive virtual screen in front of me in any situation, so I can focus on a mixdown. I think in the future this kind of technology will implement hand tracking, which will make it really interesting.

And when you travel, you have all your Bitwig projects with you.

Yeah, totally. That was one of my main problems with my desktop machine. When I had an idea on the move, I couldn't work on it. The handheld device works really well on flights, where you have this tiny table in front of you. It's really good to just open it and make some patterns.

One particular track from my recent release, Automata on TECHNO Records, I made most of it on the handheld. It was Christmas at my parents' place. I was talking with my Grandma, and she started watching her soap opera. I was just killing some time on the handheld, and then I was like, "Dude, this sounds great!"

I have a very good friend called Luis Flores. He's one of the biggest icons of techno in Mexico. He has been using Bitwig for a long time. I showed him my handheld and he was like, "This is fucking crazy." He sold his computer and now he's performing with his modular and a handheld.

You performed live for the first time with Bitwig at Mutek Mexico last year. How did you put your set together?

It was a mixture between stems of previous tracks, plus what you could call a modular effect rack that I built in Bitwig. So, I could send from A to B, and from B to C, and from C to A – a feedback network between effects chains. I also had the Maschine, so I could do some drum patterns. Everything was connected to a Pioneer V-10 where I mixed the parts together.

When you make music in the studio, you can make it as complex as you want with instruments and sounds. When you do a live act, you have to be very practical. You only have two hands, so you only have a couple of choices of what to modulate or manipulate. It's a different mindset, and it gave me a lot of inspiration to go back into the studio.

Photos by Sara Velis.