by Native Instruments

TRAKTOR SIGNATURES: Pleasurekraft

Find out how Pleasurekraft created his signature style with TRAKTOR and MASCHINE.

Pleasurekraft’s initial rise to notoriety came in 2010 with the now iconic tech house masterpiece “Tarantula.” Kaveh Soroush, who utilizes the combined power of TRAKTOR and MASCHINE with his uniquely customized configuration, takes pride in building a musical narrative exploring profound depths and reaching transcendental highs on an epic cosmic techno journey.

The artist

 

How did you get your first DJ gig?

I made a little mix CD, gave it to a couple of venues, and one of them hit me up the day after and was like, “Our DJ left. Can you play this Saturday?” I’d never played outside of my own bedroom.

So I showed up. They had no monitors. The setup was some really weird all-in-one mixer and two CD decks with tiny jog wheels. I had to learn right off the bat to mix in my headphones with no monitors. (Laughter) And the booth didn’t even face the crowd.

But it taught me how to deal with adverse situations. I still mix in my headphones now because I feel it’s much tighter and my ears get less fatigued. I blast the monitors, but I mix in headphones. (Laughter)

Was there a moment when you realised that you were actually good at what you were doing?

When you’d see the same faces showing up to gigs because you were playing. It’s very flattering moment when you’re the reason somebody got off their couch and came to a venue.

From a production angle, obviously, it was when ‘Tarantula’ came out. People were like, “Wow, you guys have got such a unique sound.” And to be able to work with all these amazing producers and labels we’d always looked up to, it’s like, “OK — I guess I made it.”

 

‘Tarantula’ was playing everywhere in Berlin back when it came out.

Yes, it was a shock to us all. It got to number 11 or 12 in the tech house charts, and when it went down to 14, we were like, “Oh, alright… It was a great run.” Then it starts coming back up again and enters the overall top 10… And every day it was like number one… number one… When you go from no one knowing who you are to that kind of success, it doesn’t feel real. It takes a while to set in.

And the downside is you measure everything you do afterwards on that, which really hurts because most people never see that kind of success. When you see that right away, you’re like, “Well, we did it. Why isn’t it happening again and again and again?” You know? You have to divorce yourself from equating commercial success with the quality of a record.

Back to the DJing side, and can you say what DJing means to you?

DJing as an artform, for me, ultimately, is about communication — music is just an extension of that communication, or of language. Music is like the Google Translate of emotion.

When I DJ, I try to incorporate songs in a way that tells a narrative. Telling stories through a different medium than the spoken word. Music that has some sort of message. I have promoter friends who complain that the vocals I use for my tracks are “too serious for a club.” (Laughter) But it wouldn’t be Pleasurekraft otherwise.

 

Is this also the way you’d describe your sound? A ‘narrative’ sound?

The Pleasurekraft sound has evolved into what I call cosmic techno, which is this big room techno. That tries to encapsulate all the power and the beauty of the cosmos — all the creation and destruction and everything — in a seven-minute piece of techno music.

I take inspiration from things I hear, whether it’s in a speech or something I read; from an interview with Arthur C. Clarke; or something from the movie network. These are all on the [recently released debut album, ‘Friends, Lovers & Other Constellations’].

It’s all about the humility of where we are in the grand scheme of things. It’s just humbling to know how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe.

The setup

 

Give us the evolution of your DJing setup in a nutshell

I started on vinyl, then switched to CDJs, to USBs on CDJs, and then X1 controllers. Then I got MASCHINE and it’s just… It’s been incredible.

 

So you use MASCHINE as a controller for TRAKTOR. Is that right?

Exactly. I’ve taken the MASCHINE  — it’s remapped to be used with TRAKTOR — and TRAKTOR KONTROL X1 controller and, yes, I basically control everything from the MASCHINE and X1 controller.

And I go direct from the laptop into the Pioneer mixer’s on-board sound card.

 

Why use MASCHINE — a beat-making controller with its own software — instead of a dedicated DJ controller?

I did start out using twoX1s. Because of being on the road so much, I bought a MASCHINE for production, but because of space constrictions, it was like, “Could I deduct something from this equation, so I don’t have to carry so much around?” And that’s when I saw DJ Endo using MASCHINE mapped for TRAKTOR. I was like, “I’ve got to try this.”

 

Do you use DJ Endo’s mapping template, or did you tweak it?

There were a few things I wanted to customise, so I got in touch with him — just a great guy and so knowledgeable about everything — and he walked me through how to remap stuff. And we came up with the exact setup I use, which I’m extremely happy with.

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