"Take things at your own pace" - in conversation with Mario Krušelj

Thank you Mario for taking the time to sit down with us! In preparation for this interview, we already covered how vast your audio activities are, but now we have the task of presenting it to the audience!

I am Mario Krušelj, but a lot more people might be familiar with my online persona EvilDragon.

For the past 20-something years, I’ve been present across many different online audio-related community forums, like Native Instruments forums, KvR, Gearspace, Cockos Reaper, VI-Control, and so on.

I’m just a guy who likes music, instruments, particularly synths and guitars.

Also, a music tech in general, both software and hardware. So I naturally gravitate towards such online communities, like the ones mentioned above.

It started as a mere curiosity and willingness to learn, and resulted in providing help for many people online, particularly in the segment I am most famous for: developing Kontakt instruments and scripting. That is basically the crux of what I’m doing for living for the past 15+ years.

The 'studio' itself—a room upstairs in our house, not properly treated or anything—I managed to scrape together throughout all the years is basically, for the time being, just for my personal enjoyment and practice.

How did all this come to be? What are your musical roots?

I come from a musical family, my mother has a very nice singing voice and my dad also dabbled in some instruments such as the accordion and the Croatian national stringed instrument, bisernica.

Back in elementary school, I was showing more and more interest for keyed instruments; it was most likely prompted by my dad getting some sort of a Casio synth, I think it was a CZ-1, but memory is a bit hazy on this one.

So, because of this, I was enrolled in music school to learn piano, which I finished in parallel with regular elementary school, as the best of my generation, which I’m quite proud of.

However, I did not continue music education much further, which I regret occasionally.

In high school I got interested in guitars, so I picked up an old acoustic one which my grandfather owned, and taught myself how to play it.

This shifted my focus to guitars from that point onward, but I was still playing keys here and there. Today, it’s really a coin toss depending how I feel on a particular day. :)

Back in 6th grade or something, I remember one of the computers in the computer science classroom had a program called Generator installed.

Somehow my curiosity was piqued again and I started exploring it, soon figuring out it’s a powerful tool which allows you to create your own sounds by connecting modules with wires. As most people might know, this was a precursor to NI Reaktor.

So, this is basically how I learned about sound synthesis and all related things. Not the easiest way to get into it! But somehow, through sheer persistence and perseverance, I learned a lot on how to make sounds that I hear in my head.

Some years later, around 2005, I discovered online forums and since I wanted to learn more Reaktor-related things, I joined NI’s forum, and have been there ever since.

A few years later I was already at university, and found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands through various circumstances. This is when I discovered NI Kontakt, and found out it actually has a programming language built into it which you could use to do all sorts of things.

So that year was when I went off the deep end exploring literally everything in it.

This was I think 2008 or so, around Kontakt 3.5 times.

The rest is kind of history: I befriended Greg Schlaepfer from Orange Tree Samples; we taught each other various Kontakt tricks, and at one point he was too busy to take on further work that he was asked to do, and I got my first paid gig.

It was slicing the samples and scripting for Cinesamples’ Deep Percussion Beds. After that, seeing that this was a viable path towards earning income, I put myself out there on various forums and got contacted by multiple different sample library vendors, first of which were Sonokinetic and Hollow Sun.

The whole thing skyrocketed from there, and until today I’ve been involved in creating well over 200—probably now closer to 300—Kontakt libraries for dozens of different vendors, including Native Instruments themselves.

To sum up my path to audio: curiosity, personal interest, all those nice shiny buttons to push, and my constant duality teetering between love for music and love for computers.

 

 

It was quite the experience to listen to your story!

Actually, there's only one question that remained open: you said, sometimes you regret not continuing musical education. Given how successful you are at what you're doing, what would be different?

I think I am probably missing out on various aspects that could have improved my knowledge and handling of music theory, composing methods, and of course actual techniques of playing the piano – I have certainly stagnated and possibly even deteriorated with my piano playing skills compared to what I could do back when I was attending music school. So that’s pretty much what is triggering my regret. But, who knows what else would’ve ended up being different – maybe I’d never have gotten the chance to do so much for the Kontakt community! Something’s gotta give, I suppose.

 

Let's "step into the studio" now! What styles are close to you?

I’m a child raised on The Beatles, Queen, and similar stuff! Later in high school I took a detour in direction of Nirvana, The Offspring, Rage Against The Machine, and then one fateful day a good friend of mine introduced me to metal: bands like Manowar, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Rhapsody—back then they were still called like that—and so on. Later on, I discovered the Japanese side of things with bands like X Japan, Dir En Grey, Malice Mizer, Moi Dix Mois, and so on. So you could say I’m a purveyor of harder and heavier music styles.

I do enjoy the mellower side of electronic music: ambiental electronica is something I like to turn to on occasion to just chill. I also appreciate acts like Portishead, Tangerine Dream, and so on. There’s simply too many things I like to list here.

I am also a huge fan of progressive rock/metal, for example Pain Of Salvation, Genesis, Ayreon, older Dream Theater records, Frost*, and so on.

Looks like we share the same origins and favourite styles. Pain of Salvation was such a huge influence on me, I've been waiting for decades to see them, and I'll never forget the experience. It was the 'In the passing light of day' tour.

Hahah, wow... what are the odds?!

 

 

 

I was looking forward to asking this one: what are your most cherished projects?

I was involved with so many things, but if I had to list exactly one project here, this would absolutely be doing some Kontakt scripting for mr. Hans Zimmer for the Dune I soundtrack! It was just a regular day and I was doing my daily rounds on the forums, when I noticed I got a private message on VI-Control forum, from none other than Hans. The rest is history.

 

That is amazing! What was the nature of that collaboration? Can you give us a link, specifying what you did on the score? What was the instrument/sample, that he used?

What I was tasked to do for Hans was a legato playback script for a bunch of vocal samples they captured with Loire Cotler. They were closer to the „cry of the banshee” segment in the linked video.

Of course, this is not something that ever got publicly released, it’s only used internally at Remote Control Productions. It was COVID times, so they couldn’t always have Loire on hand at all times, and this instrument helped with mocking up some tracks. Later on they’d bring her in and record her for real, so I actually don’t know if there’s any instance of the instrument I created left on the finished soundtrack. But I am happy I was able to help streamline their process.

 

Let's talk about your workspace! What was your choice of Buso desk?

I am using the original version of Artist 88 desk from 2015, modified to have a taller keyboard drawer and 3x4U racks instead of the standard 3x3U racks.

Back then, I was looking for a desk where I could put all the things I had at the time. It wasn't a lot at first – a few synth modules and my audio interface.

With the intent to expand in the future, I was looking at various competitors, and I don’t really remember how I managed to stumble upon Buso Audio, it was not a word of mouth recommendation, it was just googling things. I liked what I saw and the prices were better than the other desks I was looking into, so it was kind of an easy decision.

What completely assured me my decision was the right one was the effortless, informative, and above-and-beyond attitude of the correspondence with the Buso Audio team. At that point I knew I will want all the studio furniture to be made by these folks.

Which, actually, did happen a few years later when I ordered a custom 10U rolling rack to be tucked below the desk and later to the side of the desk—and these days my needs grew beyond this so I have a 24U aluminum rack unit to the side of the desk, sadly not made by Buso Audio—but that’s because I have a plan to bring this all back together at some point in the future, when I saw what Buso folks did with Studio Classic—holy moly, that is basically perfection as far as I’m concerned!

 

 

We already covered the musical influences. What about characters from the audio world? Any great hero, that you look up to?

You mean producers and engineers? Frankly, I don’t really have a favorite. Just end the loudness war already, please!

 

Based on the pictures, you're in possession of a great deal of gear. Give us the tour!

Since my workflow is heavily hybrid, the nexus of my workstation is my trusty RME UFX+, expanded via MADI with a Ferrofish A32 unit for extra I/O. For MIDI duties I rely on Miditech 16x16, so everything is hooked up simultaneously and has a separate audio channel in RME TotalMix – I think patchbays kind of suck and are antiquated! Having everything connected at all times is simply faster and more conductive to not losing inspiration whenever it hits.

My main MIDI controller is my trusty old Kurzweil PC3K8. Kurzweils simply have the best MIDI implementation for controlling stuff, bar none. It is going to be really difficult to replace this unit, because it is pushing its age; it’s 12 years old at this point. I do have some alternative controllers, like Expressive E Osmose, LinnStrument, and Roli Rise 49, but I don’t use them super often. They can be a lot of fun to do something different once in a while, especially Osmose!

I like having things in front of me, so with Artist 88, having both the computer keyboard and then the MIDI controller right there is just a godsend.

 

 

Where do you stand on the analogue vs digital debate?

Both are good and both are bad for different reasons. Both can sound great depending on context and who is using them! Less debates, more music!

Although I do tend to enter online arguments on forums, especially when somebody is wrong on the internet, haha!

 

It seems that, the online presence have a special importance for you. I assume it hasn't changed ever since the beginning?

You’re right, it is quite special for me. And yeah, it did not really change since the beginning. To me, going on forums is a part of daily routine. I like it way more than the hyper rush of social networks. I don’t even have a Facebook, Instagram or TikTok profile.

Things are a lot less hectic and you can take them in at your own pace. Responses aren’t necessarily immediate, which totally dampens the urgency and attention-seeking aspect of endless streams of notifications that plague you everywhere you turn on those socials.

What can I say, I got old, apparently!

But yeah I still think it’s worth it to engage on forums. There is a wealth of knowledge contained within. But I wouldn’t say they’re the best to secure gigs like the one with HZ. That one was 100% a fluke!

Mario, thank you so much for taking the time! Which song would you contribute to our collection?

I actually don’t know at which moments Hans used the instrument I scripted for him for the Dune I soundtrack—if at all—so I’m just going to say—that whole soundtrack! :P

 

That would offset the list a bit, haha. Maybe there's a shorter version?

This could be good!