with Onat Hekimoglu & Sascha Haus 

Saturday 29, 14:00 - 16:00, €8
Lightroom

Whether you are a composer new to games or a veteran sound designer, FMOD is one of the go-to solutions for adaptive music and sounds in games or interactive environments made with Unity. Without touching the actual game engine, FMOD offers composers and sound designers a DAW-like environment with full control and many possibilities to shape your sounds to create lively and immersive auditory environments based on real-time events in the actual game. In this workshop, Onat Hekimoglu & Sascha Haus will give a brief introduction to FMOD without focusing much on technical aspects: but rather elaborating on their artistic process in creating the sound of Harold Halibut using FMOD technology. The workshop will guide you through the whole process of recording a sound, editing, and implementing it. We will also have a look at possibilities to organise your project and explain how easily developers and sound designers can work together via FMOD.

/// About the artist host

Onat is a game maker as well as composer from Cologne. Driven by curiosity, he has been instrumental in the making of various award-winning interactive projects, ranging from installations to VR experiences and games. In 2015 he co-founded the games studio SLOW BROS. and has been working as director and composer on their debut feature title Harold Halibut.

with Felipe Vareschi

Friday 28, 15:00 - 17:30, €8
Matrix

This workshop centres on telling meaningful musical stories by integrating field recordings and electronics. The workshop is divided into four sections:

1. Compositional storytelling with recordings, how to arrange recorded material to tell a musical story
2. Electronics as accompaniment, composing around field recordings and developing a tonal structure
3. Integrating electronics and field recordings, using re-amping, filtering and synthesis techniques
4. Fx processing and mixing techniques for field recordings and electronics

The workshop focuses on a practical and intuitive approach to composition - we are not going to discuss a lot of theory here. If you are interested in integrating field recordings and electronics into your music-making process but find it hard to structure your music around these materials, this is the workshop for you! To get the most out of this workshop, a basic knowledge of field recording and synthesis techniques alongside proficiency in any contemporary DAW or multi-track audio editor is recommended. If you can, provide some .WAV or .AIFF field recordings that you made.

/// About the artist host

Felipe Vareschi is an experimental electronic musician, performer and mastering engineer based in Berlin. Their work explores the relationship between people and objects, with a particular focus on the interactions between individuals, technology and nature. Vareschi is developing a new musical language aimed at understanding and describing how people relate to their surroundings through technology. They implement an experimental approach to sound creation, where interactions between electronic equipment, sound objects, and performers mimic social interactions and human-object networks. These techniques cover a broad range of approaches, including generative algorithmic composition, gestural performance, field recording and spatial sound practices.

with Lady Starlight

Friday 28, 17:00 - 18:00, €0
EMP Lab

Lady Starlight and guests present a live improvised jam session. Led by chef d'orchestre and Catalyst alum, Sarah Kivi, a limited number of participants will explore sounds and shape the room with equipment supplied by Moog and Elektron, while ticket holders listen in and absorb what the room produces.

/// About the artist host

The multi-talented performer who has graced stages throughout the world comes from a background of being a go-go dancer, fashion stylist, writer and performance artist. Today, Lady Starlight is best known as a rock n' roll DJ turned techno artist. She has performed at festivals and clubs all over Germany, USA and major western European cities, including Paris, Madrid, London, as well as further afield - São Paulo, Bogotá, Singapore to name but a few. Her collaborators include RA, Elektron, Ostgun Ton, Hör Radio and Beatport. 

Photograph by Ian Margio

with Monom Studios (this workshop takes place at Monom Studios, Funkhaus)

Friday 28, 14:00 - 17:00, €20

​​As we edge closer to an era of seamlessly integrated ‘immersive’ media, spatial sound is playing an increasingly important role in the way that we build spaces, design experiences and how we communicate. Over a 3 hour workshop, Monom’s Co-Founder and Creative Director, William Russell will take you through an introduction to spatial sound and practical steps for how spatial sound methodologies can add another dimension to a wide variety of disciplines and artistic practices:

Musicians  |  Game designers & VR/AR/XR developers  |  Sound designers, visual artists, 3D environment designers, experiential designers working with physical space  |  Machine-learning specialists  |  Choreographers & dancers  |  Actors, directors and scenographers  |  Physical & movement therapists

/// About the artist host

William is a spatial sound designer & artist, classical percussionist, creative director and co-founder of Monom Studios. Since opening, in Dec 2017 at Funkhaus Berlin, William has worked with artists to produce and present over 100 new spatial sound works by a diverse range of local and international talent. Monom’s output has worked across genres and disciplines, from music, to dance, to opera and theatre and recently VR and AR.

William’s focus as an artist himself is on recreating the sonic and spatial dynamics of climate phenomena. He combines this with music to stimulate an empathetic awareness of one's surroundings, illuminating the relationship between human and nature.

Photography by Becca Crawford

with Un:seen collective - Bec, Abeera and Aggi

Saturday 29, 16:00 - 19:00, €8
Matrix

While DJing is one of the highest value-added activities in the electronic music industry in economic terms, the knowledge on the art of DJing could use more consolidation – in fact, gatekeeping is often seen in some parts of the industry. The collective runs an Intermediate DJ Peer-Exchange Workshop series in Berlin that allows DJs to come together and exchange what they've learned about the DJing - with a focus on career development, advanced techniques, and community building rather than basic mixing skills. At Signals Festival we would like to offer a shorter, more focused version of this workshop. The workshop will be in 3 parts: The first part will be a discussion on documentation and education of DJing as an art form, and brainstorming what would be ways to improve this. The second part will focus on discussing the current perceptions in the industry on DJing as an art form. The last part will be about technical knowledge exchange; directly through mixing techniques/skills or in terms of workflow, such as how to organise one's library. The participants are encouraged to bring USBs with some analysed tracks in order to participate in the last part.

/// About the artist host

Un:seen is an intersectional, Berlin-based collective that throws parties, runs DJ peer-exchange workshops, and makes zines. Founded by workshop hosts Bec, Abeera and Aggi, un:seen has taken part in events at KAKE, Funkloch, Remise, Bulbul and on Cashmere Radio. Above all, they seek to build a community rooted in uplifting each other.

with Enyang Urbiks (this workshop takes places at Urbiks Studios, Funkhaus)

Friday 28, 14:00 - 16:00, €8

Enyang sees the mastering process not only as the final technical step in music production, but rather as an artistic practice in which to sculpt sounds and to give greater depth to a piece. Good mastering allows the characteristic features of an artist to stand out sonically. These characteristics are not only defined by the rhythm and harmony of the music, but also the loudness, colour, texture, brightness and especially, depth and dimensionality of sound. Mastering is a powerful tool for sculpting these parameters and guiding the audience to a more enjoyable listening experience. In the workshop, Enyang shares her workflow and her philosophy of sonic sculpting.

/// About the artist host

Enyang is a 10 year transplant in Berlin, mastering engineer and a music producer. While mastering some of the most innovative releases of this decade for Amnesia Scanner and Arca, she has come to understand sound as a medium to communicate. For her, mastering has been the most powerful tool to shape and sculpt sound in order to express herself. She has been running Urbiks Music since 2019 for mastering and 3D production.

with Elliot Duke

Saturday 29, 14:00 - 15:30, €8
Matrix

Since Apple Music announced support for Dolby Atmos in 2021, we have seen this format pop up everywhere. But many artists and producers still do not exactly understand what it is or how it works. In this workshop, Atmos mixing engineer Elliot Duke will cut through the hype and explain how this technology and skillset might be relevant to your work as an artist, producer, or engineer. He will also talk about what many engineers still get wrong when mixing Atmos, and give a brief but comprehensive overview of best practices so that when you leave the workshop, you will be able to incorporate immersive techniques into your production or deliver your clients mixes with a depth that is unreachable in stereo.

/// About the artist host

Elliot Duke is a Catalyst alum and mixing and mastering engineer specialising in Dolby Atmos. One year after earning a master's degree in Music Production from Berklee College of Music, he has engineered releases for major label artists Pascal Letoublon, Nico & Vinz, PANTHA, and more.

with Mattias Larsen

Saturday 29, 16:30 - 18:00, €8
Lightroom

This crash course in film sound will break down the planning, capturing, and designing of the sound in the single-take short film, Seven Levels Deep - that besides numerous awards and nominations in other categories, won “Best Sound Design” in 2021 at the Los Angeles Blast Off film festival. This lecture-based workshop aims to inspire film and sound enthusiasts, from beginner to medium skill level.

/// About the artist host

Mattias Larsen is a Berlin-based sound mixer and sound designer who believes in great attention to detail, as well as understanding the bigger picture, and prioritising teamwork when making a film. Mattias has since worked on 70+ projects, including short films, novella films, documentaries, commercials, and six feature films. his formal education includes two semesters in Sonic Culture at Linköping University in Sweden, as well as a BA in Electronic Music Production at Catalyst Institute.

with Samaquias Lorta

Friday 28, 14:00 - 17:00, €8
Fabrik 2

Immersive audio is a format that submerges audiences into complex yet realistic experiences. It can be used artistically or commercially in octophonic installations or cinematic 7:1. among other systems, as a software that can be easily connected to already-existing workflows or DAWs. Interestingly, each particle can represent an audio file simulating physical forces combined with controlled randomness to provide a contemporary audio design. To start we will focus on understanding 3D rendering, vectors, forces, and coordinate systems, as well as differences between Emitters and Groups. We will end the day by creating an ambisonic soundscape from scratch. From there, we will switch focus to complex sound design and integrating workflow with a DAW. We will cover detailing randomness, exporting various formats, and contemporary use cases.

Attendees should have an intermediate or advanced understanding of audio editing within any DAW. Sound design is the primary topic but this is not an introduction to general sound design: our goal is to understand 3D rendering within Sound Particles to create immersive audio formats. We also invite all visual producers working with animation or VFX as Sound Particles is based on 3D rendering.

/// About the artist host

Samaquias Lorta is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on mental health and ecological thought; the natural relationship between these two ideas provides a fertile landscape for exploration. Through his work, Lorta often rounds back to how the use of technology and DIY performance techniques can provide revealing insights or solutions. Although Lorta will frequently create visual components that accompany his investigations, the central aspect of his practice is sound performance and design. His work can span many spheres - loud yet intimate. He uses sound to explore both fine detail and bigger picture, seamlessly telling stories through audio.

Lorta relishes in collaboration and he never misses a chance to creatively connect. His collaborators include Poera, Spencer Mirabal, OIIA, Machina Infinitum, RSB, EMME, and more, with support from Amplify Berlin, Eufonia Festival, Catalyst Institute, and HZT Berlin among others.