Gianluca Herbertson Interview
Special Feature
Gianluca Herbertson is the inventor of Herbs and Stone’s Liquid Foam, a modular, monophonic analog synth that features dual sequencers designed for sonic mayhem. It employs banana-type patch cables, which seem to be all the rage these days, for modular fun and creative patch options.
It’s been described as “a Roland TB-303 on acid” and it certainly can turn itself into a crazed rave machine, but it is so much more thanks to its analog architecture and the manner which Herbertson pits the sequencers against each other. Liquid Foam consists of an analog VCO with two stages of waveshaping, a decay-only Envelope Generator that can be inverted, a 2-pole resonant low pass VCF and a CMOS-based final overdrive stage.
The Liquid Foam has caused a bit of a sensation in the underground DIY synth world, so we reached out to Gianluca Herbertson to learn more about him, Herbs and Stones, and where to get the best espresso in Italy.
Herbs and Stones Liquid Foam
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FutureMusic: Gianluca can you please give FutureMusic some background on you?
Gianluca Herbertson: I come from a mixed Italian and British family and grew up near a town in northeastern Italy called Vittorio Veneto. It’s surrounded by mountains, woods and hills. It’s positioned halfway between Venice and Cortina, and luckily was not scarred from the accelerated industrialization that took place in the early 80s. I studied science in high school, then moved to Venice to study visual arts, but never actually got my degree.
When I was growing up, I was always very curious about music. I’ve been lucky to have had access to a lot of different and weird records from people around me, both friends and family. Obscure punk bands, Italian 90s techno, Scandinavian harsh noise, whatever sounded interesting and could be burned on a CD-R. Now that I’m “spiraling down” to my 30th birthday, I still enjoy the pure act of jumping from an 80s broken-hearted ballad to some Tolkien-inspired dungeon synth, from a Laurie Spiegel piece to some classic tune from the maestro Gigi D’Agostino.
FutureMusic: Tell us about the genesis of Liquid Foam? How did you come up with the idea? How did you start your company?
Gianluca Herbertson: I wanted to learn electronics and had a strong desire to build a small modular synthesizer from scratch. So, I started studying, bought the books, read through the huge amount of DIY synth info you can find on the Internet while experimenting with circuits and collecting ideas. I did a fair share of experimental circuit bending when I was 16-17 years-old, but that was it, no other background in electronics. So all of this was – and still is! – a way to learn things while trying to be creative. The final incarnation of the Liquid Foam is actually a stripped-down version of the many prototypes I devised. Ultimately, I decided to sacrifice some of the features for the sake of simplicity, and because I wanted it to be as straightforward and intuitive as possible for the first commercial product.
Herbs and Stones as a company came quite naturally, and the transition from make-believe to a real occupation has been unexpectedly fast and didactic.
FutureMusic: Tell us about your reaction to all the attention that Liquid Foam has received?
Gianluca Herbertson: At first, I showed it just to some close friends, who enjoyed playing with it and encouraged me to expose it to a broader audience. It took me a few months to get the courage, but then I started writing emails to shops and sent one to Hainbach in Berlin, he liked it and did a lovely review of it (see video below). That’s when I started to get more orders and more feedback from customers. At the time, I still had a job in a pizzeria which by itself was pretty demanding, so I found myself overwhelmed with work, but really enjoyed it.
The orders just kept on coming, so after a few crazy months, I decided it was time to take a risk, jump into the void and leave my day job. This would allow me to dedicate myself 100% to Herbs and Stones. I feel that this kind of attention the Liquid Foam has received is humbling and stimulating at the same time, it certainly keeps my wandering mind a bit more focused.
FutureMusic: What about the Liquid Foam do you believe appeals to musicians?
Gianluca Herbertson: I’m glad and honored that a lot of customers take the time to write me after the purchase just to let me know what they like about Liquid Foam. I think the thing that’s most appreciated is the fact that its design encourages a healthy “let’s see what happens if…” playful attitude towards patching. I also see a lot of fetishism toward these kind of objects, I’m also guilty of this and am really attracted to the aesthetic aspects of electronic instruments, musical or not. Therefore, I tried to build something that appealed to me. Maybe the fact that the Liquid Foam works with banana cables and has two intertwined sequencers puts it in that loosely defined world of unorthodox instruments, and some people like that as well.
FutureMusic: How are the Liquid Foam synths built?
Gianluca Herbertson: At first, I populated every board by myself and hand soldered each of them. After too many months of sleepless nights, I finally decided to move to SMT assembly, and now have all my circuit boards made in a specialized factory.
The wooden pieces are all made by my cousin Paolo and me. Paolo helped so much with the woodworking and gave me tons of great ideas and knowledge. Nowadays, I build most of the Liquid Foams with the help of my dear friend Guido, who is better than me at assembly, and also makes really good Techno. We work cheerfully in my workshop with the help of listening to NTS radio from two different internet connections and two different pair of speakers. There’s always some nice phasing effect when moving around the place!
FutureMusic: Did anyone in the music industry mentor you?
Gianluca Herbertson: No, however I found a lot of inspiration from the words and work of Thomas Henry, Peter Blasser, Rob Hordijk and Will Schorre.
FutureMusic: What are some things you’ve learned about yourself from the point you decided to launch Herbs and Stones up until today?
Gianluca Herbertson: Working with electronics can be frustrating at times, i surely learned that not lusting over instant results, but just enjoying the uncontaminated process of creating something from scratch gave me the right mindset to keep on soldering when things weren’t going the way i wanted them to…
FutureMusic: What’s next for Herbs and Stones as far as new products?
Gianluca Herbertson: I’m working on an Eurorack version of the Liquid Foam, which is now in the late stage of prototyping. The next product will be a desktop stereo multimode filter with some complex modulation and routing possibilities. The Liquid Foam will also have a drum companion, but i guess it’s probably too early to talk about that.
I have entire notebooks full of new ideas and circuit schematics ,which I’m looking forward to bringing to life sometime in the future!
FutureMusic: What are your hopes for 2021?
Gianluca Herbertson: For me, 2020 was a year of exciting highs and profound lows, to say the least. A lot has changed for me both professionally and personally: I found the professional freedom I felt I desperately needed, but I also lost something that was really precious to me, leaving me in a daze for quite some time. Might sound clichè, but my hope is to keep on learning new things and be able to share my ideas and creations with other people. I’m constantly working both practically and mentally to speed up design, development and production times through an eternal process of trial and error, while always trying to keep everything as pleasant as possible. When the pandemic will ease a bit I certainly hope I will be able to meet all the nice people I met through Herbs and Stones in person, and with whom I ended up having an ongoing conversation about this passion we all share.
Herbs and Stones Liquid Foam costs €409 and is available now.
