The transition process with the Zi iacchos project takes time to ensure things feel natural. I am genuinely striving to avoid any sense of impatience or rush, and, most importantly, to let things unfold naturally without forcing them. This is a process I didn’t engage in at all in the past, but today it seems absolutely essential. On one hand, I’ve realized many things, even though the journey has been long. For instance, the current musical principle is to fuse the guitar with a mid-sized modular system, and the importance of the creative process—though I don’t particularly like that term—has become clear. Regularly playing and refining things makes them tangible and, eventually, transform them into songs.

Initially, I had envisioned making the first album for this project as a single 45-minute track. However, I didn’t rush, and the pleasure of truly merging the acoustic folk guitar into the modular system—something that took quite a bit of time to design—led me to the natural conclusion that the best approach is to play regularly. If something is forgotten, it’s something to accept; if something remains, continue to play it regularly and perhaps make some notes. I have come to realize that the human mind has an extraordinary ability to retain various things. This can be both a strength and a weakness, but when we are aware of it, it becomes immensely rich—a double-edged sword.

I’ve found a way to work with the guitar using a module that’s not a preamp, but rather a limiter and wave shaper, with three inputs and a hyperbolic function. Normally, this would warm up the sound, but it actually allows the guitar sound to enter and then be used as a modulation source for other modules. The principle now is perhaps to hesitate to create a unique patch and instead focus on playing and modulating in real-time. This process can evolve throughout a performance or simply during recording. It goes without saying that I’m not recording on a computer at all for now, and I even think the process could last 5 to 6 months. The primary goal is to remember everything, to be able to reproduce it, and for that, regular practice is essential, without getting attached to recording everything and then spending time wondering how to recreate all these feelings and movements.

I don’t use a preamp for the guitar; instead, I use a different module—a limiter and wave shaper with three inputs and a hyperbolic function. This allows the guitar’s sound to enter and be directed as CV (control voltage) in the rest of the system. I think the title of the album will change and will no longer be Aquatic Archetypes. However, one thing I truly do every day is meditation. I believe I am on day 57 or 58 now, and it has become something essential. Even if I only meditate for five minutes a day, I do it—it’s ingrained. Alongside this, I continue learning Italian.

Returning to the main point, the website will also evolve gradually over time, bit by bit. It was difficult to conceptualize how to transition my pseudonym to extract something that is hard to define—between what we think, what we do, and what we can achieve. There were real gaps, contrasts, and many things that cannot be named. It was important for me to highlight this in a blog post.

A small detail: It is now impossible for me to update the firmware of the FX Aid module. I’ve come to the conclusion that these 36 effects will be the definitive ones for the end of my modular synth chain. At first, it frustrated me, but now I accept it as it is. We’re in the middle of winter here, and soon I’ll have two full weeks to work on all the things I’ve mentioned, once again at a spontaneous, undefined pace, without forcing things, and this will open new possibilities in the future.