Void & Vista: Art to make art with

With just two products released to date, Void & Vista has already captured our attention via its hugely creative approach to sound design. We spoke to the key minds behind the company to find out more about its refreshingly artistic attitude to the craft of software instrument making...

cm: Let's talk about your latest release, FOLDS, first. It's an exceptionally dynamic software instrument with heaps of deep control to shape its vocal-based sounds into new forms. How long was it in development, and what prompted you to make this as your second product?

Tom: "FOLDS was in development for the better part of a year overall, and the reason for doing a vocal instrument second was because I had an idea during the process of creating the sounds for [the bowed and electronic instrumentation-leaning] STRANDS. One of the sounds for it was vocal-based. After we'd made it, sparks were flying and I was sort of thinking I could do so much more.

"Vocals are highly valuable to people. Typically, the things that are most valuable to people are things that are furthest from their reach. Vocals are so hard to do physically, you're often constrained by your own body. You only have one voice, and there are only so many things you can do with it. There's a lot of value to vocals. That said, it was a really ambitious thing to do as our second product - it really pushed us to the limit. As Jon likes to say, we found about 500 ways that it didn't work, before we found one that did. It was a real slog of a process getting it to where it is."

Jon: "It turned out that everything that makes vocals appealing to everyone else was really difficult to do for us. None of us can sing, so it was a lot of work to overcome those hurdles."

cm: How many vocalists were involved in the recording process?