Wallis is a producer, live-act, DJ and former mastering engineer that has made a name for herself with a freeform and personal approach to techno based around experimentation and the joy of making sound.

In this interview, she talks about her studio setup, the development of her sound, the difficulty of finding the right live performance sampler, working with modular, mixing on a desk, and being a working DJ in the social media age.

How would you describe your own sound, and how has it developed since your first release?

It’s hard for me to put a name on it. People always ask me “what type of techno is this?”, but even I don’t know how to classify it! I guess it’s just a bit different. I like it to be very moody, with sounds as far away from the “classic“ techno sounds as I can get away with, while still remaining within the “techno” classification.

My sound has changed tremendously since my first release. I would say it evolves every year. My mixing got a lot better within the last few years, but I am still working on it every day and keep getting better at it. I have also gotten much more streamlined in the way in which I write tracks. I now have a system that allows me to be very efficient while working, getting my ideas down fast.

I have noticed that I can get stuck going back and forth between the different production phases, wasting time without doing anything useful. So now I try my best to catch myself and try to always move forward, even if what I am doing isn’t “perfect”. It’s best to move forward no matter what, even with a wonky setup, and to figure it out along the way. If you wait for the perfect, most efficient way to do things, you will just get stuck waiting for perfection to be possible — and it’s usually not! — and in all that time spent waiting, you won’t create anything.

What I have also learned lately is to become a bit more “palatable” musically. In the past, I have tended to make my music overly complicated, overly weird, and I am now working on finding a balance between being “weird enough” to do something new, while also — and that’s what I am pushing myself towards — being familiar and simple enough so that even people that don’t produce music can relate to it.

What gear do you use in your live setup, are there any standout pieces?

I am currently redoing my entire live setup. The setup I am at the moment is this: a Jomox Alpha Base, a “to-be-determined” sampler, potentially a Faderfox controller (depending on said sampler), a keyboard, a Fireball, an iPad, a modular, a Boss RC505, and a Torso Electronics T-1. So quite a lot of things currently, which most likely will get divided by two for the festival season so the setup is lighter to carry!

I don’t know if any of those would qualify as a “standout piece”, they are all pretty common machines. I have also seen a few new things premiered at SuperBooth that I want to get and that might replace some pieces listed here.

I will say that the Alpha Base really makes some great kick drums (and the kick synthesis part also exists as a module for those that don’t need an entire drum machine), even though the clock is a bit wonky — at least on mine, which is a pretty old model, maybe this has been fixed on newer versions. But the clock issue is really not that important, and it does sound amazing, I highly recommend it.

Many users have described their relationship with the Octatrack as a “love/hate relationship” — what is your perspective on it?

This might be a controversial take, but at this point I have a “I’m never using that again” relationship with the Octatrack. I really don’t understand what Elektron did with the mk2 version — none of the issues of the mk1 have been solved, so what was the point of the mk2? It has a nicer screen, but nobody really cares that much about a screen, we wanted a better time-stretch algorithm and multi-tracking!

If you use loops where you already have applied some compression and limiting, it will get very confused with some of them, and no matter what you do, things won’t loop correctly and everything will sound out of time — even when you apply the correct BPM to each sample. For a sampler in that price point, that really shouldn’t be the case in 2025. Other samplers like the Boss RC-505 never have any issues with time-stretching, — you can drop in any weird sample-loop and it always calculates the correct BPM automatically, every single time. And Boss takes feedback from the users, they have added multi-track recording inputs in the newer version of the RC505 because everyone asked!

I have actually spent the last six months trying out many samplers, but sadly, I have not found my “pearl” yet. I think the majority of samplers on the market have primarily been designed for studio use, rather than live performances. I have just ordered the new 1010music Blackbox sampler. That I am very curious about — we will see. Maybe I should collab with a brand to design the perfect electronic music live performance sampler!

What are your thoughts on the MPC for live performances?

For me, it is just way too deep for what I need during a live set. I had the MPC One because it was half of the weight (the weight of my setup is very important when traveling) of the MPC Live, but that also meant I also had no multi-tracking, which is also one of the main shortcomings of the Octatrack.

The MPC is basically a “little Ableton” in a box, so much so that it’s not really suitable for my live sets. What I do is that I bounce my own EQed, compressed and limited loops into my sampler, it’s not where I create my sounds, it’s just a tool to play with these samples live. So I don’t need all those menus and CPU-hungry features, and it just felt like too much and not like the right workflow for me. But it is a solid machine overall!

Does working with the modular inspire you?

The nice thing with modular is how fast you can create something new each time (once you have spent a lot of time and money building one) and record totally new sounds, as often as you want. If you have a good amount of modules, the possibilities are endless and varied. You can go in all kinds of directions and find sweet spots — record into Ableton, arrange, mix, and the track is basically done! You don’t really get that with normal synths or drum machines.

But of course, the modular approach also comes with some hassles compared to fixed-architecture synths. You always end up having to buy an extra module so your modular can talk to whatever other equipment you want to use it with. And everything keeps breaking, so you have to find out where it went wrong in order to fix it. Some days, I just can’t get anything interesting out of it and everything sounds bad — but to me, that’s just the way that music goes, you have good days and bad days. Modular systems are the most fun synths to use in my opinion.

Do you have a favorite module?

For my favorite module, I have to say, it is the QMMF-4 by Cwejman. I was a hater, thinking it wasn’t worth the hype and so expensive — until I touched one! It’s really ridiculous how good it sounds and totally worth the money. Another good one that I always bring with me when playing live sets is the Plasma Voice by Gamechanger Audio. It’s perfect for live use, it’s the perfect blend of being fun and reliable. You can improvise with it and it will pretty much always sound good.

I saw you’re using a Touellskouarn module — what are you using it for?

First of all, shoutout to Touellskouarn! They are a module company from Brittany France, and half of my family lives there. The writing on their modules is Breton, so I have no idea what they do, but they are super fun modules. I think the one you are referring to is actually a reverb, but a weird one — I use to make weird effect sounds. Another cool module from that brand (that is super weird, and not really for live use) is Skorn da Bask.

What does the routing and summing in your studio look like? I saw you are using a Neve summing mixer — do you feel like it adds something to the sound?

The Neve definitely adds a lot of detail and definition. Also it forces me to level everything with my ears without constantly feeling like “let’s add 2dB here”. When not using your eyes, you just add however many decibels until it sounds good, and that’s it — no influence from numbers!

My workflow is basically that I record sounds into Ableton. Then I arrange and start to mix with some light EQing to make sure all of the elements have the space to interact. I fix whatever needs fixing, but I try to be as light-handed as possible. Then I send each individual track into the Neve — one per channel — and I level them with my ears.  

From there (through an insert), the tracks go to compression, an EQ (for vibe, not correction) and saturation. On a send, I have an Eventide Eclipse for effects and a Moog EQ for vibe. Then I re-record everything into Ableton, and that stereo file is my premaster.

Do you plan on playing more live performances with your modular?

Yes! I am currently redoing my live set and I want it to be the best it can possibly be — unique, emotional and also dancefloor friendly. Something super different from what I have been doing in my live sets. Something striking but also groovy. I also want to incorporate a lot more vocals than before. Obviously, it will be only my own things, no samples from anything or anyone else. Real sound design and identity is super important to me.

I have spent the last six months picking out and trying out new equipment to see if I could get better results and more interesting sounds in a live context, and I am currently narrowing down the equipment to something that is functional and reliable, but allows for playfulness, too. I want it to be the best thing I have ever done. So yeah, and hopefully once this is achieved, I will take my live everywhere!

How do you manage levels and loudness when playing live? Do you feel like you have to “compete” with DJs on that front?

I oscillate between using end of chain compressors and not using them. In theory, it is a great thing, but I find that sometimes in a festival or club I end up redlining them too much, or overthink and worry that I might be redlining them. They can make the music louder, but they can also damage it pretty drastically, so it is a risk. Currently, the plan is to solely rely on the compression of the [Pioneer DJM] V-10, and the compression and limiting that I do beforehand when I export my samples. The “loudness insecurity” was really a feeling I often had after my live sets, and often I would leave the stage not feeling amazing, because of how loud the DJ right after me would start.

But now I hope that the quality, diversity and emotion that you can achieve with a live set will overshadow any volume or mastering discrepancies. I think that if you create a real musical moment during your live, it won’t matter if it’s a [louder] DJ set after, they can’t match the music that just happened. I have seen live sets so incredibly good that I was feeling sorry for the DJ that had to play after them — that is the level of quality I hope to achieve!

Do you see a synergy between your work in the studio and your DJing / live performances?

To be honest — not really. The studio is where I am totally free and I do what I want. To me, live sets and DJ sets are about the people on the dance floor. While DJing and live performances are totally different exercises, they are both public, and it’s not really about me. I just want people to have a good time and to do the best musical job possible. But in the studio, I am by myself, and I do things for me. The only synergy I see is that the reaction of the crowd to my unreleased tracks will influence the edits that I will make to those tracks in the studio the following week.

How did you get started doing live streams on Instagram? Do you enjoy sharing your creative process with other people?

I could answer the question in so many ways. I think a lot about what it means to be creative, and I have a lot of thoughts about social media — as does everyone else I suppose! I guess we are all slowly reaching a level of phone addiction that is not making us happy. I feel our phones are stealing our lives away sometimes, all those hours lost watching reels of people trying to sell us something.

So I am trying to reconciliate my craving time away from my phone, while also being part of an industry that requires intense activity on Instagram in order to keep getting booked for gigs. I have felt a bit unaligned with myself, posting DJ videos on Instagram several times a week, just to feed the algorithm with the number of posts that it demands in order for your content to be pushed. And I would be lying if I didn’t mention it has benefitted me to post these — I have a big following because I focused on social media and have fed into it.

But I eventually stopped caring about follower counts and things like that. Those gig videos are always the same, every DJ is pretending  that every gig is “the best gig ever”, regardless of how they really felt. It’s this race of every DJs trying to show themselves playing to the biggest crowds — hopefully with a good crowd reaction, because that’s what the algorithm likes.  And I never watch the gig videos of other DJs, so I thought “how can I expect people to watch mine?”.

Something related to the studio side of things feels much more connected to who I am as a musician, and what I bring to the table. The live interactions are so much fun, everyone gets to say something, and we have debates. Of course if the gig videos are crazy, I will still post them, but posting videos “quantity over quality” feels too disconnected from who I am, and what I think people actually want to see.

So those Instagram Lives have been pretty fun. We even had the designer of a Soma synth jump on the live, walking us though the process of designing the Enner synth! So I learn a lot too, and there’s this “who knows what will happen?” feel to them. It’s really lovely. Actually, saying this is making me want to start them again — so see you at the next ones!

You can find out more about Wallis’ music and her upcoming live dates here.