Machina Bristronica

17/06/2024

DIY FOCUS:

Italy’s finest purveyors of unique, chaotic circuits and number 1 Tardigrade fanatics are heading over with a selection of eurorack hardware for the build bench!

Join the workshop on Saturday morning for your chance to assemble the rhythmic avalanche noisecillator TABØR, their dual amplifier/envelope follower ASCOLTA or the nine warped and modulated LFOs on the GITGUD 🪛

17/06/2024

DIY FOCUS:

Based in the South East of England, Apollo View is the child of hardcore, electro & drum and bass - developing high quality modules for artists, sound designers and synth enthusiasts alike.

At Machina Bristronica they’ll be offering the first ever DIY workshop for their DivKid collaboration ‘Manic’. A dual channel playground for waveshaping, ring mod, clipping, wavefolding and stereo processing - or just as a good old classic VCA!

Click through the Linktree to secure yourself a spot or to check out the rest of the available workshops.

16/06/2024

Follow the smell of melted solder down to the corner of the Main Hall and you’ll find the DIY Area, our haven for hackers, circuit fanatics and curious electronic explorers!

Across the weekend we’ve got some of the best in the ‘biz hosting workshops where you can build your own synths, modules and strange sonic creations with their expert guidance.

Jump in with Apollo View, Shakmat, Befaco and Jolin Lab for all your eurorack needs - including some exclusive builds! Local favourites BeepBoop Electronics and Bristol Communal Modular will be hacking away at cassette dictaphones and DIY theremin design. Error and Making Sound Machines have both modules and desktop kits on offer (including the cult favourite poly synth, Plinky). Finally UK DIY icons Thonk & Music Thing Modular have some new and exciting bits to build (top secret for now…)

Head over to the Machina Bristronica website for all the links and to secure your spot at the builders table. Please note, DIY Workshop tickets only grant you entry to the workshop so you will still need a festival ticket to get in on the day.

09/06/2024

Outside the Machina Bristronica warehouse you’ll find the DivKid Stage with everyone’s favourite modular aficionado, gear reviewer and all-round top bloke Ben Wilson hosting a full afternoon of interviews with top module makers!

Serious knowledge to be found here as well as some deep dives on design and maybe a few cheeky exclusives from this super gear lineup.

30/04/2024

Come join Team Machina! We’re looking for someone to help out with social media/marketing in the run up to the festival, so we can spread the word as far and wide as possible 📡

Previous experience working with social media campaigns required, Bristol based applicants only. Is this you or a friend? Get in touch!

Applications close 17.05

29/04/2024

OPEN DIARY - INSERT DATE [12TH - 13TH OCTOBER 2024]

Machina Bristronica returns for a full weekend of machine music, hands-on hardware from all corners of the planet, workshops, masterclasses, panel talks, soldering, bleeps, bloop, jam sessions, local selectors, art installations and plenty more surprises to be discovered..

Tickets available via Resident Advisor or on the Machina Bristronica website.

10/10/2023

Wow, wow, wow. September 30th feels like a lifetime ago now and what a day it was!

Endless thanks to everyone involved from the incredible artists who graced our Live Stage with all manner of mystifying and mesmerising performances. Out to the wise minds who shared their wisdom across the day on the panels of the Discussions Stage, to the Data Room crew and their in depth educational presentations on performance, production, patching and visuals.

Big thanks to the DIY-ers, soldering away all day and guiding new (and some old) hands with making some unique and incredible gear. Out to the one and only for hosting one-on-one chats with modular makers on the alfresco stage all day. Also for the crew for keeping the tunes rolling all day and to for their phenomenal Escher mix.

A huge thank you to Phil, Ellie and the whole crew at for helping us get the space looking and sounding amazing. To the food traders, bar tenders and the HEROES on the coffee stall for keeping us all going for the day. To all those behind the scenes dashing around with earpieces on and pockets full of sharpies. Out to our photographer who somehow managed to capture everything that happened across the course of the jam-packed day!

And last but not least, out to YOU. The amazing people who came through and patched, chatted, learned, perused, explored, danced, laughed, beeped and/or booped, soldered, snapped and became one with the Machina.

Machina Bristronica 2024 Early Bird tickets are now live on Resident Advisor (link in the bio)

September 28/29th, TWO days of K***s, Buttons and Discussions next year. Let’s go!

All photos by

09/10/2023

8am - Resident Advisor

We have heard your cries, 2024 brings two days of Machina

September 28th/29th

🎛️🎛️🎛️

03/10/2023

At Machina Bristronica Vlad Kreimer met Imogen Heap and they discussed a lot about future of synthesis.

25/09/2023

Machina week is upon us! Please have a flick through these slides for all the important info you need for getting to the festival, timings and setup on the day, access and sensory information, catering, site map and more!

There is also a plain text version available on the Machina website or via our Linktree which goes into some more depth.

5 days and counting..

16/09/2023

Barcelona’s premier DIY crew will be in attendance with a near full list of their modules to build at Machina! Mixing, modulation, oscillations, effects, utilities and everything in between from the gang!

Still a few spots available on this workshop, running 12-3pm on the day. All workshop tickets must be purchased in advance, available on Headfirst!

15/09/2023

COMMUNITY STALLS

Gear is all well and good but without a community of likeminded nerds to chat, jam and geek out with what’s the point eh?!

This year we’ve got Rubadub Young Team holding down a kid-friendly synth workshop with gear for curious hands and minds. Non structured exploration and musical chaos from Dan and the team, synths are for the weans! Plus, under 12s get free entry to the event - get ‘em patching early.

Find out more about Bleep Klub at booth 119, where you can meet the team behind this beloved biweekly local AV jam session!

Next door at booth 120 you’ll find We All Play synth, a local Electronic Music Open Mic night (EMOM). We’ve seen some of the best and most bizarre performances at these events, a wonderful space for having a go, developing a live performance, trialling a new set or debuting a 15 minute live scored Dungeons & Dragons adventure 🐉

We’re getting close now.. t-minus 15 days and counting.

12/09/2023

Make your own modules with Jolin

You can find some of our favourite mad Italians in the DIY Area this year, teaching you how to build freq-y experimental eurorack modules like the TABØR, GITGUD, GETREKT and GOBLET.

TABØR is an oscillator, but not as we know it. 4 cascading voices feeding back to create walls of textural noise, flitting squealing melodies and sporadic bursts of glitch rhythms.

GITGUD, GETREKT and GOBLEY are the terrible trio that make up the IACTA Bundle. A bank of 9 LFOs, hyperdrive LP/BP filter and a waveshaping squarifier, all on single board designs with touch control ⚡️

Tickets for the DIY sessions must be purchased separately. Available on Headfirst (link in bio) and there’s only 4 spots left!

11/09/2023

Human clothing for your human suit! Grab some exclusive Machina 2023 clobber at the merch stall this year, sizes S-XL and totes available in the standard size green or the heavyweight canvas tote, perfect for synths, cables, laptop and at least 8 cans (road tested)

Plus a fresh batch of Elevator Sound tees, available on the Elevator website this evening. For the synth lover, and the synth hater in your life 💚

08/09/2023

DATA STAGE DEEP DIVE #4

With the once ubiquitous cathode ray tube as the starting point, this talk will introduce two techniques - video synthesis and video feedback - and how they may be used in the production of video art. Pattern formation in nature can be seen though geometrical structure, dynamical and bioorganic systems, oscillation and chaos. The talk will explore analogue and digital approaches, a brief history, and practical cross-pollination of the two. Through hands-on experimentation with these phenomena, an intuitive and playful understanding of scientific laws can form.

This final talk on the Data Stage will take place with Bastien Lavaud, aka Syntonie, and Gilbert Sinnott, aka Autr.

04/09/2023

This year you can find Bristol local heroes Em + Stav spinning the Escher Mix Competition outside on the DivKid stage while the sun goes down!

Escher Music Connection is a monthly meet up for producers in Bristol; a chance to foster a community outside of the studio, hear your tracks mixed live on a high quality club system and link up for collaborations, remixes and plenty of nerdy chat. 🤖

All unreleased tra### from the Bristol underground, mixed by two of the cities finest 🦾

Music from:mp3
m4a









truth.music

music47


b.positive dj

31/08/2023

DATA STAGE DEEP DIVE #3

When we asked the team over at Frap Tools what they had in store for this workshop they came back with a pretty good response:

“Our lungs, heart, and brain all follow a rhythm when breathing, pumping blood, or counting numbers. Even the language(s) we speak have some natural rhythm: if we play with it, we obtain something called "poetry" which was almost the same thing as "music" in ancient times. Rhythm is thus the foundation of music.”

During this workshop Giovanni Grandi from Frap Tools will focus on how we can play with rhythm as well as tempo and metres. He'll demonstrate everything using their flagship USTA eurorack sequencer, but the topics covered are universal and largely transferable to any instrument.

30/08/2023

DATA STAGE DEEP DIVE #2

Second up on the DATA Stage we’ve got producer and animator Konx-om-Pax down explaining how he merges sensory experiences in his AV performances by integrating the analogue and digital worlds with a setup of Modular Synthesisers and Touch Designer.

29/08/2023

DATA STAGE DEEP DIVE #1

Before enveloping us in a whirlwind of reverberated analogue synths on the Live Stage later in the afternoon, producer and composer Surgeons Girl is opening the DATA Stage at 12:00 with a workshop breaking down the many techniques she has developed over the years to help refine and elevate the use of hardware from the initial live jams that spark inspiration through to compelling finished production.

28/08/2023

If 10pm rolls around and you’re not patched-out yet then we’ve got a stonker of an afterparty lined up to keep things rolling deep into the night! Join us at Dareshack as we let a bunch of live acts and DJs loose on their one of a kind d&b audiotechnik sound system - only a 10 minute walk from Machina Bristronica!

Expect textural spiralling soundscapes from Mirt, dusty house jack-o-rama patches from ALX-106, pure technolectro-via-house-via-rave ecstasy from Mylar Melodies, heavyweight sub rhythms and percussive workouts from Medis, ice cold off world electro from Censor Music bossman Alex Jann AND a very special secret b2b2b2b to close off the night 👀

In the bar area you’ll find plenty of comfy seating to lounge out, chat and sink a few pints soundtracked by the b2b of the century with Joe Muggs and Steve Davis in a titanic clash of the interesting, the unusual and the synthesizer oddities.

Due to limited venue capacity we definitely recommend getting tickets well in advance for this one! Link in the bio ⚡️

24/08/2023

So here it is !

The final stage, clashfinder & manufacturer attendees for Machina Bristronica 2023.

Make a note of which talks, workshops, live sets and interviews you want to catch, they are all now all listed here and in the bio link above.

•120 tables of the best synthesizers, manufacturers and modular gear on the planet.

• 11 hours of incredible live hardware performances; everything from ambient to electro, mechanical techno to out & out experimentalism - with 6 unique visual artists providing mind bending accompaniment throughout the day.

• 6 panel talks with some of the most knowledgable minds in synth design, creative production, label management and electronic music culture.

• 5 educational sessions covering visual synthesis, live performance, audio visual and hardware production techniques and advanced modular patching.

• 7 DIY Workshops where you can build your own desktop and modular gear - guided by the experts.

• 7 chances to catch DivKid interviewing some of the top modular makers of today in the outside piazza, plus music from the Friendly Records crew.

• A special 2 hour Escher Music Connection mix, with Em + Stav spinning the best tracks from the Bristol scene.

• 6 hours of Afterparty action as Alex Jann, Medis, Mylar Melodies and ALX-106 take over Dareshack to keep us running long into the night.

• Plus plenty of food stalls, bars, merch, installations and more to be explored...

After 4 years in the making even we couldn't predict how big this has grown, and we can't wait to see you all there! A big big thanks to everyone involved and especially to our friends at Korg, Doepfer, Tiptop, Elektron, Endorphines, UDO, Sequential, Thonk, Expert Sleepers, Oberheim and Novation for helping us bring this dream to life.

Tickets available over on Resident Advisor or via the Linktree. Please note Afterparty and DIY build tickets are sold separately.

Big up on the artwork!

T-MINUS 1 MONTH AND COUNTING - SHARE THE GOOD NEWS - FULL INFO AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE!

18/08/2023

Get those planners out people, the full stage timings for Machina just dropped !

Choose between panel talks on the Discussions Stage, production and performance masterclasses on the Data Stage, manufacturer interviews on the DivKid Stage, build-your-own hardware workshops in our DIY Area or catch some performances over on the Live Stage…

And that’s before we even get started on the 120 tables of makers and manufacturers in the main hall..

Downloadable clashfinder on the linktree in bio 👆👆

10/08/2023

Thanks Crack Magazine

The Bristol festival of 'K***s, Buttons and Discussions' – run by Elevator Sound – comes to new venue Document on 30 September

06/08/2023

DISCUSSION STAGE DEEP DIVE #5

Shifting Industries: Navigating the Label Landscape

In an increasingly democratising industry the relationship between artist and label is harder to define than ever before. What does this mean for the future of releasing music? In this talk a panel of those behind some of the UK electronic music’s most forward thinking labels will discuss where they see the industry heading, sharing experiences and advice for both those looking to start a label and artists looking to release through one.

Hosted by Nick Harris AKA A Sagittariun

Panel Guests:

Kieran Williams from Shall Not Fade
Yushh from Pressure Dome
Dr Dubplate from ec2a

04/08/2023

DISCUSSIONS STAGE DEEP DIVE #4

Emotional Synthesis: The Art of Romantic Engineering

Mylar Melodies sits down with the enigmatic Vlad Kreimer of Soma Laboratories to take a step back from the technical talk of op-amps and vactrols and examine the art and philosophy of synth engineering. Discussing the relationships between technology, society and the psyche; the process of design, the culmination of many unconscious qualities that help us to channel new inspirations through chip and circuit.

02/08/2023

DISCUSSIONS STAGE DEEP DIVE #3

The Past and Future of the UK Sound

The UK has always done things differently. The many people from across the globe who’ve made these isles their home have nurtured a distinct sonic identity and kept people dancing across decades. But exactly how did we get here? Where are things headed? A panel of producers spanning the breadth of UK bass music come together to discuss the UK Sound; what it means to them, and where to take it next.

Host: Joe Muggs (Music Journalist and Author)

Panel Guests:

Pete Cannon
Medis
Borai
No Nation

01/08/2023

The last of our live lineup, the mysterious sonic sculptor Saskia steps up to the plate to usher in the renewed Machina Bristronica.

The Bristol-via-Tokyo artist can be found shelling weirdo tracks on the decks as part of the Mickeys Zoggs regular crew, weaving live textural atmospherics and wonky percussive rollers with hardware at hand or working with installations, spatialized performance and commissioned sound works. All in a days work for one of Bristol’s underground gems - not to be missed!

31/07/2023

After months of behind the scenes prepping, planning, and an unholy amount of coffee here it is - the full lineup for Machina Bristronica 2023!

• Over 100 tables of the best synthesizers, manufacturers and modular gear on the planet including new additions , , , .modular, , , , and Officina del Malista!

• 11 hours of incredible live hardware performances; everything from ambient to electro, mechanical techno to out & out experimentalism - with 6 unique visual artists providing mind bending accompaniment throughout the day

• 6 panel talks with some of the most knowledgable minds in synth design, creative production, label management and electronic music culture.

• 5 educational sessions covering visual synthesis, live performance, audio visual and hardware production techniques and advanced modular patching.

• 7 DIY Workshops where you can build your own desktop and modular gear - guided by the experts.

• 7 chances to catch DivKid interviewing some of the top modular makers of today in the outside piazza, plus music from the Friendly Records crew.

• A special 2 hour Escher Music Connection mix, with Em + Stav spinning the best tracks from the Bristol underground

• 6 hours of Afterparty action as Alex Jann, Medis, Mylar Melodies and ALX-106 take over Dareshack to keep us running long into the night

• Plus plenty of food stalls, bars, merch, installations and more to be explored...

After 4 years in the making even we couldn't predict how big this has grown, and we can't wait to see you all there! A big big thanks to everyone involved and especially to our friends at Korg, Doepfer, Tiptop, Elektron, Endorphines, UDO, Sequential, Thonk, Expert Sleepers, Oberheim and Novation for helping us bring this dream to life.

Tickets available over on Resident Advisor or via the Linktree. Please note Afterparty and DIY build tickets are sold separately.

T-MINUS 2 MONTHS AND COUNTING - SHARE THE GOOD NEWS - FULL INFO AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE!