KORMAC

Cormac O'Halloran, better known by his DJ/Producer alias KORMAC, hails from Dublin in Ireland. Championed by everyone from BBC Radio’s Annie Mac to turntablist DJ Yoda, KORMAC’s music is a unique blend of traditional and electronic textures.

Starting out in his career as a hip-hop scratch DJ and MPC beat-maker KORMAC has matured into an artist who brings a totally unique approach to his art, twisting samples and meticulous recordings of acoustic instruments into something entirely his own.

His latest project, Equivalent Exchange, saw him write a full suite of material for an orchestra, with the ethos of deliberately pushing himself out of his personal comfort zone, in order to achieve something truly individual and special.

The world has taken notice, with KORMAC’s last album resulting in a nomination for the Meteor Choice music prize. KORMAC’s played festivals including Glastonbury, Bestival, Electric Picnic, Sonar and toured the UK, Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia and Canada alongside luminaries Portishead, Nas, Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Snarky Puppy, and a host of others.

When KORMAC needed a rock solid and dependable choice of Audio/MIDI interface for his recent Equivalent Exchange shows, he turned to iConnectivity to provide the solution. We recently interviewed him about his choice, and why only iConnectivity interfaces made the cut!

Hey KORMAC! Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us! What was it that attracted you to iConnectivity interfaces?

For my latest show, Equivalent Exchange, written for chamber orchestra, brass, drums, electronics, vocals etc., I need the ability to send multiple outputs from my position on stage to the front of house engineer, directly to my drummer, and to the conductor/orchestra. I also need a strong backup system.

Traditionally, achieving all this would require a setup that was costly, heavy and took a long time to set up. When I found the iConnectivity PlayAUDIO12 interface, it gave me all the outs I need and a backup system, all in a tiny interface.

What is it you like about the PlayAUDIO12?

The portability! I could go from playing the full Equivalent Exchange show with the orchestra, electronics, visuals, loads of guest vocalists etc on Friday night in front of 1500 people to playing an audio-visual set in a club to 500 people on Saturday. If I can keep the same system/interface running for both shows, without dragging racks of gear into the smaller venue or onto planes, that’s a big result.

What features of the PlayAUDIO12 really stood out to you?

I love having 12, balanced, phantom safe outputs, in one compact, stable interface. I also love the ability to send MIDI to both my main and backup machine simultaneously.
I’m currently considering adding a second PlayAUDIO12 into my rack to send a few more stems from my setup to FOH, affording my live sound engineer even more control over the front of house sound.

How are you getting on with our new control software, Auracle?

I’m liking Auracle a lot. It’s very simple but it allows me to create a little headphone mix of all the outputs so I can easily monitor who is hearing what.

Our thanks to KORMAC for taking time out to chat to us, and for choosing iConnectivity interfaces as part of his fantastic live shows!