Sound systems are the living, breathing core of a dancefloor. They can be a functional idea for a space, or a celebrated legacy. They can be permanent fixtures or mobile building blocks. For some, the system is the make or break of a good party. But for many, its sonic capabilities can be overshadowed by fixations on the DJ, crowd, and space. In a conversation with Kantarion Sound’s sound architect Ivan Čuić, we uncover the genetic composition of the enigmatic sound system; diving into its technical DNA, artistic collaborations, and its holistic architectural ideology.
The courtroom
A beam of light was kaleidoscoping in contorted choreography, climbing the back bracing wall of a former courtroom which guided a room of spellbound listeners. The sound perforated the corporeal veins of the room which began to engage in an aural-acoustic dialogue. People gazed at the light projection, lay down on the floor, brought their knitting, craned their necks at the creative practices of the live artists and DJs, and connected to the meticulous reverberations of Kantarion Sound system.
Located in Amsterdam South, the former courtroom was chosen by Kantarion Sound to experience precise sound in the context of a listening session last January (which saw artists Woody92, Vanja Rakic, Lulu, Sebastiano Carghini, and Elina Tapio showcasing their sonic sorcery). Challenged by the courtroom’s architecture that was built for optimised speech and carried a visceral emotional weight, these elements characterise what Kantarion identifies as important considerations when approaching DIY sound systems: identity, environment, and technology through the lens of experimentation.
This multi-dimensional approach addresses the challenge of overcoming contextual limitations of a space, a factor that underpins a lot of Kantarion’s work: ‘I think it's really important to be aware that you're in a problematic space. My goal is to make the best out of it.’ Some examples of the limitations Kantarion faces are the size and layout of the space, the acoustics, and the size and direction of the crowd. There are always going to be factors that prevent you from achieving precise sound, and Kantarion has a natural curiosity to overcome these obstacles.
For the courtroom listening session, Kantarion was initially stacked in a different format to accentuate the system's sonic potential. But the towering subs were egocentric in the space and detracted from the building's beauty. ‘It’s important to understand how to introduce the space to somebody who comes in for the first time. The first setup didn’t fit in with the delicate listening experience we were trying to achieve. I want to amplify the space as an experience people can enjoy, so I tried to find a better relationship between the physical aspect of the sound and the space.’
'The towering subs were egocentric in the space and detracted from the building's beauty'
Sound in culture
This thought-through representation of sound, people, and space is where Kantarion offers sanctuary and liberation on the dancefloor. It dovetails their interest in audio engineering around three-channel stereo; an old-school concept which developed from experimentations combining mono (one audio source) and stereo (multiple audio sources). With stereo, the limitation is that if you move left and right in front of the two speakers, you only hear one side of the system. Only the people who are in the middle experience the full sound (called the ‘phantom sound image’). With three-channel stereo, you replace the phantom image with a third central speaker box which gives the audience freedom to move while experiencing the same sonic performance. They don’t have to be standing in between the speakers to hear the ‘best’ sound. This is a concept Kantarion experimented with for the courtroom listening session.
Kantarion's fascination with sound stems from their passion for dub sound systems, particularly in the context of Čuić's hometown in Zagreb, Croatia and most notably the ‘brutal and immersive bass' of the dub Digitron Sound System. He was captivated by the energy and punk attitude the Croatian Digitron radiated.
Born in Kingston Jamaica in the ‘60s, dub was a technological progression from reggae and was rooted in black culture. The Windrush generation was one of the first ships that came to England from Jamaica to mark the beginning of Afro-Caribbean migration under British colonial rule. These communities turned to reggae and dub as a spiritual and community tool which escaped the difficult reality of living in a racist society and connected them closer to their Jamaican roots. The dub sound developed out of reggae being stripped back to instrumental drums and bass with echo, delay, and reverb mixed live in the studio as dub experiments. Pioneers like King Tubby, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and Jah Shaka were at the frontier of dub studio engineering, which is when the sound system became the primary outlet for the well-known dub sound in the 70s and 80s. The system really brought around the idea of the DJ, using a mixing desk to manipulate each part of the sound alongside live MCs.
Through the soundsystem community in Zagreb, Kantarion discovered that each sound system represented a personal project and had a unique identity attached to it that perforated through the technical engineering and the culture. Not only is this achieved through the way it looks and sounds, but also through the creative art of dub mixing: engineering the bass, mids, and tops on a mixing desk to handle the weight of the sound.
The beauty of DIY sound systems is their ability to be sonically accurate and inaccurate. It is this inaccuracy that gives each system a distinctive charisma, produced to suit a certain style of music in a certain time and place. ‘The visual aspect is important, but what’s also important is the message, idea or possibility the system carries.’ This ‘personality’ of a sound system is sonically transmitted to emit an unrivaled energy that derives from the technical skill and the culture surrounding the sub bass, something that heavily captures the excitement of Kantarion. ‘I got hooked on the bass and how dub pioneers built the systems that offer something different from a regular system, which are designed more as a solution to achieve a technical brief in a specific venue or space.’ Only those who have stood in front of a dub system can understand these kinds of fascinations, as the weight of the vibrations rattles your ribcage and the frequencies clamber over your skin.
Through the soundsystem community in Zagreb, Kantarion discovered that each sound system represented a personal project and had a unique identity attached to it that perforated through the technical engineering and the culture. Not only is this achieved through the way it looks and sounds, but also through the creative art of dub mixing: engineering the bass, mids, and tops on a mixing desk to handle the weight of the sound.
The beauty of DIY sound systems is their ability to be sonically accurate and inaccurate. It is this inaccuracy that gives each system a distinctive charisma, produced to suit a certain style of music in a certain time and place. ‘The visual aspect is important, but what’s also important is the message, idea or possibility the system carries.’ This ‘personality’ of a sound system is sonically transmitted to emit an unrivaled energy that derives from the technical skill and the culture surrounding the sub bass, something that heavily captures the excitement of Kantarion. ‘I got hooked on the bass and how dub pioneers built the systems that offer something different from a regular system, which are designed more as a solution to achieve a technical brief in a specific venue or space.’ Only those who have stood in front of a dub system can understand these kinds of fascinations, as the weight of the vibrations rattles your ribcage and the frequencies clamber over your skin.
Sound in experimentation: Laak and mur.mur
A core part of the construction and experimentation with Kantarion Sound is with the elusive space Laak in The Hague. ‘I related to the idea that it’s not a finished space, you spend a lot of time in it and you learn it: the space is your starting point.’ Laak and Kantarion are the ideal teammates as their relationship is constantly in process: ‘We treated every club night as an experiment, the sound was being developed as the events took place.’
So far the Kantarion system for Laak has evolved across nine events, adapting its composition to suit its evolving walls. ‘Each time I would visit the space, the space had changed.’ This experimentation helped Kantarion graduate from a mono to stereo setup which has four subwoofers, two kicks, and three tops. In fact, this was the first stereo setup he constructed. ‘My initial proposal for the club was: if I'm building the system for the space, and if we're experimenting, then for each club night, I'm gonna change the system in that same space.’
As the club expanded, Kantarion Sound grew larger to the point that the system became physically too big to position correctly in the space, overshadowing the DJ booth. ‘I decided to flip the subs on the sides and positioned the kicks in front, which was interesting because it was the moment the system clicked for all of us in Laak. This way of thinking about the sound system changed the architecture of the space, as people started climbing on the system which added multiple layers to the dancefloor and amplified the energy.’
These spatial and technical experiments is what has enabled Kantarion to build a sound system that its audience can resonate with on a deeper level. ‘It’s about precisely blending the experience, sound, dimensions, and performance so the system sits naturally in the space, profiding liberation on the dancefloor.’ It’s a sound system that lives and breathes the club's architecture.
Part of the Kantarion philosophy is adaptation, evident in the design of Amsterdam Noord’s cozy listening bar mur.mur. The sound designer was inspired by the engineering of a motorcycle lift to create an adjustable DJ booth that can accommodate standing and seated listening scenarios. The booth elevates between a four-point sound system so that the artist and audience share the same listening experience. ‘If you have elements in the space that can work together, you have a space that is used optimally.’
'We treated every club night as an experiment, the sound developed as the events took place'
Technical composition: an orchestra of boxes
Before diving into the sound sytem technicals, Kantarion recommends that you ask yourself a set of bigger questions: What do you want the system to do? How can it represent the ideas you have? Does it need to be small or large? What kind of music do you play? Do you want to reproduce precise studio sound or reproduce traditionally by ear? What fits through the door… literally?
So what about Kantarion Sound’s technical composition? Custom built from open source designs online, the system is not just a pile of speakers, what might be the first impression of an average spectator. Alignment within the system, between each part, is key here. Kantarion is a unique four-way audio system that comprises a bass, kick, mid, and high sections, which are all different parts of sound coming from each their own box. The separation of these sections means that each box of sound can be individually amplified without compromising any of the quality. This reduces the risk of having an output of sound that is more inaccurate than if it were to be squeezed into fewer sections; this partitioning helps the frequencies to breathe.
The bass boxes are the largest, as the bass frequencies are long and big, while the tops get smaller as you move upwards. The smaller surface area of the tops permits more creative designs that sit on top of the stack. ‘For each section, the correct design needs to be chosen which can cover certain parts of the audio spectrum, once you have decided what purpose each section has and how this fits to the identity of your system.’
Once the sound is divided into parts (bass, low, mid, etc.), a crossover informs each sound box of its role in the system (see it as an actual orchestra). The tuning of each separate element is critical to ensure that they work together as a cohesive unit rather than in isolation. Alongside this, the time it takes for each sound signal to come out of the box (called the time and phase relationship) is very important as it affects the overall loudness and tonal balance of the resulting sound. Achieving a harmonic piece is the ultimate goal and a true engineering test.
Apart from the engineering of the system, the quality of the materials housing the aural network is essential. Kantarion uses 18 millimeter birch plywood, known for its stiffness and resonance protection, to build his boxes. This fully braces the boxes and removes unwanted sounds, ensuring a purer result. This is particularly important for subwoofers, as they create a lot of energy and require a thicker cabinet to keep the huge bass vibrations contained.
To enhance the overall quality of his system, Kantarion initiated a relationship with Arda, a sound system designer from Copenhagen, and Addit Audio, who 3D printed their custom sound system. Kantarion wanted to design tops for their stack that represented the energy of the club in Laak but came across a limitation with the expense of materials post-Covid and the impact of the Russian state war on Ukraine. Researching alternative production methods became a focus for Kantarion and resulted in this design-engineer trifecta. Arda designed the horns and Addit 3D printed the design.
Kantarion praises the engineering expertise of both designers. For example, Arda was able to identify a limitation in the high frequencies of Kantarion’s driver choice, so he designed a technical addition that goes inside the horn which achieves directivity in the very high frequencies meaning you don’t lose the sound of the tops when you stand to the left or right of it. This technical advancement was complemented by Addit’s ability to 3D print a colossal elliptical horn that eliminated the resonances against the birch plywood and now represents something of superior quality and sophistication.
Looking ahead
So what’s next? Having lately produced the sound for Brussels-based Kiosk Radio’s fifth birthday, Kantarion is taking their system international, collaborating with more renowned independent arts and music institutions.
Alongside this, Kantarion strives to focus on smaller custom systems and acoustical engineering. It’s not only the system itself that’s important, it's the framework of the space that needs to be treated and modified to reach a sonic dynamic that sounds harmonious. He has experimented with his acoustic treating at the DIY festival Traumburg: ‘Every year is an acoustical intervention where we treat the space with a lot of acoustic material as you literally can’t understand each other when inside the space which is a castle. After three years of experimentation, we managed to bring it to a point where the sound is a really interesting experience, largely due to how the space is affected by it.’ This degree of experimentation validates Kantarion’s fascination towards the relationship between sound and acoustics, and forms the foundations for his next research voyage.
Kantarion’s obsession with sound is obvious. But what underpins the Kantarion Sound’s ideology is its holistic practice, connecting the ideas between the technical aspects, artistic ideas, and the experience. Most pertinent to their ethos is Kantarion's fascination with identifying tensions to create new opportunities. ‘We use the stack like a sculpture in space that can open up many different possibilities from its spatial technical imperfections.’ Kantarion Sound teaches us to find beauty in imperfection.
