Mixing to tell a story, Ruben Favaro's story is a blend of formula and electronic.Photo by Pauletta Tohonnie
Ruben Favaro is entangled in one of the most complicated love stories of his time, and he doesn't even know it.
Two distinct disciplines ruled by separate halves of the brain, physics and music have formed an unexpected, and highly underrated connection.
A 22-year-old graduate student earning his Ph.D. in physics with a focus on the material sciences, Favaro appreciates structure, continuity, formula and the concrete. Hence, his interest in the objectivity of the sciences.
But Favaro is also drawn to the technicality, balance, subjectivity and innovation of electronic music.
With a non-committal attidude, mixing and mastering tracks hold's Favaro's mind for now. Photo by Pauletta TohonnieCoincidence? Hardly. Both physics and music are considered forms of art — structures that can be broken down, destroyed, made whole again and marveled at.
The potential of creation is inescapable.
While he humbly denies the obvious ‘Bryan Cranston of Techno Music’ reference, Favaro’s work-life does share some striking similarities.
Ruben Favaro works for hours on end in an underground vacuum-sealed lab surrounded by harmful chemicals and particle accelerators. His research involves replacing atoms of different materials inside a lattice, or a box, and changing the lattice constantly so it expands the top layer and shrinks the sides, therefore conserving the total volume.
What does this mean for the future of humanity?
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to make a laser.” Favaro said.
Don’t confuse his passion for lasers as a life-long goal of pursuing physics.
“I’m pretty sure as soon as I get my Ph.D. I’m just going to be done with physics.”
This non-committal attitude reaches further than his day-job.
“So are you going to be a musician?” I probe. He shrugs, steel blue eyes shining.
“I’ve started taking an interest into mixing and mastering tracks. Right now I’m doing it through digital software, giving you a bunch of digital compressors and a dynamic sound," Favaro says. "When you’re dealing with instruments you have these things called compressors which essentially smush down the higher peaks and level everything out and then you have to worry about the dynamic range of things like what is the lowest and highest peak you’re trying to record. You want to be able to balance it so that the sound isn’t distorted.”
At this point, Favaro is buying all of his equipment, which he says he’s perfectly capable of making himself. He knows the circuits and understands the physics behind it. But between producing his own music and saving the world one laser at a time, we’ll cut him some slack.
On nights he can’t sleep, Favaro will get on his computer and start laying down something on Ableton Live. There’s a basic structure or formula to work with, so first he’ll lay down a constant kick with a drum set, working his way from there and synthesizing every sound he makes.
Favaro's describes each detail that goes into the making of specific noises and sounds bringing to light the almost formulaic process of creating art.Photo by Pauletta Tohonnie
“You have to understand a little bit how sound works. So sound is all composed of waves. Analog sound is just a sign wave,” Favaro says.
Hitting a high hat or cymbal makes a noise and material itself, as Ruben explains, gives noise an envelope or an overlay, essentially allowing the function to decay and die. If the noise wave’s attack, it is quick with a fast decay, you get a unique staccato sound.
They way he speaks about his music is captivating, as if the universe is unfolding an edge of itself in front of you. The two disciplines have started to meld together, their formula’s and theories merely abstract concepts that arrive at the same conclusion: the creation of art.
“I got into the music because my uncle and godfather DJs. He was going to ASU then he left for California to try and get into the music industry," Favaro says. "He was around for the 90’s raves, he got me into spinning and stuff like that. I didn’t really get it back then but I started learning more about it."
Antonio Arebalo, lovingly referred to by Favaro as Uncle John, grew up on the streets of New Jersey and New York during the golden years of hip-hop via the 80s and early 90s. He packed up his SUV, including his two companion pit bulls, in ‘99 to pursue music.
“Ruben is a man of few words, but understands what is going on around him,” Arebalo said. “I recall when my family would come to visit, I would play records for him and he would watch. I would tell him to spin with me while I cued up the record and told him to mix as if you’re telling a story.”
Sophomore year of college, Favaro met up with some of his former high school friends who “used to be straight edge and weren’t anymore.” They were delving into electronic music and since Ruben had already had background from his uncle, he figured he might as well showcase the music that he had been finding.
That’s what Favaro and his friends use music for.
“We DJ mainly for each other," Favaro says. "We’re always sending each other music. Sometimes you find this really great track but you find it at 10 a.m. and you’re like ‘I could send this to my friends to show them what it’s all about or I could mix it at the party tonight because no one wants to listen to banging techno right now."
Eventually, Favaro and his buds started deviating from their mutual starting points of an electro-techno cocktail: one part Mobi, a splash of The Chemical Brothers and LCD Soundsystem. Favaro ”went straight into the darker stuff.”
Thanks to Uncle John, Favaro appreciates the art of spinning.Photo by Pauletta Tohonnie
Techno, a generally darker genre, includes minor scales and can be very aggressive, a stark contrast to the laser-obsessed physicist sitting a few inches away. But it’s also mechanical. In the early 90’s, the equipment used to spin tracks was amateur. Grooves didn’t exist so you’d shift patterns by a small amount to give them a swing so everything fell on the on- or off-beat.
Producing and DJ-ing under the pseudonym Eida, Favaro and several of his talented comrades make an annual appearance at the Detroit Music Festical, and recently landed an ongoing gig with two previous roommates at Bar Smith on Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix.
“The Manhatton Project started with Ruben and some other friends in the first house we ever rented in college. It was on Manhatton Drive, which is the namesake for our project. As time went on we expanded to bigger events in various venues, including underground bomb shelters and BBQs,” Evan Balbona, Favaro’s friend, says.
Before Bar Smith, Favaro had been playing random shows. However, he did play at the Orpheum Theatre in Flagstaff with their friends and fellow producers Dirty Epic.
“I told them I spin techno so they placed me at a certain time slot because they wanted the night to evolve based off the artists that were playing. One of my friends played some old school disco and funk tracks which was the second set. So the first guy started off with some low tempo house and the guy before me started off with low-key tech-house and eventually built up the tempo and intensity of his songs so I could go off of him. So there’s a structure to the night,” Favaro says.
Favaro mixes the technical and with the conceptual to create an artful science.Photo by Pauletta Tohonnie
The structure he’s talking about, the formula for creating a crescendo, is something Favaro does in and outside of his lab. It’s almost as if he fails to distinguish one from the other. Balbona recognizes Favaro’s intense talent as the Bryan Cranston of techno.
“It doesn't take long for people to realize that Ruben has a really special mind. Obviously, as a Ph.D. student, he's very bright, but he also approaches life and music in a way that is completely unique to him. And I think this quality comes across in his music. His music is unconventional, innovative, but simultaneously never loses sight of the past,” Balbona says.
Reach the writer at Lily.lieberman@asu.edu or on Twitter @lilylieberman
