emma ecstasy on Why the 909 Hits so Hard

What do mathematics, science fiction and birds have in common? Genevieve Gough-Croy (a.k.a emma ecstasy) likes them all. She also likes music, and she’s very good at producing and DJing it.

Her music straddles the harder, deeper side of techno. A scroll through her Instagram will reveal a penchant for hardware samplers, drum machines and synths – something that, as she tells us in this interview, carries through to her DJ sets.

As well as her emma ecstasy pseudonym, Gough-Croy also DJs under the name Personal Accountant, and you can find her spinning her personal brand of techno around Chicago, and further afield.

We sat down to chat with emma ecstasy to get her take on what makes a great software emulation, and why the 909 really is the perfect drum machine.

Which classic bit of gear from the 80s or 90s continues to resonate with dancefloors in the 2020s? Why don’t ravers get tired of the sound?

For me, it’s always the Roland TR-909. You could easily have an entire night where every track is exclusively a 909 beat, and it would go insane. I’d never go home.

Every single sound on it is completely iconic and it’s still best in class 33 years later. It's a meme that producers will flip through thousands of snare samples before choosing one – that never happens on the 909.

There’s something about the colour of the ride cymbal on that machine that squeezes through almost any mix. It has enough of a transient to provide some sense of timing and rhythm, but it's ultimately a noise element, and it adds a ton of harmonics to the high end.

Once it gets late and all the amps start to run hot, the ride and the kick drum sum into each other in this beautiful, distorted, glittering sound. It really hard-syncs you somatically. It’s a super potent sensory experience. All the conditions in the room collaborate to make that sound, and the 909 catalyses it.

How do you incorporate the sound of the 909 into your sets in a way that really resonates with crowds?

When I DJ, I like to bring my Digitakt as a 3rd or 4th sound source, usually just to improvise 909 grooves on top of or in between whatever I’m mixing.

I saw Jeff Mills doing that with the real thing, and he's basically the GOAT, so I figured I would try it out. It adds a lot to a set, and when you’re done, you have a bunch of new patterns that you can go and use in the studio.

The 909 always works. It's like the 7th trumpet for LGBTs. It beckons us onto the dancefloor.

Can you recall a specific track or a night where the sound of a classic piece of gear fundamentally changed your creative direction?

I went to this party in the middle of nowhere in Washington State called Slip in the summer of 2023. It was a campout, but there was a barn on the property where they played music once the sun went down. Sharlese was playing, and there was this moment during her set where a completely disgusting 303 bassline came in, and everything clicked for me in a crazy way. I went home after that weekend and made about 40 acid tools. I still use a lot of them.

What is the most important characteristic a software emulation needs to get right for you to feel it honours the legacy of the original machine?

I know it sounds silly, but I think plugins should be breakable. They need to have all the cheat codes, hacks and flukes that make iconic gear iconic. When you make a plugin do something it’s not “supposed to”, you feel like you discovered something, which is really rewarding.

Good, thoughtful music emerges from a strong (but not frictionless) relationship between an artist and her tools. A successful emulation lets me bend the rules in the same ways that the original machine does. Bonus points if it lets me go even further.

Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/emma_xtc
Bandcamp: emmaxtc.bandcamp.com/music
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ecstasy.vst3