How did you become Martin Orange?

When I was young my favorite color was red. Later on I guess it changed to blue but after that I recognized that I don’t have a favorite color anymore. Then I decided to go on some travels. For that I needed a new pair of shoes. I decided for a pair of black shoes containing some orange stripes. They looked pretty cool. I really liked those shoes. So when I was traveling I wore them a lot which probably is the reason that nowadays I cannot wear them anymore. I once checked some stores to get them replaced but I couldn’t obtain a new pair of them. But I never got those orange stripes out of my mind.

Second story in this relation: Music industry is full of black. If it fits your sound, then go for it. But recently I was becoming tired of black shirts. I wore them a lot. Then I reminded myself that once I read the slogan “Orange is the new black”. Great. That’s what I thought when the slogan popped up in my mind. I knew that it was time to replace some of my black shirts. So I concluded that orange might be the proper replacement.

But of course it’s also a hint to FL Studio, my DAW. Without FL Studio, there will be no Martin Orange. My big thanks to all people who are and who have been working at Image Line in the past for creating such an intuitive and quick process for music production. Sometimes I feel that I’m still a small kid that just wants to play. FL Studio provides me with all the toys and tools to simply start playing. Turning the knobs, adjusting the faders and inserting pattern by pattern is what I feel most comfortable with. I can create a new piano melody within ten seconds and if I don’t enjoy the sound, I can replace the underlying instrument by a huge synthesizer within seconds. How cool is that?

So I concluded that due to my relation to FL Studio, due to my beloved orange stripes on my travel shoes and due to the fact that I eat an orange every day I still think that orange serves me well. To sum it up, orange reminds me of everything from which I have positive memories from. FL Studio is positive. My travels were positive. Living a healthy lifestyle is positive. That’s why my music is energetic. I want to transfer some of that positive energy to people´s minds. And I’m happy to cultivate all aspects which support a positive and a healthy lifestyle.

In that context it’s worth to mention that black is omnipresent in the techno scene. I’m not part of the techno scene. I’m not into drugs. Of course not everyone in the techno scene is into drugs. But it’s present. That’s not my style and it has never been. As I’m living in Berlin I was thinking that by wearing a black shirt people might consider me as one of those several guys who produces dark electronic beats. Actually I still consider the sound of my music as very childish. I don’t feel that there’s any darkness in it. My music is the result of that playing kid which I mentioned above. My melodies are simple. I don’t think that anyone will detect a complicated sound pattern in any of my songs. Everything is intuitive. Created by a non-thinking mind. So I think it fits better to emphasize that childish sound with some happy and energetic orange color rather than an overall black attitude.