JOE VORTECH: Hey! This is Joe Vortech at Movement 2008 for Gearwire.Com, and here we’re talking to Cliff Thomas from the production group, The Plan, on Submerge Recordings, and why don’t you tell us a little bit about your projects?

CLIFF THOMAS: Well, pretty much like -- pretty much in the vein of traditional Detroit Techno. We’ve been with Submerge recordings for probably about four years now, and we just came out with a new mix last year. We’ve been working out an album, been dropping EPs and remixes this year so next year should be a really good one too.

JOE VORTECH: Cool. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your studio? You know, what kind of gear you like to use? Hardware? Software? How you like to use anything in particular you think makes your sound unique with your production styles?

CLIFF THOMAS: Well actually in the Submerge crew, I’m a little bit of a freak. I don’t deal with any hardware at all, none of that. I’m one of the first people actually in the whole place to not deal with any hardware. So, I’ve been working with pretty much 100% software and I mean I’ve always like the Rob Papen plugins a lot but actually most of the time truthfully I end up building either my own ensembles in Reaktor or end up making my own VSTs with SynthEdit for my own stuff. So, I mean most of our projects are done, so I mean most of our projects are done like straight from scratch from raw sine waves, so.

JOE VORTECH: That’s really something. About how long does it usually take you would you say to construct your various instruments in Reaktor or SynthEdit?

CLIFF THOMAS: Well I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I mean I’ve come up with a couple of here and there like I reused multiple times which is good, but I mean it’s not exactly easy. You got to be a special kind of nerd to be able to mess around with half of these things. You got to have a little bit of patience but I just keep on perfecting and time after time trying to make a real versatile instrument for us.

JOE VORTECH: Fantastic. So, are you playing any shows here during the Movement festival in Detroit?

CLIFF THOMAS: No. We don’t have any shows this weekend. Hopefully we will next year. We hope to -- We should have one early next month. We’re still confirming the date on it here but other than that, no; nothing right now. We’re just working the booth.

JOE VORTECH: Okay. You know, we all got to do our time don’t we?

CLIFF THOMAS: It’s all right, man.

JOE VORTECH: So cool. Well, anything else about the way you guys work together? How you work as a team being a duo and everything like that you want to put out there maybe.

CLIFF THOMAS: Well, it’s always a hard time finding a partner that you could actually work with. A lot of people, especially in electronic music, you deal with a lot of really weird characters because you have to be just a little bit weird to make techno in the first place, so a lot of times there’s a lot of egos fighting with each other, so you just got to find the kind of right person you can deal with without the egos, you know, fighting against each other, you know, which is a very hard thing to do that’s why there’s not a lot of groups. There’s a lot of solo acts.

JOE VORTECH: Yeah. I hear you on that account. Well, this has been Cliff Thomas from The Plan on Submerge Recordings, and thank you very much for your time, Cliff.

CLIFF THOMAS: Nice meeting you guys.

JOE VORTECH: We appreciate it. Absolutely. And we look forward to seeing you in the future what you guys have planned.

CLIFF THOMAS: Good.

JOE VORTECH: Cool.

CLIFF THOMAS: I hope to see you guys too.

JOE VORTECH: Awesome. This is Joe Vortech for Gearwire signing off.