Jason Darr, frontman of Vancouver-based Neurosonic -- aptly described as hard rock with industrial reinforcement -- says the band was "born in a bubble".

"Created in a test tube sorta! I put together the record first out of frustration with working with the people I had been working with. I was determined to make the record I wanted to make without dealing with impossible bozos," he says. "After the record was done, it was clear that I needed better musicians to deliver this vision live, so I hand picked a new band. Neurosonic is born."

And Bozo is not a member -- which is good because clowns kind of freak me out.

Darr describes the music as loud and beautiful and the result of a selfish vision. He makes music he would want to listen to and he makes it using Pro Tools. He uses it because that is what he learned on.

"I keep learning, they keep evolving, and its a very organic way for me to create," Says Darr. "The consistency of the way the sub programs work. I use a lot of virtual instruments so consistency is important. Pro Tools used to be very poor with midi, but I toughed it out with them and I make it work. They are constantly making improvements."

But there are some limitations to Pro Tools (as with any DAW).

"Evolution has a cost. Now that Intel is used, the old G4 is gonna be garbage soon. Since the new Mac's don't use PCI for their hd cards, the upgrade is very expensive, VERY expensive," he says. "But the detail I am working in can no longer be done with out upgrading, so I need to upgrade."

Darr also uses software from Arturia and for a pretty basic reason.

"I like the sounds. The interfaces are a little sticky, and they are hard on the CPU, but I bought a package which came with all the stuff together. And its pretty cool." he says.

As far as limitations of the Arturia software he says they should be fairly minor -- once he upgrades.

"The flexibility of the modules is by far the best part," says Darr. "The sounds are endless."

He uses Arturia CS 80, Arturia minimoog and Arturia moog modular software.

When asked about the learning curve of the various software he uses Darr singles out BFD and BFD 2 from FXpansion.

"BFD and BFD 2 (and the expansions) are pretty simple to use but incredibly detailed to use well," he says. "They are the biggest tool in my arsenal."

He also uses Reason every once in a while.

"It's the hardest thing to use (since I am using it in Pro Tools, I think). I don't have the patience to fight with it so I don't use it a lot. As a stand alone it can make some cool sounds, but unless I run the MIDI from an eternal sequencer it is too much of a pain in the ass to program," says Darr. "I'm not a great keyboard player, so programing needs to be easy. Back to what I said earlier about consistency -- it doesn't work like other instruments. Indigo is probably the easiest and quickest payoff. Amazing program."

More with Darr on hardware, mics and monitoring soon.