Derrick Estrada lives at the intersection of sound, art and technology. The 45-year-old California native has been creating experimental electronic music most of his life, pushing boundaries and expanding his arsenal of digital tools along the way.
Estrada, known professionally as “Baseck,” played his first rave, an illegal dance party in the California desert, at the age of 13. Since then, his music has taken him to festivals and workshops across the globe. As part of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Estrada is currently based in Tulsa, where he continues to use synthesizers, sequencers and interfaces to build a world of sound.
Growing Up With the Sound of Chicano Lowrider Culture
Estrada grew up in a trailer park in Palmdale, a city in northern Los Angeles County. Although he wasn’t exposed to a lot of “classic” rock music, he was surrounded by Chicano lowrider culture, a vibrant Mexican-American movement centered on customizing vintage cars, and the bass-heavy, funk-influenced soundtrack that’s part of that lifestyle.
“They had big sound systems with subwoofers,” he recalls. “That subwoofer felt a certain way, like it was doing something to my body.”
Estrada was fascinated with the sound and the technology producing it.
“It sounded so futuristic to me, this heavy bass, and a lot of the songs didn’t even have vocals,” he says. “It felt like this is the future; this is some sort of alien form that I’m extremely attracted to.”
From Raves to Electronic Music
As a kid, school was a challenge for Estrada. A self-described hyperactive kid, he had a hard time sitting still. Discovering a passion for electronic music didn’t improve his academic experience, but it did change the path of his life.
“My school was bad, and there was a lot of violence there,” Estrada says. “When I got into rave music, it kind of took me away from the violence and the gangs.”
Estrada began listening to early techno DJ cassette tapes.
“That just took it to another level where there are these sounds that are from synthesizers that are just really repetitive and kind of chaotic, but organized, because you’re not hearing the sounds of guitars, flutes, and instruments, you’re hearing these otherworldly sounds that your mind is just picturing like lasers flying around,” he says.
Estrada used the family’s computer and the Internet to download free music making software. He started organizing raves in empty warehouses and even DJ-ing his own gigs, using turntables that he would often modify.
“I was so hands on with hitting all the faders and scratching [moving a vinyl record forward and backward under the needle to create particular sounds]. They call that ‘turntableism,’ using the turntable as an instrument,” he says.
Discovering Modular Synthesizers
Eventually, Estrada’s music friends encouraged him to explore “modular synthesizers,” customizable electronic instruments made of separate, standalone components, or modules, linked together using patch cables, that allow you to create the sounds you desire. Although he was initially reluctant, Estrada soon went down a modular rabbit hole, and he’s never come back.
“It just looked so crazy,” he says. “For every component of sound, you have a separate module that you physically have to attach by a wire to the next component of sound, so you’re learning about the building blocks of sound.”
Estrada took a deep dive into the science of all of it. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for formal education, he found himself studying manuals and tinkering with components, trying to learn everything he could about the technology.
“I finally really started getting attracted to it and wanted to figure this out,” he says. “It was like a puzzle that my brain just kept on trying to understand, and from there the knowledge just kept growing. I kept waking up in the middle of the night and having ‘aha’ moments: this is how you connect the chain of sounds, and this is how I make a sequence.”
How Modular Synthesizers Changed Estrada’s Life
That exploration also gave him a new perspective on his own abilities.
“I started realizing, since my brain is in that modular mode of thinking about all these critical steps, my brain capacity got a lot bigger,” he says. “I was ecstatic. It was like modular synthesizers rewired my brain, and I actually feel like I’m not dumb anymore.”
Learning to work with these complex electronic tools to create and release music also helped Estrada overcome multiple challenges.
“I was never good at school, and my mom was a single parent. I had never finished my homework, and I was the one the teachers would let slide,” he says. “When it came to finally finishing music, I was like, ‘oh, there’s actually a huge block that comes from my childhood.’ I had to push through this, no matter what, because that’s what I wanted to do.”
Derrick Estrada’s Life in Music
Electronic music literally changed Estrada’s life.
“I feel like the music has been something that propels me in every aspect of my life, of thinking that anything is possible, because dreaming about sounds just helps me push whatever I want to do in my life.”
For more on Derrick Estrada, visit Baseck online.
