How It Was Made: Christian Hornbostel – Eridanus (Magnetic Magazine Recordings + Progressive House)

Christian Hornbostel (@christianhornbostel) has never sounded especially interested in chasing the loudest part of the room.

That is part of what makes “Eridanus” feel right for Magnetic Magazine Recordings. The track works with patience, letting its synth programming, harmonic detail, and gradual modulation carry the arrangement rather than relying on oversized transitions every 16 bars.

Christian’s long relationship with progressive electronic music. His history stretches back to projects including Virtualmismo and VFR, while later releases have appeared across Global Underground and a long list of electronic labels.

That experience comes across in the production choices behind “Eridanus.” Serum provides a restrained midrange layer, Ableton Analog handles the main synth, Wavetable supplies the counter-stabs, and Mercurial Tones Yasha adds spatial modulation. Christian also extended the release’s aesthetic into its promotional reel, pairing the music with archival footage from Austria’s Grossglockner High Alpine Road.

Below in our latest How It Was Made feature, Christian Hornbostel explains how those pieces came together.

Xfer Serum

My approach to Xfer Serum alternates between using presets from developers such as Basic Wavez, Just Make Music, SynthHacker, Studio Brootle, Audiotent, Mercurial Tones, and creating sounds through experimentation inspired by YouTube tutorials. Whenever I come across a sound that really captures my attention, I usually recreate its basic programming from scratch rather than simply loading the preset.

From there, I start modifying it extensively until it becomes something personal and better suited to the project I’m working on.

A good example is the modified “Curtain Cull Key” preset from Basic Wavez, which plays a crucial role in Eridanus, even though it sits quite low in the mix. Rather than drawing attention to itself, its purpose is to gently warm the midrange frequencies and help blend the different sonic layers into a cohesive whole.

Ableton Analog

The same philosophy applies to Ableton’s native instruments.

For Eridanus, I chose Analog because it allowed me to give the main synth a deeper character while maintaining complete control over the waveform.

I programmed a number of automations – including decay, filter frequency, delay, and release – sometimes working independently, sometimes simultaneously, until I achieved exactly the balance I was looking for: warmth combined with a rhythmic, contrapuntal movement.

Ableton Wavetable

My use of Wavetables was mainly intended to enrich the counter-stabs. I found some excellent sounds in Mojulate’s Polarise library. For Eridanus, I selected the preset Retention, which, just as with Serum, I heavily adapted by reshaping the oscillators and reprogramming the LFO.

Although Ableton Wavetable and Xfer Serum are both extremely powerful wavetable synthesizers, each has its own character. Whether it’s the modulation depth, the flexibility of the modulation system, or the built-in effects, there is always something that makes one synth the better choice for a particular sound.

Mercurial Tones Yasha

Finally, I almost always believe that an important sound benefits from a „booster“… something that helps it take control of the mix without overwhelming it. In this case, I enhanced Analog using Yasha, an analog-modelled spatial chorus plugin by Mercurial Tones.

My goal wasn’t simply to make the sound bigger, but to give it faster, deeper modulation while preserving its balance within the arrangement. Despite the added character, Yasha kept the synth remarkably cohesive with the rest of the production, creating a texture that I find particularly pleasing. It’s one of those subtle enhancements that gives the main synth that little extra character, making it, in my opinion, even more expressive and engaging.

Building The Visual Concept For “Eridanus”

I’d like to take this opportunity to share a couple of insights into the promotional reel for Eridanus.

As you can see from the photo, this time I chose the Grossglockner High Alpine Road (German: Großglockner Hochalpenstraße), the highest paved mountain pass in Austria. As a result, I had to search for archival footage featuring period-correct cars and motorcycles to match the era. Anyone who follows me on Instagram or Facebook has probably noticed a recurring characteristic of the videos I pair with my productions. My passion for a certain vintage cinematic aesthetic – almost always in black and white – is probably plain to see.

And, of course, the visual concept for Eridanus is no exception!