Enrico Lorenzini: 80 Gigs a Year, Zero Sympathy for Bad Presets

From Jon Lord's Hammond to Korg workstations, Nord sound design and a lifetime of live performances. Meet a programmer who knows exactly what happens when a beautiful sound meets a very loud guitarist.

Some keyboard players collect synthesizers. Others collect gigs.

Enrico Lorenzini seems determined to collect both.

And after more than three decades behind the keys, he's learned something that no amount of studio equipment can teach you: a spectacular preset means absolutely nothing if nobody can hear it once the band starts playing.

An inconvenient truth, particularly if you've just spent four hours programming the perfect pad.

Born in Bologna in 1975, Enrico is a keyboardist, producer, composer and sound programmer whose musical journey began with piano lessons and a fascination with two particularly dangerous things: Jon Lord's Hammond playing and the synthesizers of the 1970s.

A combination almost guaranteed to produce a lifelong obsession with keyboards.

And probably a serious shortage of storage space.

It Started With Jon Lord. Naturally.

In 1993, Enrico joined the progressive rock band Imago Animi, recording two demo tapes, Imago Animi and Chained to the Past. The band attracted attention from magazines including Metal Hammer and Metal Shock, selling more than a thousand copies across Europe.

Not bad for a young musician discovering that progressive rock could be both musically demanding and commercially rewarding.

After the band dissolved in 1997, Enrico co-founded Anthera, a cover band that still performs approximately 80 shows a year.

Eighty.

That's a lot of soundchecks, late-night drives and opportunities to discover that the patch which sounded enormous at home has mysteriously vanished behind the guitarist.

Meanwhile, his studio career developed in several directions. Under the names Nisii and Invaders, he explored pop, dance, ambient and electronic music, producing tracks for international DJs and collaborating with Lucio Dalla and his team on television and RAI soundtrack projects.

Then came ART, formed in 2014, with albums Planet Zero and Asylum and contributions from musicians including Ivano Zanotti, Stef Burns and Vince Pastano.

In 2023, Enrico added another chapter with LabX's progressive-fusion album Ikigai.

And somewhere along the way, he also worked with Gli Atroci, whom he cheerfully describes as "the greatest band of all time."

We admire that level of objectivity.

The Korg Love Affair (And a Few Other Relationships)

Enrico's first professional keyboard was a Korg T3.

That was the early 1990s. Since then, Korg has remained a permanent fixture in his live rig, from Trinity and Triton to OASYS, M3 and Kronos.

Initially, it was the generous display that won him over. Later, touchscreens made detailed editing and fast programming considerably more practical.

Anyone who has ever navigated seventeen submenus to adjust a filter envelope will understand the attraction.

But Enrico isn't particularly interested in brand loyalty for its own sake.

In the studio, Roland synthesizers handle warm, enveloping pop textures. Yamaha provides acoustic pianos, DX-style electric pianos and digital synthesis. Dave Smith and Sequential instruments bring genuine analog character.

And plugins?

Naturally. Plenty of them.

The important thing is understanding what each instrument does best rather than forcing one synthesizer to impersonate an entire music store.

A Great Sound Is One That Survives the Mix

This is where Enrico's approach to programming becomes particularly interesting for SynthCloud.

His soundbanks are built with a clear priority: live performance.

Powerful leads, rich textures and expressive layers are all welcome, but they need definition, controlled dynamics and enough presence to remain audible in a crowded arrangement.

That means making decisions about attack times, frequency balance, velocity response and modulation that go well beyond simply producing an impressive sound in headphones.

A lead with too much low-mid energy can become muddy. A spectacular pad can overwhelm the rest of the band. An excessively slow attack might make perfect sense in an ambient composition and absolutely none during a fast rock passage.

And sometimes the solution isn't another oscillator.

It's taking something away.

Enrico's programming work for platforms including Korg, Nord, Access Virus and Dave Smith/Sequential reflects that practical understanding.

On SynthCloud, his credited work includes the Super JD collection for Roland JD-XA, with 48 presets covering leads, pads, arpeggiators and other keyboard textures, and Synth Attack for Waldorf Blofeld, featuring 25 sounds that explore different sides of the instrument.

His programming is also represented in sound collections for the Access Virus family.

Different synthesis engines. Different sonic personalities. One underlying principle: a sound should be enjoyable to play, not merely impressive to demonstrate.

And preferably without requiring an emergency equalizer adjustment halfway through the second chorus.

The Stage Is the Best Laboratory

Enrico is currently working on ART's third album, developing new retrowave material as Invaders and continuing his busy live schedule with Anthera.

He's also completing two new sound packs: one for Nord Stage 3 and another for Nord Lead A1.

That combination of recording, programming and regular performing is particularly valuable.

A studio allows you to examine every detail of a sound. The stage tells you which details actually matter.

It's also why Enrico's experience as a beta tester for dB Technologies makes sense: evaluating stage monitors and PA systems demands a practical understanding of how sound behaves beyond the comfort of a perfectly controlled studio.

For SynthCloud, that experience is invaluable.

We don't simply want sounds that fill a room during a demonstration. We want sounds that become part of someone's performance, inspire new musical ideas and respond naturally to the person playing them.

Enrico's philosophy fits that ambition rather well.

He believes that every instrument has its own personality and that good programming should bring out what makes it distinctive.

A refreshingly musical idea in a world where almost everything is advertised as bigger, wider, fatter and more cinematic than everything else.

Sometimes, the cleverest thing a sound designer can do is know when enough is enough.

And as Enrico likes to remind us, music is the most beautiful magic in the world.

We couldn't agree more.

Although a perfectly programmed Hammond solo cutting through two distorted guitars comes pretty close.

Discover Enrico Lorenzini's sound libraries on SynthCloud.