Checo Cadena
Portfolio
Singer-songwriter, sound artist and creative technologist, New York.
CH 01 / 08 · Robotics & control · Computer Control Engineer · 2023 – now
Amorphic Robot Works
I run the audio and control tech behind Chico MacMurtrie's inflatable and robotic sculptures — and play the robots live.
- Now
- Ableton sequences over Modbus, driving 220V three-phase motors in a permanent installation
- Dual Pneuma
- Computer control and the score: visitor sensors → Arduino → Max → my Ableton sequences
- Perform
- Play the robots live in shows at the Robotic Church, the studio's Brooklyn home
CH 02 / 08 · Installation · Aerial Entertainment · 2026
ONE/EIGHT iPod Nano
A 7-foot interactive iPod Nano built as a walk-up activation for a K-pop brand campaign.
- My role
- Designed and built it
- Shown
- Racket NYC, then reused at a Bebe Rexha show
- Inside
- Portrait display, a full-size click wheel on an optical encoder, and a custom iPod interface on a Raspberry Pi
CH 03 / 08 · Performance · NYU thesis · 2024
Liberation Through Amplification
A 30-minute live suite of my music, mixed in real time across a 50-speaker Dolby Atmos array.
- My role
- Composer, performer, spatial mix
- Spatial
- Pre-arranged spatial automation blended with live improvisation
- Tools
- Hexaphonic guitar, Ableton Live, Dolby Atmos, poetry projected on four walls
CH 04 / 08 · EP · Checo Cadena · 2025
Superstar
My English-language rock EP about moving to New York from Monterrey. More than 90,000 streams.
- Sound
- Gritty rock with layered harmonies, psychedelic pop, and a ukulele-led closer
- Released
- January 2025
- Credits
- Me as the artist; produced by Flip, from Monterrey
CH 05 / 08 · Film score · Kinorama Pictures · 2024
Vida
A 15-minute sci-fi short about a servant robot learning to live with free will. I composed the score.
- Tools
- Serge modular, hardware synths, Ableton Live
- Festivals
- Winner at FICIMAD, honorable mention at Sci-On, official selection at LA Shorts
CH 06 / 08 · Website · Client · 2026
Frances Willow
A storybook website for an NYC-based artist and producer: a 3D weeping willow on a hill of wind-blown grass, with a boombox you click to play her music.
- My role
- Design, development, sound design
- Scene
- Fixed-camera three.js: willow, cursor-reactive grass, fireflies, a sky that follows the real time of day
- Sound
- Tracks through a Web Audio EQ and tape chain; wind, birds, crickets and an owl synthesized live
CH 07 / 08 · Plugin · C++ and JUCE · 2026
CV Fuzz
A fuzz plugin and interactive resume: a C++ model of the fuzz pedal I built on an NYU grant. Each knob shapes the sound and opens a different part of my CV.
- Signal
- Up to +35.7 dB of drive into an asymmetric clipper, 4x oversampled with anti-aliasing filters
- Controls
- Bias starves the stage for gated sputter, Tone sweeps 500 Hz to 6 kHz, a DC blocker cleans up
- Interface
- A web page running inside the plugin through JUCE 8's WebView, bound to the real C++ parameters
CH 08 / 08 · Web pieces & installation · NYU and personal
Experiments
Three smaller pieces: a musical physics toy, a browser game about internet guilt, and a working phone sealed in concrete.
- FORMS
- Wireframe shapes bounce in a cube and play a note every time they hit a wall
- Cyber Prophet
- An AI prophet reads out your internet sins, then makes you run from cyber-hell
- Immobile Phone
- A working iPhone in concrete, with a live Instagram account for visitors