Interview: Halina Rice on building immersive worlds
London-based composer, producer, and audio-visual artist Halina Rice has developed a unique space in electronic music, crafting performances that feel as much like art installations as live sets. By combining sound design, spatial audio, and striking visual environments, she invites audiences into her world, where music, light, and motion become one.
During ADE 2025, Novation content creator Vini Moreira caught up with Halina backstage at the iconic artistic venue, The Other Side, to talk through her creative process; and to witness firsthand how her vision translates into an immersive live performance.
Creating atmospheres
Halina’s approach to electronic music has always been about atmosphere and experience rather than conventional musical structures. She explained to Vini, “I break it down into lots of granular stems, and then working with the sound engineer here, we take the stems and using spatial audio software used in the venue, from L-Acoustics, we are able to place them around the space, or move them around the space, during the track. The venue has nineteen speakers in a 360-formation including four that are right above the audience, so this gives a really clear sound separation.” This method gives clarity to complex IDM-style tracks and transforms each set into a dynamic, immersive experience.
Where music meets visual design
Visuals are an essential component of Halina’s performances. She collaborates with a team of visual designers to ensure projections, lighting, and motion complement the music. LED lighting controlled via DMX is triggered directly from Ableton, enabling precise timing and responsive effects. Wireless, battery-powered Astera Titan lights add flexibility, allowing Halina to place them anywhere in the venue to enhance the spatial feel.
Her live set at The Other Side combined material from her recent album with brand-new pieces that push creative boundaries. Halina described her experimentation on the track Endless, using a piece of new rendering technique; 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS).
“We filmed a dancer, volumetrically, and then we took that information and filmed a little bit like that shot in The Matrix, but with live action. We're able to video her from 360 degrees.”
This holistic style of video capture is performed alongside Halina’s 360 spatial audio, uniquely created to extend the concept of immersion into the whole space. For Halina, performances are about transporting audiences into otherworldly environments, giving them a chance to experience music in a more visceral, physical way.
Mixing for immersive sound
At the core of her live shows is spatial audio mixing. Halina breaks tracks into stems and routes them through the venue’s system to position elements dynamically in space. Prior to her performance, Halina sets up synth parts to revolve around the room, while bass and kicks anchor the front. This level of separation and movement changes the audience’s perception, creating a feeling of immersion that the stereo field cannot match.
Ableton Live serves as both a production and performance tool, and Halina explains how she uses it:
“Initially, what I'm doing is creating tracks in stereo, and then stemming that, putting them into Session View in Ableton Live, where I can do a portion that's playback, and a portion where I'm selecting live instruments to play, or sample, in real time, over the top.”
This approach enables her to play pre-arranged material while improvising live with samples and instruments during the set. It keeps every performance fresh, and lets her respond to the audience, ensuring that no two shows are ever the same.
Tools of the trade
Among Halina’s instruments, Novation Peak plays a key role. Its hybrid synth engine enables her to craft both melodic leads and evolving textures, with hands-on controls for filters, oscillators, and effects. Halina shared her opinion on using Peak:
“Sometimes it's nice to use analogue gear rather than digital gear, because you have that real hands-on approach to altering the filters, and the delay units. You can also alter the reverb units, or the distortion area, and then obviously messing around with oscillators, so I've really enjoyed using the Novation Peak. It just opens up new opportunities for me to look at.”
Peak features prominently on her recent album Unreality, and has become central to her sound. Its versatility allows for both expressive melodic parts and experimental sound design, from shimmering pads to dynamic “whooshes” and layered textures. For Halina, Peak opens creative opportunities and keeps her live performances interactive and engaging.
Leaving audiences inspired
Ultimately, Halina Rice’s work is about transforming how people experience music. By combining sound, space, and visuals, she creates performances that feel architectural, cinematic, and deeply human.
“The Other Side has just been a fantastic place to do that, because they have an immersive sound system. They're also a fantastic team, who are always just trying so hard to help the artists realise their vision,” she says, reflecting on the collaborative aspect of her work.
For aspiring audio-visual artists, Halina’s approach demonstrates the power of combining technical skill with creative vision. Tools like Peak make experimentation accessible to everyone. Halina’s motivation is to create immersive events that feel like living, ghostly objects, where sound and vision combine to alter perception. By fusing the two, she creates multi-sensory environments that encourage audiences to step out of the everyday, and experience music in a new way.
Find out more about Halina
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Photo credits: Michal Augustini