Starting Points

Finishing a project is a good time to reflect and contemplate next moves and ways forward!

I find that finishing a project can be a good opportunity to take a step back and reflect upon the process and maybe even change a few things around! What is and isn’t working? Do I want to continue in a similar way or move forward with something different?

I’ve just released an album of ambient music called Brittle Fractures and in my release notes for the album I mentioned that I’ve been having some trouble finishing work. In the broadest terms I work by recording live “jams” of all sorts of music gear. The main problem I have is finding enough time to edit those recordings and add in extra instrumentation, effects and processing to get to finished pieces. So I end up with a lot of “work in progress”.

And that is fine, it’s a very common way to make music. It can take time to collect and distill down all the necessary elements. Some tracks come together very quickly, some mature slowly over time. You just have to listen to Song Exploder to hear how long and complex things can get for some musicians!

But I’d also like to be able to work in a more immediate, performative way. Not necessarily in order to play gigs, although I might consider trying some live streams if I ever get to that point! But more to have a similar experience to a live performance of creating something more complete and listenable in the moment during my studio music making. I’m not saying I want to create everything from scratch every time, just move towards that idea. This would also be a good solution to the problem of finishing music.

And I’ve been trying to do this for many years but with only limited success!

So what can I do differently to help with these goals?

Consistency

At the moment I tend to use a lot of different setups. I’m always changing things around, using whatever I can get my hands on! Some things I use are borrowed and recently I’ve also been sent a few things by manufacturers to use on YouTube. 🙌 So I’m often working with particular devices or setups for videos or because I only have them for a limited time.

And this is a lot of fun, and I will be continuing to work in this way, but it isn’t conducive to that deeper “playability” that comes from the use of a more constant arrangement over time — practising!

So I should have a more consistent setup alongside the experimental ones. Something more stable that’s always available to work on and practise with.

And to be fair I have been working towards this for a few years now and I do have a pretty solid core set of equipment that I come back to but it’s tricky because I’m always pulling it apart to do other stuff. I don’t have duplicates of anything, so there is always going to be a certain amount of re-connecting required. But I can definitely think about ways to make this easier by simplifying the setup, the wiring, making templates and presets and learning how to use things better!

Simplicity

I’m guilty of over complicating things to keep my options open, trying to build something that can do everything! A “super setup” that includes everything I have! Good for ambient, for modular, for drones, for techno even!

It’s a valid idea to try and do this but I’ve found that the reality doesn’t usually work that well for me because as well as being hard to keep intact, having too many options available is often overwhelming.

So in order to move towards a more “performance” based workflow I probably need to limit my options as well. Enough for versatility but no more!

Limitations

I could use multiple setups. I like the way Hainbach handles this with his “Islands”, having multiple setups based around different types of gear and styles. I don’t quite have the gear or the space for that just yet but I could perhaps manage to have two — an electro-acoustic/synth setup based around looping and a separate modular setup based around droning and/or sequencing rather than trying to combine them, however powerful that could potentially be!

So I think I will give this a go as well.

In the end it’s an ongoing process with no end, but it’s good to have a way forward, try new things and improve existing ones, with specific goals in mind.

Now and Next

This is what is currently working for me and the next improvements I could make:

• Electro-acoustic sound sources — electric guitar, acoustic guitar, occasionally violin and a range of “sound objects” via a mic. This is a key element of my work that I love, but it remains very under-developed. I mainly use my electric guitar as my sound source because I don’t have to get involved with mics! I would eventually like to expand my options with more pickup based instruments like the SOMA DVINA! But I also need to spend time working with my different mics learning the best ways to use a broader range of sound sources.

• Looping (mainly asynchronous but not always!) — the Boss RC-600 is tricky to use but it’s the best solution I’ve found so far for a versatile multi-track looping solution. I could work on building better presets for the RC-600 that have different combinations of loop synchronicity and length so I could more easily switch between them, which would make starting quicker, and I also need to investigate MIDI links with my effects pedals for timing possibilities. The RC-600 can send out a clock based upon the length of the loop you record which could be really useful.

• Synths — I love having a hardware synth available. I currently use my MicroFreak which is a very creative little synth and has become an important element in my work. I need to learn the MicroFreak sequencer better to see if l can easily create simple sequences “on the fly” or possibly get a small sequencer or different synth with a sequencer. I could loop the synth with the RC-600 but then you lose all the live modulation and sound tweaking possibilities of the synth. Eventually I would like have a small collection of other hardware synths — my current favourite GAS candidates are the SOMA LYRA-8 (brutal drone madness!) and the upcoming Korg Berlin Phase 8 (this looks so interesting — an electro-acoustic synth!) both of which will be out of reach for quite some time yet!

• Quality granular, delay and reverb effects — I currently have a Microcosm, Chroma Console and a ZOIA and I’m very happy with these, they are incredibly powerful and I have only just scratched the surface of what they can do so more learning is required with all of them. And there are of course many many other interesting pedals I would like to try!

• Multi-track USB mixer/interface — I like having multi-track USB setups that I can record directly in Ableton as often my work is not repeatable so the ability to remix in post saves a lot of recordings that would be lost by a stereo mixdown. I’m using the Tascam Model 12 which is a great mixer but the sends are too limited for the hardware effects setup I want so I’m looking to change this soon.

• Modular — All the modular gear I have is on extended loan from my good friend D1G, and I’m still very much a beginner. I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far and even released an album, Modular One. As I mentioned above I’m going to split it out into its own thing and try and make a more permanent system that is wired for drones and/or minimal rhythmic work.

So these are my starting points for moving forward with my current setup. It’s a good plan but I also need to make sure that I schedule in enough dedicated “studio development” time or nothing will ever get done! So let’s check back here when I’ve finished my next project and see how much progress I’ve made!

I hope my musical meanderings are of interest to you. Please share your thoughts about all this and your own working process and solutions in the comments, it’s good to chat!

Speak to you soon! 🙏