Cornerman

Sampling, an art form.

One of my favorite instruments is a sampler, ever since I watched music documentaries like lola da musica and read magazines with studio pictures in them I was drawn to these magical boxes which could record sound and then be worked into a completely different sound altogether. And make tracks with those sampled sounds.

Sampling is an art form in and of itself, finding samples or making your own as is more common nowadays is a real cool expression of someones insight into music. From the early days of making collages out of existing materials and making it your own with deconstruction and rebuilding out of existing materials has been a legitimate art form. The things you can do with sampling from an artistic perspective are endless. Everyone hears and feels something different and will go into a different direction with the same sample. It’s really intriguing.

Albums like Endtroducing by Dj Shadow is one of the most well known examples of sample based music (all done on an MPC 3000), but most electronic music and hip hop would not exist without samplers. For some reason, and this might be just a collection of nostalgic reasons, music from the late 80’s and early 90’s has some qualities which I attribute to the samplers and more specific the limitations of gear in those days. Maybe it’s the less boxed in way of thinking about genres or simply the case of “If it sounds good, it is good”.

Some of my favorite tunes made possible by sampling, many more can be added but that would make this blog extremely long ;-). So 2 well known examples.

Roger Sanchez – Another change

Dj Shadow – Stem (Cops & Robbers remix)

A lot of these devices are unaffordable these days, things like the Akai MPC 3000 & Emu sp1200, and the Akai S950 are commanding crazy prices. There are some very nice and in my opinion overlooked samplers which can be bought for less money, like the Emu ESI 4000 or the Akai S3000. Even the MPC 2000XL can be found a little bit more affordable. Question is, would you go down the route of these vintage tools or not?

Some cool documentaries

First off some inspiration which could sway you to go the hardware sampling route. Whether that be old school samplers or newer ones. Here is some cool documentary stuff which got me inspired, and still gets me inspired these days. Pretty old stuff from the nineties and some newer things as well.

Rogers Sanchez on making another change

Lola da musica (dutch) Drum & Bass

Lola da music sampling (dutch)

My sampling adventures

At that stage in my life these devices costs more than a couple of months of wages so these were out of reach. Stuff for future dreams.

One of the most intriguing samplers was the MPC, made by Akai. A lot of great music had been made with these. It’s a staple in many studio ever since its inception. What was so great about it, to me, that it was all about beats, rhythms and structures. This had a large pull for me and many years later I bought my first MPC, a 2000XL. By then hardware sampling had fallen to the wayside in favor of sampling with the computer. So this MPC was rather cheap at the time. And I loved it, then it died and I replaced it with another one.

Work & life got in the way and I didn’t have enough time to dedicate to music making so unfortunately I sold it. But it has always held a big place in my inspiration and I always missed it, even just looking at it gave me an urge to make music. The period after these last of the old school samplers died out and all the focus shifted to software in the industry I always looked at it as a missed opportunity. Akai kept developing the MPC’s with mixed success, the MPC-1000 was a nice one, the MPC-4000 was a bit of a miss. Both great machines to be fair. Just overlooked I think.

The last decade has seen the return of hardware sampling in many forms, mostly led by beat oriented devices, such as the Elektron Octratrack, Digitakt, things like the OP-1 (Field), Tracker based stuff like the Polyend, the M8 and so on.

There is a lot to be said for these devices. As you can create whole tracks with just the one device and some sound sources. Which can be as easy as recording stuff on your phone. Looking back at my days with the MPC 2000XL it was time to get a more modern version out of storage, in an effort to further simplify my setup.

Modern MPC’s

The current MPC line up is pretty much a DAW in a box. It’s much more powerful than the old MPC’s which has its downside as you can fall into the wormhole of possibilities just as with a DAW. For me I worked around this by only focussing on sampling sounds from my small Eurorack case and trying to create some grooves with it. Setting limits that way. Nevertheless the MPC one, which I use, is a lot of bang for your buck. Whether it’s a MPC in the classical sense is up for debate. And with the new 3.0 software approaching this debate is pretty heated at the moment.

But I am a firm believer of making a device your own in such a way it fits your workflow and with a machine which has these capabilities this is possible. Might not be for everyone, but there are lot’s of alternatives out there.

I love the new line of MPC’s, especially the one with it’s attractive price point and all the options, it even has CV/gate outs, always a nice feature if you have a modular or any other synth with CV/gate.

My current approach & future ideas.

My workflow is pretty simple, the MPC is there for sampling and editing sounds from the modular, then I make a program filled with the samples from one session. Which gives it an instant coherent sound and vibe, then I make some basic sequences and see what I can get out of it.

All pretty basic, but for now that’s just what I need, for the future the MPC will function as a hub between the MAX map world and the modular, but I haven’t completely worked this out yet.

This was a good week music wise. Hopefully I can continue this week.

Research, into everything, fueling the creative process

Past week has not seen any musical activity, apart from some patches without sound. As I needed a recovery week after a pretty busy week traveling, visiting cities and social interaction. Which always takes a toll on my cognitive energy levels. That is just how it works when you have permanent brain damage.

It’s all worth it, being among friends, family and visiting cool places and soaking in art. All the while trying and stretching my limits a bit. That part of the equation did not go as planned. So this week I had to dial down on some activities like making music in order to recover as quickly as possible.

One of the things I try not to do, is break the chain. Or in other words, I need to stay active in my music making process or creative process on a regular basis. As I have mentioned before, there is no point in going all out for a couple of weeks and then not do anything again for months. That is not how you build habits and get better at anything.

So I have devised a few other activities which I can do and are related to making music and or the creative process in general. One of the things is research.

Applying research to the creative process

What do I mean by research? Well I don’t mean it in the scientific sense. But rather finding books, gear, interesting topics that can spark ideas. This week I have been thinking about design in a broad sense. Architecture, beautifully written code, visuals, and so on.

So I just started out writing some search options, and see where I end up. I love all sorts of mathematical things, most of them go way above my comprehension but there is something beautiful about it. While searching I stumbled upon the book, The nature of code , interesting and added it to my reading list.

While looking around the internet for visuals I found Generative Art. Going further I got into the wormhole of visuals and coding I reconnected with a long term interest in live coding of music, among others there is the coding language Tidal Cycles. Which I watched some video’s on.

Another interesting book on music & coding is Fundamentals of Music Processing.

What do I do with this?

So while we all browse the internet on a daily basis and find cool stuff, it’s hard to do and try everything we see, as there is simply too much. I always get inspired by simple seeing all the stuff people do with all the things out there. And even by just going tru the index of a book I get triggered for new ideas which I can apply to my own set of tools.

It always sparks an idea and an approach which I haven’t thought of or something I can try with my own setup.

I am in no way inclined to start learning something totally new like live coding when I am just getting my head around Max MSP for example. But in all these resources there are pathways you can apply to your own creative process or way of thinking about your workflow. And the most important thing. It keeps my process going even if I don’t have the energy to work on the ‘core’ which is making music.

A new week, learning more Max MSP, Art.

This week I have been learning about Max MSP, especially how to record the audio into Ableton, and work on finishing tracks from within Ableton. This was my small task this week, get sound into Ableton from Max MSP. Using Ableton as a recorder and being able to set some things up within Ableton, like EQ, compression and other bits. I could have just recorded directly onto Harddisk from within Max, but my future system is one where I would like to include Ableton.

The goal of the patch. Record audio from Max into Ableton, 1 track for now but if one works I can easily extend it into 4 or 8, or any other number.

For sound generation I am building a noise source into a simple reverb and a distortion, nothing fancy but just a fun little thing to produce sounds. These are not finished yet, I am miles away from being fluent in Max. It’s really fun however and a never-ending flurry of ideas pops up when coding in Max.

Other things this week, mostly art.

Most of the week I have been absorbing art and traveling, reading books and taking notes. I went to the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, went to see the exhibition “True Colors”, part of the collection of Akzo Nobel, a chemical company which has a department collecting art. A lot of companies do this, as part of their social responsibility programs and to brighten up offices. Luckily we now get to see some of it.

Most of it is modern art and there were a lot of cool pieces on display, recommended. This was after last weekends visit to the NRW-forum in Dusseldorf for die Grosse. Also modern art.

The kunstmuseum is pretty large and they have a lot of Mondriaan as well and they had the exhibition about Mondriaan & de Stijl, the latter being a group of artists, architects and others forming a loosely formed collective discussing the modern arts and writing essays on it, making art and making sure it was published. As per usual the women in the group and close to the group where the driving forces behind the succes. Great to see that they get to be more in the spotlight, well deserved and way too late at the same time.

Everything I have seen lately has led to a large set of ideas, and I just love being in musea, it’s quiet, most of the times, especially during the week. It’s nicely lit. There is beautiful art. What more can you wish for. Not much. A great week all round. Not much music making, but being in the creative process in other ways.

Inspiration, where to get it and making sure you don’t forget it.

Besides the consistency of working on your craft, inspiration is another very important factor. Whatever your craft is, art, music or professions with a creative side to it, inspiration can help a long way in staying active and focussed.
Inspiration is the fuel to keep the consistent process going. For me at least.

It’s just like any other form of training, there will be moments of difficulty, pain and discomfort. It’s all part of growing and sharpening your skills. Balance & rest is important to integrate, as your brain needs time to process and ingrain the result of your constant work. I plan deliberate rest moment, and make sure I plan short visits and trips to cities, exhibitions which I know will spark

This is how I keep my energy levels up and find new energy and ideas for the future.

My week & finding inspiration

This week I have worked mainly on learning Max MSP and I have been going outside in search of inspiration and ideas. Walking around a city and visiting musea does the trick. I try and look at things in detail and allow all sorts of random encounters. Step into buildings I don’t know, visit exhibitions which I want to see or stumble upon. And simply walking round a city and look at loads of things.

But how do I make sure I know what inspired me and why, the feeling I got when watching a piece of art or seeing something cool while walking. I used to rely on my memory and tried and record it once I got home, but I soon realized I could not recall my feelings and what exactly inspired me or what idea a piece of art evoked.

Documenting the inspiration & ideas

I started out taking quick pictures with my phone and a note in my phone for writing down quick short sentences and ideas. Which I then forgot to bundle and be more specific. I worked on documenting the inspiration & a simple template to make it easier to recall the feeling and ideas I had when being struck with inspiration. Without having to scroll trough loads of digital notes and pictures and then try and remember everything.

It’s pretty easy and it’s instinctively applicable for me. It suits my needs very well.

I take pictures, on my phone or camera and mark them if possible, and notate the place, date and title or description of the artwork (if there was an artwork) or other object so I can find the related pictures. I add a few keywords that give a good description of what the inspiration was. I stick to 4 keywords. Which helps when I search for things later on.

I write a short story about the moment, the inspiration and the surroundings. If I have an idea on the spot or later on I also make sure to write it in my notes.

As a template this would look like this:

- Date
- Time
- Place
- Title
- Title of the artwork (if there is any)
- Pictures
- keywords
- Short Story
- Idea it sparked (if any)

I prefer writing in a notebook, and I use notebooks where I can easily add page numbers and so on, I also give my notebooks a number and a name.

for searching into these notes I notate the keywords, the notebook number, and the page numbers into a simple excel sheet. So I can always find the ideas.

Why is it important to me? Well it’s a big part of playing around and putting myself into situations and places which can spark any form of inspiration and ideas. Which leads to a backlog of things I can develop further. There is no pressure when simply walking around and looking at things. It also develops my knowledge of art and architecture in a simple and effortless way. It’s a way to take a brake without breaking the creative consistency when I can’t work on my skills or need a break. It’s an alternative way to be creative without the sole focus on music.

It’s also important to make it a habit, getting outside and reconnect with art and life which for me, is the energy for my creative process. In my process there is always room for finding inspiration, this doesn’t have to mean I go outside, it can also mean just picking up an art book, reading a biography or flicking trough photo books. But I prefer going outside.

By making this a fixture in my creative process I keep engaged with the outside world and have an alternative whenever I can’t work on music specifically. This way I keep working on my creative process and keep the consistency going.

Eurorack patching adventures

Last week was all about the new proces. The idea was I make a patch on my eurorack, record it, make samples and make a track out of it. I already encountered some time difficulties getting all this work done in a week. So I let go of the fixed time table and started at the first item on the task list.

Patching the Eurorack synth, it’s a pretty basic setup, think of a single voice mono synth with some extra modulation. The great thing about Eurorack, or any other like-minded system like Max MSP, Reaktor or VCV is that you can construct your own path of sound & functions. This is a double edged sword as it can lead to just patching and nothing further. Which is always a dangerous thing with me, being limited in time.

It’s also a way to escape the limitations in processing sound by my brain, I can patch without sound and audition the results later. Perfect for me. So while time flies when patching, it’s a great way for me to learn more about developing sounds, signal flow and other sound designing stuff without over extending myself.

The second part of the week was spent learning max map further and reading about design in general. Which is always interesting. Max MSP has a high threshold for me in getting fluent with it so it will take time mastering it to a degree I can write ideas without spending time in books and manuals but its fun and has the added benefit of not having to have sound on all the time.

All in all a good week spending time doing music and music related things. Looking forward to next (technically this week as I am a bit late writing this blog) week.

First week with the small setup & new process focussed mindset

Working with my small setup has advantages, After spending a week working with it on a consistent basis. It’s easier to get going and I am far less distracted. My first idea was to work on a patch for a few days, then record loops and then finish a track, all within a week and build a catalog of work that way.

This timeline was a bit over enthusiastic, as I am with a lot of my planning. But given the focus and shift from goals towards the process of working on my skills, I am still happy with my progress this week.

I have also build in a learning and education bit into the process. So I am studying Max MSP again. Which is great fun and pretty difficult. But it’s very promising as I have tons of ideas already for merging Eurorack with Max MSP and building a set of tools for it.

I need to focus on the proces first. And not jump on and trying to get all these ideas out as fast as possible. I have to leave the pressure out of the equation.

I do pencil my ideas down in my notebooks, and work on them by working them out in the notebooks. So I keep working on ideas while doing the work. It easy to dream away and imagine great goals ahead and try to reach them as fast as possible and burn yourself out. It’s hard to focus on the small incremental gains and work on your skillset. At least for me.

Showing up is half the work, or battle. But it’s hard and not easy at all. At least for me. Just twiddling knobs and enjoying the hobby is nice, but doesn’t get me towards my goals. There is playtime reserved into the process, don’t worry there is fun to be had. But I also need to choose the harder path. In the end it will be more fore filling and rewarding.

Let’s see what this week brings.

Simple creative tasks, consistent.

Last week In talked about simplifying my setup and designing a proces to be more consistent. This article is more about the proces and why it works. While I am learning to use my music gear I have also set some small tasks to keep things interesting and work on finishing stuff. I do well when I set goals for myself. My biggest flaw in setting these goals in making them way too big. Where my goals far outstripped my skillset.

So I have decided to simplify my goals, or rather just make tasks out of them. so for each week I have set the following goals. With my simple set-up, I will try and finish these tasks every week. You can’t really call the results tracks maybe, but I will try my best to keep it as interesting as possible. within the parameters I have set for myself.

The main goal is learning to be fluent with my simple setup and be able to work on ideas at a faster pace. Science shows that in order to keep yourself engaged the things you need to do to make progress is to have a difficulty sweet spot. If something is too easy, you will disengage. If it’s too hard, you will also disengage. It’s human nature. There is a side note to this, more on that later.

Creating habits is all about doing something consistently and keep doing it. To be better at making music, I need to be making music. Taking into account it should not be too easy or too hard my tasks should be just about doable.

So I will learn and keep having fun and feel excited. Everyone has big goals, but if it’s way too hard we can’t form the habits necessary for achieving them. Last week an already shared some idea around a set of steps to achieve this.

Here is my slightly refined taks list.

1. Create a patch on my small eurorack setup
2. Record loops while playing the patch
3. Take a maximum of 8 loops in the Ableton template.
4. Arrange and finish the recordings.
5. Publish the results.

By sharing them I have also set a nice little reminder for myself to publish things consistently, so people can give me feedback and get over my fear of sharing my musical experiments.

The side note is that every process has boring parts that are necessary to get better. So this means we also need some tolerance for boredom. So if something gets boring at any stage, we tend to go and look for something exciting and new.

The key difference in being successful in getting better at your skill and creating habits is that you embrace the boredom which ultimately creeps into everything. Some stuff just needs doing. No matter what. It’s all part of the process. People who succeed in showing up when feeling bored, or tired or any state that doesn’t fill you with enthusiasm to go to work, people who still show up, succeed.

It’s a bit of a balancing act, creating habits and paving the way towards your goal and being able to consistently work on your goals. The mantra “Don’t break the chain” is a simple way to remind yourself to stick to the plan. If you don’t feel like doing music, go to the gym or any other task you planned. Just remind yourself and repeat this mantra a few times to yourself. It will help to reaffirm your commitment to the proces, and the habit you are developing and maintaining.

Last but not least, we also need to evaluate, learn and make things a bit harder again at some point. So we can work on improvement with some new challenges.

Consistency has helped me with achieving other goals in life, so now it’s time to make it work for my musical journey.

A simple setup, more focus

Some time ago I have decided to take a smaller set of instruments to make my music with. The bigger the setup, the more problems I have making decisions. It might be fun to know what I have chosen to work with. First choice, an old samper, the Emu ESI 4000. Floppy disks operated. Who still knows what these things are?

A drummachine, The under appreciated Elektron Machine drum and a small selection of eurorack modules and a sequencer. The eurorack is basically a single voice mono synth and a reverb.

To record and arrange everything I have made an Ableton template with 8 tracks with some effects, which I will not change. This gives me some sound design options after recording.

The simple idea is, I design a patch, make loops in the sampler, record them in Ableton and divide them over a maximum of 8 tracks. Then I will try and make something interesting with it. I will take a fixed amount of days to try and make a track out of it. Whether it is a finished product or not, I will publish the result.

That last thing might seen a bit strange, but if I don’t publish it, I will not get used to sharing things. When I write a blog I have no problem of hitting the publish button. I might get over my fear of sharing my music this wat.

Quantity over quality

One of the things I doubt is the quality of my creative output. Whether it’s my writing, my pictures or my writing skills, I often have doubts about the quality of the work. Especially with my music, and the main reason I almost never share anything.

I really want to change this. I strive for perfection in everything and while pursuing perfection I often trow away ideas or keep tweaking to find it. For some reason I am more easy going in other areas, like writing. Probably because I feel I am somewhat better at it which makes it easier for me to share.

Society teaches us that everything must be ‘perfect’, what this ‘perfect’ is nobody tells you. And while striving for perfection a lot of good ideas are lost and the art of experimentation is lost.

Science teaches us something else. If you want to be good at something, you need to practice a lot. You increase your skills by doing and while doing you learn from your mistakes. By sharing your work you give others the opportunity to give feedback, which is another opportunity to learn.

In Japan it’s very normal to accept the beauty of imperfection, wabi-sabi, the acceptance and transience of imperfection. In art it’s often described as ‘imperfect beauty’ or ‘flawed beauty’ it emphasizes the process of making a piece of art resulting in an art piece that is ultimately incomplete.

We don’t have this in western cultures, which is a real shame. Our need for perfection puts the break on our output. Or as Voltaire said it “the best is the enemy of the good”. Things don’t have to be perfect. In life and especially in all forms of creative output perfection is a debatable concept.

So why do I struggle so much with sharing my music? I think it is because music is very valuable to me. I have so much great memories attached to music. and music has gotten me through some hard times that all my musical output seems pale in comparison, will it ever be good enough to evoke any emotion?

This sounds a bit heavy but that’s how I feel about it. I need to let this feeling go and start sharing my creations. Even if it’s just a loop or an unfinished piece of music. Striving for perfection is something I need to let go and focus on improving by making a lot of stuff. Quantity over quality, in order to improve my skills and let go of my fear of sharing. The quality will come over time.

Consistency is key, don’t keep focussing on goals.

Music making is an art, and behind any great art there is a lot of skill. So instead of focussing on the art and my goals I have to focus on developing my skills. Whether it be mastering an instrument of choice or knowing how to operate any part of the music making process.

Having goal is something I need, and while I am excellent at making a plan and working towards this goal, my lack of focus on my musical skillsets has set me back in achieving these goals.

I forgot how important it is to be fluent at something. I have always compared my music making process with developing solutions, whether it be in software or writing a proposal or technical design for something.

All the while forgetting the amount of time spent doing it and improving my skills by simply doing it. Not having any big goals. When I started out learning how to program, I just spent hours trying to get something to work. At some point writing becomes second nature and when you have come up with the solution to a problem. Writing about the solution and creating the end product become much easier.

Most of the time spent isn’t learning a language, but finding the right path towards a solution.

My music making process should be the same, I have an idea and figure out which of the tools I need, or just fire up some instruments and simply start writing anything. And see what comes out of it. Which I do for fun as well with programming or anything else. Just doing it to get something going.

The problem I face with my musical endeavors is that I don’t nearly have as much hours of doing music as I have done with any of my other skills.

So it’s time to start and simply work on learning the skill of making music without any goals directly in mind. Not forcing the focus on my goals but focus on getting better. consistency is the name of the game, with anything but especially with learning a new skill. So I will just focus on constant work.

Just like I did with everything else. Just did not know it at the time.