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end

3:45

Yes, indeed. Today I Today

3:47

I present a

3:50

conversation with none

3:52

other than Robert Henker.

3:54

You may may know

3:57

Robert Henker as

3:59

Mona Lake is a Lake

4:01

is a musical

4:03

project that started

4:06

with and Gerhard. I hope

4:08

I'm pronouncing your surname right Mr.

4:10

Gerhard. Who made beautiful and interesting

4:13

electronic music and continue to do

4:15

so. Robert. Actually, I should be

4:17

clear, is the solo person in

4:19

Mono Lake now, because Gearhard got

4:22

really busy with this other project

4:24

that these two are known for.

4:26

And that project is a piece

4:29

of software that I'm using this

4:31

very second to record this. It's

4:33

called Ableton Live. It's probably the

4:35

most used DAW, and certainly I

4:38

would argue in many respects the

4:40

most creative and bare! I can't

4:42

say interesting because all the AWEs

4:44

are interesting and it's all just

4:47

a question of what you put

4:49

into it. But Ableston Live has

4:51

become for many people the premier

4:54

way of conduiting their creativity. It's

4:56

how so many people make music

4:58

now. That, however, is not the

5:00

end of the story because tellingly

5:03

Robert uses a great deal of

5:05

hardware. I say great deal. Actually,

5:07

I mean, Robert would say, as

5:10

he says in here, that he's

5:12

kind of pared things down in

5:14

many respects, but he has got

5:16

amazing taste. He's got some really

5:19

interesting bits of kit that concern

5:21

this podcast, namely things like the

5:23

Sinclair Sinclair Sinclair. And in this

5:26

conversation, I wanted... to basically needle

5:28

someone who has so significantly blended

5:30

the world of hardware and software.

5:32

If you try to record hardware

5:35

and to blend the two together,

5:37

I think it's hard to do

5:39

well. I think it's too easy

5:41

to fix it on any one

5:44

particular thing. I find that when

5:46

I stare at the computer, it

5:48

has its own sort of influence

5:51

upon me, and when I limit

5:53

myself to a simple selection of

5:55

hardware, obviously, that then also imposes

5:57

its own limitations on it. The

6:00

The ability to just endlessly

6:02

add layer things up things up in

6:05

this tape tape machine is able to

6:07

live is both the both the greatest

6:09

thing in the world and

6:11

also a colossal and vast

6:13

trap. in this in this conversation

6:15

I had the opportunity to

6:18

ask Robert, a person who

6:20

is partially responsible for the

6:22

invention of Ableton Live, for

6:24

him and Gerhard created Ableton Live as a tool

6:26

that a tool that they

6:28

needed to help play has now

6:31

from it has now evolved

6:33

into this thing that millions

6:35

of people for as their vehicle

6:37

for producing music. So

6:39

this is a really interesting conversation

6:41

with someone who is basically responsible

6:43

for one of the most significant

6:46

pieces of music technology technology. of

6:48

all time but is is also

6:50

a person trying to use

6:52

it in his own way

6:54

to blend hardware and software together. It's a

6:56

really really interesting chat and

6:58

I hope that you I get

7:00

a lot from it. a lot

7:02

am it. I ever deeply indebted to

7:05

the beautiful people who consider

7:07

sponsoring Why We why we Patreon

7:09

and if you're enjoying Why

7:11

We Bleep please do consider sponsoring

7:13

on Patreon, it on .com forward

7:15

slash/mylion you can sponsor for

7:17

a paltry amount of paltry help

7:19

fund future future podcasts videos. So So

7:21

you are enjoying these please

7:23

consider hopping on there. I

7:26

would love I greatly you you

7:28

did. if you did. Without further ado let's

7:30

talk talk to Robert Hanker. of monarch

7:32

and ableton fine. Thanks. Talk

7:56

to you to you

7:58

about studios Obviously

8:00

got got I love the like

8:03

blurbs that that you've

8:05

got. with the new album,

8:07

which is, you know, about studios.

8:09

The whole thing of the, like,

8:12

being your sort of happy place,

8:14

your home, your cradle. But they,

8:16

as you well know, and not

8:19

that, like, Rome is not built

8:21

in a day. You will likely

8:23

go through many iterations throughout your

8:26

life as you find a good

8:28

way of working. And so I

8:30

guess, like, my first thing, I

8:32

would love to just pick your

8:35

brains about the studios you've had.

8:37

Like, particularly tell me about your

8:39

spaces you arrange it and then

8:42

can you tell me about how

8:44

it has evolved you know from

8:46

your first first spaces to now

8:49

what do you how do you

8:51

like to do it and what

8:53

do you give yourself what you

8:55

put around yourself I I had

8:58

a face where I thought I

9:00

can do everything in software of

9:02

course this was not a coincidence

9:05

a little bit after the first

9:07

version of life came out where

9:09

I thought, okay, I can get

9:12

rid of all these machines and

9:14

I can use a laptop and

9:16

headphones and this is my portable

9:18

paradise. And whilst it worked in

9:21

theory, I have to admit that

9:23

my engineer Soul kind of loves

9:25

machines and I get inspiration from

9:28

being surrounded by machines. and I

9:30

get some joy out of them.

9:32

It's like if you're sitting in

9:35

front of a beautiful old grand

9:37

piano, it makes you want to

9:39

make music. And I have a

9:41

similar feeling when I'm in my

9:44

studio and there's machines that I

9:46

really like. They suggest something to

9:48

me and they suggest a sound,

9:51

they suggest an expression and this

9:53

dialogue between the machines. in a

9:55

way also with the people who

9:58

built those machines in the first

10:00

place. For me is... kind of

10:02

it's joyful and it's playful and

10:04

yeah this is important for me

10:07

so after this short period of

10:09

having just a laptop in my

10:11

living room where I then added

10:14

one keyboard and then added another

10:16

keyboard and then there needed to

10:18

be an external effects unit and

10:21

a mixer and I suddenly realized

10:23

myself that I'm slowly rebuilding a

10:25

studio in my living room and

10:27

then I thought wait a moment

10:30

this is somehow the wrong approach

10:32

So I went back to find

10:34

a dedicated room and that's where

10:37

I am now. Can you tell

10:39

me about the layout and kind

10:41

of how you've, you know, for

10:44

those who can't see you, you

10:46

know, you've got like shelving and

10:48

you've got like effects and things

10:50

on a second shelf and stuff

10:53

below it, you have a sort

10:55

of quite a workshop vibe. See,

10:57

the centrepiece of my studio is

11:00

the big screen. So my main

11:02

listening position is not the mixing

11:04

desk but the big screen. I'm

11:07

too much a software person for

11:09

having the big mixing desk in

11:11

front of the speakers. So left

11:14

and right of the screen is

11:16

my main monitors and this is

11:18

where most of my music happens.

11:20

And then I have on the

11:23

left and on the right a

11:25

few dedicated keyboards and it's a

11:27

very small space I'm in here.

11:30

I try to really push on

11:32

the ergonomics of it so that

11:34

I can reach everything quickly and

11:37

that everything that I want to

11:39

adjust is in a position where

11:41

I can adjust it. I'm always

11:43

amazed if I look at these

11:46

photos from big studios and then

11:48

you see an eventite or lexicon

11:50

effect mounted in a wreck on

11:53

the bottom. Yeah, exactly. Who is

11:55

ever going to be on their

11:57

knees editing those and actually still

12:00

hearing something? So that makes no

12:02

sense to me. That's just for

12:04

sure. off and so on there's

12:06

a few keyboards on the left

12:09

side and there's a few keywords

12:11

on the right but overall it's

12:13

it's not a big space it's

12:16

not a big show of space

12:18

in terms see how many keyboards

12:20

I could buy everything in here

12:23

has a purpose and a personal

12:25

history and yeah that's it Do

12:28

you have their particular keyboards

12:30

that you've had and sold?

12:33

I made the experience that

12:35

I tend to think a

12:37

lot before I buy something

12:39

and usually I either immediately

12:42

sell it because I made

12:44

a mistake or they stay

12:46

with me forever. The only

12:48

exception of a kind of

12:50

complicated love hate relationship was

12:53

the value of microwave microwave.

12:55

I bought it when it

12:57

came out. I hated it.

12:59

I sold it pretty much

13:01

immediately. I bought it again

13:04

two years later because so

13:06

many of my friends used

13:08

it to great effect. Then

13:10

I found it too dominant

13:12

in the mix everywhere. So

13:15

I sold it again. And

13:17

a year ago I saw

13:19

one in mint condition for

13:21

a very very low price

13:23

in a local shop and

13:26

I just bought it. And

13:28

now I really like it.

13:30

But most of the machines

13:32

here have been my kind

13:34

of companion since a long

13:37

time. And they have all

13:39

their own history and personal

13:41

value to me. I mean,

13:43

there's the S.Y. 77, which

13:45

is the first big FM

13:48

synthesizer I bought. And I

13:50

also had a TG 77,

13:52

which is basically the same

13:54

without keyboard and individual outputs.

13:56

Early monarch records are FM

13:59

drums created with this machine.

14:01

How are they? Yeah it's

14:03

down here. It's actually in

14:05

the bottom rubber I have

14:08

to admit but and it's

14:10

yeah you need an editor

14:12

it's I mean you can't

14:14

read the text anymore on

14:16

the buttons because they're completely

14:19

worn off. Tell me about

14:21

your that machine particularly because

14:23

I know it's like wave

14:25

tables and FM and drums

14:27

right that's the thing. It

14:30

went too far into this

14:32

kind of workstation direction, which

14:34

obscures the beauty of it.

14:36

So there is this quite

14:38

cheesy rum samples, like grand

14:41

piano or saxophone stuff. And

14:43

there's relatively cheesy drums. And

14:45

you can forget about all

14:47

of that, unless you want

14:49

to go for a dedicated

14:52

cheesiness, which can be fun

14:54

again. But there's also a

14:56

6 operator FM engine in

14:58

there and you can stack

15:00

two of them together. And

15:03

so in a way you

15:05

get something that is more

15:07

powerful than a DX1 into

15:09

that machine plus multi-termral plus

15:11

16 voices. And that is

15:14

quite cool. I only see

15:16

this as a very advanced

15:18

FM synthesizer and that's it.

15:20

Do you have a sort

15:22

of approach to programming FM

15:25

that makes it manageable because

15:27

there's sort of part of

15:29

me that's like daunted by

15:31

that many operators. I have

15:34

like a TX81Z as well

15:36

as I'm like, oh four,

15:38

you know, and some built

15:40

in waveforms. But do you,

15:42

what would you say is

15:45

like the approach to like

15:47

making FM fun? Using two

15:49

operators. and getting the basic

15:51

sound out of it and

15:53

then refining later. So because

15:56

with two operators you can

15:58

get the basic quality of

16:00

it. And this is why

16:02

so many simpler FM agents

16:04

just have these two operators

16:07

because that is for me

16:09

the core of it and

16:11

the rest is refining it.

16:13

But it's like with any

16:15

other form of synthesis or

16:18

machine, you either feel at

16:20

home with the way it

16:22

works or you don't. And

16:24

I would always say to

16:26

people, hey, if you don't

16:29

like a specific synthesizer, It's

16:31

completely fine, you know, if

16:33

everyone tells you that this

16:35

machine is great and you

16:37

say, okay, I don't like

16:40

it, then you don't like

16:42

it, period. Because there's nothing

16:44

absolute here. So many people,

16:46

for instance, the Oberham expand

16:48

as an interesting one. I

16:51

admire it as a technological

16:53

masterpiece. The complexity they managed

16:55

to get into this unit

16:57

back in these days is

17:00

stunning. It is really interesting

17:02

in terms of everything can

17:04

modulate everything. It's super powerful,

17:06

but in general I'm personally

17:08

not a friend of the

17:11

overall Oberheim sound aesthetics. So

17:13

I hear a lot of

17:15

great music that people make

17:17

with it. But for me

17:19

this kind of brassy, bright

17:22

sounds. It just doesn't, it's

17:24

not the color palette I'm

17:26

looking for. normally. And this

17:28

is just a very personal

17:30

feeling that I'm, it's not

17:33

my colours, but it doesn't

17:35

mean that it's a bad

17:37

or good machine. If you

17:39

had to like define the

17:41

quality and sense that you're

17:44

actually looking for, I mean

17:46

you said that you either

17:48

know or you don't know,

17:50

is there something in like

17:52

the interface or the sound

17:55

or a marriage of the

17:57

two, do you know what

17:59

it is that you, you,

18:01

gel with? I think I

18:03

like, I like... sounds that

18:06

are somehow lively. So that

18:08

there's some some oscillates. going

18:10

on in the background, something

18:12

complexity. I like dark tones.

18:14

I like inharmonic spectra, those

18:17

kinds of things. And all

18:19

the machines I have here

18:21

are either very gritty early

18:23

digital synthesizers that have their

18:25

very own life because of

18:28

the technical limitations, like early

18:30

sampling or early digital synthesizers.

18:32

or they are capable of

18:34

creating really nice darker tambres

18:37

with nice filters that allow

18:39

to really cut off everything

18:41

so that there's just this

18:43

nice low string distant, noisy

18:45

strings, stuff like that. So

18:48

that is for me a quality

18:51

I'm looking for. You know if

18:53

if I if I add reverb

18:55

to things I'm never looking for

18:57

the short rehearsal room drum kid

18:59

sound but I'm always looking for

19:01

the completely non realistic hyper cathedral

19:04

Corvassing you know and with you

19:06

on that yeah with like and

19:08

with cruft right with the sort

19:10

of do you like that kind

19:12

of early 80s, sort of the

19:15

digital scenes and the, yeah, the

19:17

texture. The age 3000, for instance,

19:19

it's noisy in a way and

19:21

it's, the modulation is very audible

19:23

in some cases, but I like

19:26

this because it feels alive. Because

19:28

if I want to have a

19:30

perfect crystal clear reverb, then I

19:32

use convolution these days and I

19:34

just... slap the impulse response of

19:36

saying whatever custodial on need and

19:39

there we go you know. Can

19:41

you talk about the sort of

19:43

the melding of software and hardware

19:45

as obviously there is you know

19:47

as you say I'm a computer

19:50

guy and as we know there

19:52

is a certain computer program that

19:54

you are well associated with and

19:56

it's like the marriage of software

19:58

and hardware I think he's I

20:01

think it's quite I find it

20:03

tricky personally I find that I

20:05

I tend to gravitate to one

20:07

or the other and I personally

20:09

actually find the blending of the

20:12

two to be quite difficult because

20:14

It probably illustrates a lack of

20:16

discipline on everybody's part. And I

20:18

think, well exactly, because you, I

20:20

think you fixate on what you're

20:22

looking at, you know, as you

20:25

say with the computer, you'll feel

20:27

looking at a screen if I'm

20:29

looking at Ableton Live, then I

20:31

fixate on that. And I don't

20:33

tend to like live with an

20:36

Ableton Live and something I've tried

20:38

to do consciously, I've not yet

20:40

set up in this new studio

20:42

abilities to like have a couple

20:44

of things next to my computer.

20:47

But then I will separately have

20:49

places that I make music with

20:51

just hardware. And so I don't

20:53

marry the two. And I suppose

20:55

I want to pick your brains

20:57

about how do you marry the

21:00

two because it seems to be

21:02

that you've found a good way

21:04

of doing it. It's of course

21:06

always an interesting question. What I'm

21:08

doing is that most of the

21:11

time I either work with the

21:13

computer and not touching any of

21:15

the other machines or I'm creating

21:17

sounds structures. themes with the old

21:19

machines and then I record them

21:22

but as soon as it's done

21:24

I'm back to software. So what

21:26

really never happens is that I

21:28

have a what I would call

21:30

a living hybrid set where there's

21:33

a set running in life and

21:35

I'm triggering five synthesizers and re-recording

21:37

them and working on this for

21:39

a month. I like the idea

21:41

that when I'm using hardware I

21:43

need to be decisive. So I

21:46

record a sound, I record a

21:48

riff and I say that's it.

21:50

And then afterwards I turn the

21:52

hardware off and I'm fine. And

21:54

this turned out to be quite

21:57

fruitful. What I also very often

21:59

do is... that I

22:01

have deliberate sessions where I'm

22:03

exploring hardware without any musical

22:05

idea in my mind in

22:07

the first place. So I'm

22:09

just saying, okay, I feel

22:11

like playing with, I don't

22:13

know, the Prophet vs again

22:15

and see what it can

22:17

do to me. And then

22:19

I make some presets if

22:21

I like them or I

22:23

immediately record some stuff. Like

22:25

this preset sounds really great

22:27

if I just play this

22:29

massive... minor seven, nine, whatever

22:32

chord on it. Let's just

22:34

record this for 30 seconds.

22:36

And maybe I end up

22:38

using it somewhere or I

22:40

don't. And I record a

22:42

lot of drums all the

22:44

time. I really enjoy creating

22:46

drum sounds and this means

22:48

when I'm working on a

22:50

piece and I have the

22:52

feeling that I would be

22:54

nice to have a different

22:56

snare here. I just can

22:58

go through a vast collection

23:00

of snares that I made.

23:02

or sounds that have a

23:04

similar function. And this way

23:06

I can combine the capabilities

23:08

of my studio and the

23:10

richness of my sound sources

23:12

with a very fast pace

23:14

of working. How do you

23:16

organize your samples as well?

23:18

You know, when you have

23:20

those kinds of sessions, isn't

23:22

it tempting to just leave

23:24

them within a live set

23:26

or do you... get them

23:28

out and name them and

23:30

how do you organize them

23:32

so you can actually find

23:34

them? For the drum samples

23:36

I wrote a little Max

23:38

for Life helper that allows

23:40

me to record individual hits

23:42

quickly and name them in

23:44

a successive naming so I

23:46

say oh and I always

23:48

wanted to make this public

23:50

but there's a few quirks

23:53

that I still need to

23:55

solve before doing it because

23:57

I don't want to release

23:59

something that is me finished.

24:01

you know, let's say, again,

24:03

stay with the Prophet V.

24:05

S. I made this kind

24:07

of resonant filtered Kraftberg-Ishtongk sound,

24:09

so I just named it.

24:11

song and then I play

24:13

a note. If I like

24:15

it, I hit Capture and

24:17

it records it and creates

24:19

the file, makes the fade

24:21

out and everything. So the

24:23

process of going from playing

24:25

a drum sound or for

24:27

instance from my modular system,

24:29

creating a drum sound and

24:31

getting it as a file

24:33

into my life library is

24:35

very straightforward. That's good. Like

24:37

yeah, like an auto sampler

24:39

type thing, but something like

24:41

yeah, yeah, it goes in

24:43

this direction. Yes, there is

24:45

like simpler. Yeah, like sample

24:47

robot. I know it's like

24:49

a commercial piece of software

24:51

that I've sort of looked

24:53

out and I probably need

24:55

to invest. It feels like

24:57

surprised live doesn't do that

24:59

like life. Yeah, it has

25:01

sliced a new MIDI track

25:03

or whatever, but it doesn't,

25:05

you know. That's such a

25:07

nice and when you have

25:09

this then do you is

25:11

there a particular way that

25:14

you organize your sample library

25:16

do you do it by

25:18

like I know some people

25:20

who do it by like

25:22

years and I know that

25:24

some people do it differently

25:26

I'm curious how you organize

25:28

your structure you know structure

25:30

all of this collection because

25:32

you have a lot of

25:34

data. As pretty much every

25:36

library of every person I

25:38

know it is there's a

25:40

certain Shall we call it

25:42

organicness to it? Oh, I

25:44

like that. Yeah idiosyncrasies You

25:46

know where everything is, but

25:48

you wouldn't expect someone else

25:50

to exactly so I I

25:52

try to have a Kind

25:54

of consistent folder naming and

25:56

putting stuff in subfolders if

25:58

necessary But at the end

26:00

of the day, you know,

26:02

there's a folder called ASR10

26:04

and there's a folder called

26:06

drums and there's a folder

26:08

called ASR10 and then there's

26:10

a folder in by drums

26:12

that is called ASR10. Yeah,

26:14

okay. Fine, fine. I wanted

26:16

to ask you also about

26:18

limitations. There was, I watched

26:20

your loop talk from 2015

26:22

and like, there's like, my

26:24

favorite line that like leapt

26:26

out is like you said,

26:28

you know, speaking of electronic

26:30

musicians and speaking of limitations,

26:32

we can add the seventh

26:35

ninth and eleventh strength to

26:37

a string to a guitar

26:39

immediately instead of actually making

26:41

sense of the song. And

26:43

I wondered what are the...

26:45

What are the limitations that

26:47

you like to give yourself?

26:49

How do you actually stick

26:51

to them when you're making

26:53

music? That's an interesting question

26:55

again and again, because I

26:57

don't have one single, it

26:59

fits all answer to this.

27:01

Depending on what I want

27:03

to do, I try to

27:05

get some sort of mental

27:07

clarity first about... what it

27:09

is I'm approaching. And then

27:11

starting from that, I decide

27:13

which are the things I

27:15

might or might not do

27:17

to reach that goal. Things

27:19

are much easier actually when

27:21

I prepare performances because there

27:23

the limitations are much more

27:25

tangible. I need to be

27:27

able to carry stuff around.

27:29

I need to be able

27:31

to operate this stuff in

27:33

real time. I'm just right

27:35

now actually preparing a drone

27:37

ambient soundscape multi-channel performance that

27:39

I perform in Italy in

27:41

three days and it's clear

27:43

I have an easy jet

27:45

flight and I want to

27:47

travel of hand luggage so

27:49

my choice of controllers is

27:51

very limited and that means

27:53

that I try to fit

27:56

everything in a limited number

27:58

of tracks with a limited

28:00

number of effects but I

28:02

think very very closely about

28:04

How do I want to

28:06

articulate them? So there's this.

28:08

know, cheap, novational launch control

28:10

here in front of me.

28:12

And I spend a lot

28:14

of time thinking about exactly

28:16

what do these three knobs

28:18

above the fate are actually

28:20

doing for each. And is

28:22

it something that I can

28:24

play, articulate in a meaningful

28:26

way? What does it mean

28:28

in different parts of the

28:30

song? Do they need to

28:32

switch function or not? So

28:34

I try to... embrace the

28:36

limitation from a conceptual perspective

28:38

first. And when working on

28:40

tracks in the studio in

28:42

life where I have no

28:44

real limitations, I tried to

28:46

get an understanding at an

28:48

early stage, what is this

28:50

track actually about? What is

28:52

it I want to achieve

28:54

with it? And I feel

28:56

it's a... It's

28:58

a question of practice. It's much

29:01

easier for me these days to

29:03

say, no, I'm not adding another

29:05

layer than it was in the

29:07

earlier days. I had this really

29:09

interesting moment just a few days

29:12

ago where I was working on

29:14

something and I had the feeling

29:16

that I could add another very

29:18

high pitched note even theme somewhere.

29:20

because I was feeling it was

29:23

missing and then I tried it

29:25

out and I immediately noticed that

29:27

this new sound is alien to

29:29

the piece and it moves the

29:31

attention somewhere else and the piece

29:34

is completely fine as it is

29:36

and I actually removed a few

29:38

more elements because very often it

29:40

is the issue that when you're

29:42

working all yourself on electronic music

29:45

you're listening to it again and

29:47

again and again and again all

29:49

the time. and you get bored

29:51

by your own music. And this

29:54

is when you start to add

29:56

layers and layers and layers. And

29:58

then you go back to it

30:00

a year, a month or whatever

30:02

later, and you notice, oh my

30:05

God, it's a big mess, it's

30:07

all too much. And then you

30:09

mute 50% of the tracks, and

30:11

suddenly the magic is back. Yeah.

30:13

I suppose it's one of the

30:16

things with hardware that's so much

30:18

easier because you simply can't. Exactly.

30:20

If that is if you're doing

30:22

like live, you know, from a

30:24

MIDI sequencer. Yeah, I'm thinking like

30:27

today when we're speaking is the

30:29

day that able to have announced

30:31

the move control as well or

30:33

the move sequencer and I know

30:36

it's four tracks. Exactly. And this

30:38

was a deliberate decision and of

30:40

course a controversial decision and it

30:42

took long to get there because

30:44

it was a decision about the

30:47

size of the box, it was

30:49

a decision of the... necessary CPU

30:51

so there's a lot of constraints

30:53

that go into making such a

30:55

decision but of course it was

30:58

also a question of is this

31:00

enough or is this way too

31:02

little or can they still be

31:04

meaningful and there was endless debates

31:06

inside the company if this is

31:09

a make sense or not and

31:11

ultimately I think that it's so

31:13

limited. in a specific way, like

31:15

the four tracks, whilst being quite

31:17

open and potentially even more opening

31:20

at some later point, makes it

31:22

limited but interesting. And, well, for

31:24

the rest, we will see. You

31:26

said, I mean, you literally said

31:29

in that loop talk as well,

31:31

you know, I may be getting

31:33

your words wrong, but you said

31:35

words to the effect of, you

31:37

know, if your song isn't working

31:40

with 64 tracks, maybe you should

31:42

try eight. And by extension eight,

31:44

then four. I look at it

31:46

and I have no like maybe

31:48

I'm getting old enough that I

31:51

do have some of that or

31:53

what's the word I appreciate the

31:55

limitations in gear you know what

31:57

is the point of hardware if

31:59

not to be limited in some

32:02

interesting way you know that's the

32:04

I mean interesting candidate for me

32:06

is always drum machines because There

32:08

is no real need for a

32:10

drum machine anymore, unless you need

32:13

to carry it with you. Because

32:15

in the studio, if I want

32:17

to have a drum pattern, I

32:19

mean, there are so many ways

32:22

to do this in life or

32:24

in any software on this planet.

32:26

And having these 12 for what

32:28

they are sounds from the limb

32:30

drum in my folder is not

32:33

that hard. It's not that hard.

32:35

And I'm not going to engage

32:37

in the discussion of microscopic artifacts

32:39

that make all the difference of

32:41

the world. No one cares at

32:44

the end if the groove is

32:46

good. And, but still, I have

32:48

one drum computer, actually the limb

32:50

drum here, simply because of the

32:52

fact that sometimes I enjoy to

32:55

have the computer off and just

32:57

on the fly programming a drum

32:59

pattern. And programming, when sitting in

33:01

front of the computer, I can't

33:03

do this, playing it, doing two

33:06

or three overdubs, deleting a wrong

33:08

one, doing it again, and there's

33:10

the groove. And this is so

33:12

satisfying, because it is so much

33:15

the opposite of how I work

33:17

when programming, when sitting in front

33:19

of the computer, I can do

33:21

this late at night when I'm

33:23

really tired when I'm really tired

33:26

when I'm really tired when I'm

33:28

really tired when I'm really tired

33:30

when I'm really tired when I'm

33:32

really tired when I'm really tired

33:34

when I'm really tired when I'm

33:37

really tired when I'm tired when

33:39

I'm really tired when I'm tired

33:41

when I'm really tired when I'm

33:43

tired when I'm tired when I'm

33:45

tired when I'm tired when I'm

33:48

tired when I'm tired when I'm

33:50

really tired when I'm tired when

33:52

I'm tired when I'm tired when

33:54

I'm tired when I'm tired when

33:57

I and it puts me in

33:59

a different mindset. And this is

34:01

what I really like. And if

34:03

instead of the Lindberm, it would

34:05

be something like a more complex,

34:08

more contemporary drum machine, where the

34:10

first interaction would be selecting my

34:12

samples, I would immediately get lost

34:14

in trying to find the best

34:16

snare for that kick, and then

34:19

I run the best snare, and

34:21

then I find the hired is

34:23

wrong, and then I change the

34:25

kick, and then I go to

34:27

bad frustrated. the limitation actually allows

34:30

me to be creative. Yeah, I

34:32

mean, we don't need to invent

34:34

the wheel every time we make

34:36

a song. It is, but it

34:38

is, what's the word, a dichotomy

34:41

because as electronic musicians, I always

34:43

feel like we have an obligation

34:45

to reinvent the wheel and do

34:47

something that has never been heard

34:50

before because you can. But then

34:52

that has to be balanced with

34:54

the reality that... you have to

34:56

live with limitations and I suppose

34:58

it returns. What you said before

35:01

about, you know, the fact is

35:03

that you think ahead about what

35:05

the song is that you want

35:07

it to be, to me that

35:09

is the key difference I think

35:12

is a key point is that

35:14

if you don't think about the

35:16

song ahead of time, then when

35:18

you're faced with something like a

35:20

computer then potentially you have a,

35:23

you have no direction. To be

35:25

fair, I think there's also value

35:27

in not knowing at all how

35:29

things evolve and just playing around,

35:31

but at some point in time,

35:34

either an idea emerges or you

35:36

are just saying, okay, this was

35:38

a nice session tonight and it's

35:40

over. It's not so different from

35:43

the old days when I was

35:45

still working with Geard and we

35:47

were pretty much more or less...

35:49

exclusively using hardware and drum computers

35:51

and hardware sequences or a small

35:54

max patch that worked as a

35:56

sequencer. The operation work was we

35:58

met and we were just playing

36:00

and recording it on a duct

36:02

tape. And maybe we played for

36:05

two hours and recorded two hours

36:07

and at the end of the

36:09

two hours we already knew that

36:11

this duct tape can be overwritten

36:13

the next session or we knew

36:16

that there is something on it

36:18

that is worth editing down. So

36:20

there's these two possibilities there. And

36:22

it's completely fine that not everything

36:24

you do needs to end up

36:27

in a track because ultimately... we

36:30

do what we do because

36:32

we enjoy it. And the

36:34

joy sometimes is just this

36:36

aimless happiness with exploring what

36:38

you have. But I want

36:40

to come back to this

36:42

idea of every sound has

36:44

to be new. I find

36:46

the great power of electronic

36:48

music. is not the fact

36:51

that you can do these

36:53

extremely complicated things. It is

36:55

the fact that by combining

36:57

a few simple things, you

36:59

can immediately reach novelty. Now

37:01

I take the output from

37:03

the Lindrum, let's say the

37:05

snare, and I put it

37:07

through a low-pass filter or

37:10

a high-pass filter from a

37:12

modular rig, and I piped

37:14

this into a 20 euro

37:16

flea market quadra web. Here

37:18

is my crazy, distorted, completely

37:20

different snare sound. It's right

37:22

there. And it did cost

37:24

me five minutes and was

37:26

a lot of fun to

37:28

do. And it's my unique

37:31

only sound. And it has

37:33

always been like this. Oh.

37:35

put a speaker in your

37:37

bathroom, play the bass drum

37:39

through the speaker in your

37:41

bathroom and put a microphone

37:43

in the bathroom and you

37:45

have the early-depth mode snare.

37:47

It's so rewarding to just

37:50

say, use your imagination and

37:52

use your tools and figure

37:54

out what... can do with

37:56

them. I think this is

37:58

always my advice if people

38:00

ask me, I want to

38:02

start producing music. What do

38:04

I need? I say the

38:06

smallest possible setup. Yeah, and

38:09

a bit of intent. I

38:11

suppose that's the thing. It's

38:13

just knowing to not, or

38:15

knowing where to place your

38:17

energies, you know, knowing that

38:19

you can just explore effects

38:21

with simple sounds. versus you

38:23

would just go on splice

38:25

and just look through the

38:27

sounds you know there's a

38:30

there is a difference there.

38:32

Also one of the things

38:34

I wanted to ask you

38:36

about which it could be

38:38

a way of doing that

38:40

is you know do you

38:42

do you separate the sound

38:44

design and the composition process

38:46

because for you it seems

38:49

your music is so innately

38:51

tied with sound design, it's

38:53

like a relishing of the

38:55

sounds and the composition of

38:57

sounds. But do you separate?

38:59

How? How do you do

39:01

it? No, no, the sound

39:03

design is absolutely integral. Take

39:05

a piece like cute little

39:07

aliens on their studio album.

39:10

The title came from the

39:12

fact that... I was playing

39:14

with recontuses on the Sinclair

39:16

and suddenly there was kind

39:18

of crap coming up that

39:20

immediately reminded me to a

39:22

foally sound of some weird

39:24

alien creature. And once I

39:26

had this association in my

39:29

mind, it became clear that

39:31

the track has to have

39:33

more of those sounds. So

39:35

I spent an afternoon or

39:37

two. trying different ways to

39:39

create sounds that I somehow

39:41

associated with this idea of

39:43

this classical sci-fi trope of

39:45

the cute little alien that

39:48

we all of course immediately

39:50

know when watching it it's

39:52

not cute but in the

39:54

movie they all think it's

39:56

still cute. because it's a

39:58

tiny and nice. And so

40:00

I spent quite some time

40:02

to think about sounds that

40:04

would fit in there and

40:06

then I added those little

40:09

aliens to this rhythm track

40:11

and then I once this

40:13

was done I thought what

40:15

is missing here is a

40:17

bit of an environment. So

40:19

I was then... checking my

40:21

library for water sounds because

40:23

I thought, okay, it needs

40:25

to be kind of, again,

40:28

alien, you know, water dripping,

40:30

wet kind of, all these

40:32

associations that are, of course,

40:34

cultural references. So this whole

40:36

sound design was based on

40:38

playing with cultural references. And

40:40

then I put the sounds

40:42

back in life to turn

40:44

them into a track. But

40:46

ultimately, of course, it has

40:49

to work musically, it has

40:51

to work musically. So I

40:53

ended up using only a

40:55

tiny fraction of the fully

40:57

sounds that I added. But

40:59

there's a few moments where

41:01

I'm particularly proud of. And

41:03

that's in a subtle background

41:05

things. There's one moment where

41:08

there is a chord coming

41:10

in or a pad. And

41:12

at the beginning of the

41:14

pad, there is the sound

41:16

of a wave splashing somewhere

41:18

on the ocean. And it's

41:20

just like shh. turning into

41:22

this pad sound. And if,

41:24

you know, it's completely unnoticeable,

41:27

but if you focus on

41:29

it, you realize that actually,

41:31

yes, there is a splashing

41:33

wave that is overlaid to

41:35

the synthetic string sound, and

41:37

this makes it special. And

41:39

I love that. I have

41:41

so much joy doing that.

41:43

That's where my fun comes

41:45

in. You know, my personal

41:48

joy of. creating these things.

41:50

Yeah yeah yeah. And I

41:52

was going to ask you,

41:54

like, obviously with this album

41:56

and with all others, like,

41:58

it would be interesting to

42:00

hear your process. How do

42:02

you, you know, what does

42:04

composition process, what does the

42:07

composition process look like for

42:09

you? How does it track?

42:11

I have more questions about

42:13

staying focused to its completion,

42:15

especially because, you know, they

42:17

seem like they're complex and

42:19

you talk in the liner

42:21

notes about. you know really

42:23

having taken your time to

42:25

ruminate which i think is

42:28

something that's very hard to

42:30

do you know in a

42:32

way of staying focused and

42:34

not tinkering endlessly so but

42:36

i suppose from the genesis

42:38

how do you how do

42:40

you compose these days and

42:42

how do you like to

42:44

do it i'm not sure

42:47

if i have that one

42:49

single recipe approach sometimes i

42:51

start composing because I found

42:53

an interesting sound and the

42:55

sound gives me an idea

42:57

what to do with it.

42:59

Like, oh my God, I

43:01

want to hear this sound

43:03

in a context. So for

43:06

instance, I mentioned the ASR10,

43:08

this old and sonic sampler,

43:10

which I am having since

43:12

a very long time and

43:14

which I'm rarely using these

43:16

days because operating it is

43:18

so tedious, but I occasionally

43:20

turn it on just to

43:22

verify if it's still booting.

43:24

And it did boot and

43:27

then I put a floppy

43:29

in to see if it's

43:31

still loads and it was

43:33

one of the early monoleg

43:35

sounds from 1995 or something

43:37

like that. And this classic

43:39

chord sample, you know, a

43:41

C minor chord. And I

43:43

played it on a keyboard

43:46

and it immediately shouts house.

43:48

And it shouts this old

43:50

school, late 1980s, early 1990s

43:52

house, with this kind of

43:54

shifts of the minor courts.

43:56

And I was very tempted

43:58

to just make a straight

44:00

kick drum and this, and

44:02

a bit of reverb and

44:04

a high head and, you

44:07

know, and a cool baseline.

44:09

So that sound definitely gave

44:11

me an idea for a

44:13

track. And sometimes it's, as

44:15

I said, this result of

44:17

just playing with the limb

44:19

drum for fun and then

44:21

suddenly a sound or a

44:23

groove emerges where I think,

44:26

oh, I should keep this.

44:28

This sometimes also happens, for

44:30

instance, when I'm working, testing

44:32

and exploring stuff at Ableton,

44:34

what I'm doing is, of

44:36

course, I'm using the software

44:38

in whatever state it is

44:40

in and with a prototype

44:42

of something. And, you know,

44:45

by using it, I create.

44:47

So, maybe, again, a drum

44:49

pattern emerges or a sound

44:51

emerges or anything, literally. And

44:53

then I notice, okay, this

44:55

might be a material, and

44:57

then I just save it.

44:59

So I have this huge

45:01

folder with sketches. And occasionally

45:03

I look at this folder

45:06

and I just go through

45:08

it and reevaluate what's in

45:10

there. And sometimes I feel

45:12

that... the stuff that I

45:14

considered important, it's not important,

45:16

then it goes to a

45:18

backup drive and gets forgotten

45:20

forever. But sometimes I have

45:22

this happy moments where I

45:25

notice, wow, what I did

45:27

a few days ago in

45:29

the evening is actually cool.

45:31

And then I decide, okay,

45:33

I gonna finish that. So

45:35

that is the deliberate thought,

45:37

I suppose, is a key

45:39

distinction. I am going to

45:41

finish it. Exactly. So making

45:43

this decision, if the material

45:46

is interesting enough to spend

45:48

more time with it. And

45:50

that decision of course also

45:52

can turn out to be

45:54

wrong. So I had situations

45:56

where I was working on

45:58

tracks for a very long

46:00

time again and again revising

46:02

them and ultimately feeling that

46:05

somehow I lost the magic

46:07

or the original idea was

46:09

not that cool. So I

46:11

could clearly see for instance

46:13

that the suggested early house

46:15

track is something that I

46:17

do for an hour and

46:19

afterwards I such thing, oh

46:21

that's silly. That's really silly.

46:24

Not going to fill my

46:26

album. Exactly. So and then

46:28

I stop. How do you

46:30

think about albums? Do you

46:32

say consciously that this is

46:34

the vision or is there

46:36

a point where you go

46:38

shit that you know the

46:40

stuff I've been doing over

46:42

the last six months feels

46:45

like this I should wrap

46:47

it in a bow you

46:49

know? It's a mix,

46:51

but it leans slightly towards

46:53

the later. So with Studio,

46:55

it was a very simple

46:57

scenario. I had an occasion

46:59

to play live, I think

47:01

last summer, or maybe time

47:03

flies so quickly, it's hard

47:06

to notice anymore. And it

47:08

was not a... an important

47:10

or significant event and I

47:12

didn't want to put too

47:14

much time in preparation but

47:16

I also didn't want to

47:18

play old stuff and this

47:20

is when I just opened

47:22

a few of the sketches

47:24

that I talked about and

47:26

just compiled them into, that

47:28

cut them into stems and

47:30

threw them in session view

47:33

just to be able to

47:35

play something and this was

47:37

a moment where I noticed

47:39

hey there's a few things

47:41

that are really fitting well

47:43

together and I just suddenly

47:45

got this confirmation that I

47:47

have actually enough material to

47:49

make an album. And that

47:51

was the birth of Studio.

47:53

But what happened afterwards was

47:55

that I revived. every single

47:58

track a lot in the

48:00

process. So after sequencing them,

48:02

I figured out some of

48:04

them are too similar, some

48:06

of them don't feel right

48:08

if they play right after

48:10

one another. Some of them

48:12

changed completely. But from this

48:14

moment onwards, I really treated

48:16

every single track as part

48:18

of the album and reworked

48:20

every single track to fit

48:23

the overall picture. What started

48:25

as single tracks towards the

48:27

end of the creation process

48:29

of the album became a

48:31

movement within a bigger thing.

48:33

Yeah. It sounds like the

48:35

intent can come later. I

48:37

think the good thing about

48:39

rules is that you can

48:41

break them. It's good to

48:43

have rules, but it's also

48:45

important to understand when the

48:47

rule is in the way

48:50

of what you want to

48:52

do. Yeah. What was your

48:54

original intent with Live? And

48:56

how is your way of

48:58

using it? Has it changed

49:00

in any significant way? And

49:02

if you, you evolved with

49:04

it, or is it evolved

49:06

with you? Well, I mean,

49:08

this whole thing is of

49:10

course the product of a

49:12

lot of people's ideas and

49:15

work and coding and input.

49:17

And over the now 25

49:19

years. It's crazy. It became

49:21

something that, like the kids

49:23

growing older, you still have

49:25

a certain influence and a

49:27

certain amount of control, but

49:29

they develop on their own.

49:31

So I observe, I object,

49:33

I add, I advise, I

49:35

teach, but ultimately it's... It's

49:37

to a certain degree definitely

49:39

out of my control, which

49:42

is nice. But the original

49:44

thing as with... So many

49:46

things when they start, you

49:48

don't think about how it's

49:50

going to be in 25

49:52

years. You think how it's

49:54

going to be next week.

49:56

And it evolved from a

49:58

very niche tool that solved

50:00

a particularly rewarding issue in

50:02

a nice way and kind

50:04

of fun and innovative way,

50:07

this idea of playing all

50:09

these clips together synchronized and

50:11

having no timeline and having

50:13

this kind of free definition

50:15

of when things happen. I

50:17

also remember from, because I

50:19

used it since version 3

50:21

is you never had to

50:23

stop. You never have to

50:25

stop the timeline. And maybe

50:27

it's worth mentioning that when

50:29

we did this. That was

50:31

a time when the big

50:34

studios were using Pro Tools

50:36

with big hardware ricks. And

50:38

in Pro Tools, if you

50:40

wanted to insert an EQ,

50:42

or if you want to

50:44

change a track routing, or

50:46

if you want to create

50:48

a track, or delete a

50:50

track, you had to stop

50:52

transport. So you were in

50:54

the middle of the song

50:56

and everyone is happy and

50:59

you're listening to it. And

51:01

someone says, oh, can I

51:03

have a compressor in there?

51:05

And you say, sure, stop.

51:07

compressor, play again. And the

51:09

fact that in life you

51:11

could just throw in a

51:13

device whilst running, that really

51:15

killed people. And it was

51:17

easy for us to do

51:19

because our technical foundation was

51:21

15 years younger. And now

51:23

we are the old guys

51:26

and we have to fight

51:28

with an old code base

51:30

and things that are hard

51:32

for us to improve that

51:34

are easier to do for

51:36

people who just start writing

51:38

software now. That's how it

51:40

is. But I mean the

51:42

software changed as a result

51:44

of what users are doing

51:46

with it. We never intended

51:48

to build the AW. That

51:51

was not the original plan.

51:53

It was our users who

51:55

said, oh, we like this

51:57

so much and we have

51:59

so much fun with it,

52:01

but it would be nice

52:03

if the editing functions would

52:05

be a little bit better.

52:07

And so we had meaty.

52:09

Exactly and have meaty. And

52:11

so we step by step

52:13

ended where we are now.

52:15

It was really just aimed

52:18

at providing a solution for

52:20

people like Gehardt and me

52:22

and our friends to. get

52:24

complexity and interaction on stage

52:26

without the necessity to carry

52:28

around huge racks with samplers

52:30

and mixes. Yeah. I mean

52:32

before life we have been

52:34

carrying around literally half of

52:36

the studio like anyone else

52:38

in the 80s and the

52:40

90s. So I remember carrying

52:43

downstairs five flight cases with

52:45

samplers and effects and of

52:47

course half of it broke

52:49

on the tour and It

52:52

was really nice that at

52:54

some point laptop running life

52:56

could do a lot of

52:58

complexity without the hassle of

53:00

all that. What do you

53:02

think about the, you know,

53:04

the phenomenon of the laptop

53:06

electronic musician, you know, which

53:08

is something you help create?

53:10

You know, it's like, what

53:12

do you think? What do

53:14

you feel when you see

53:16

a musician on stage and

53:18

it's just a laptop? If

53:20

such a thing happens these

53:23

days, which it does. You

53:25

know, but this is almost

53:27

historically, there was a time,

53:29

maybe between 2000 and 2010,

53:31

where this was the big

53:33

thing, where people were really

53:35

discussing, you know, this trope

53:37

of, is this guy, mostly

53:39

a guy at this time,

53:41

checking their emails or not,

53:43

you know, but this is

53:45

not a question anymore. You

53:47

see so many. You see

53:49

so many. people nowadays performing

53:51

with laptops and modular rigs

53:53

or whatever. I feel that

53:55

this technology discussion is mostly

53:57

over and I'm very happy

53:59

about it. It transcends. People

54:02

using, if I look at

54:04

young generations of people making

54:06

music, they use what they

54:08

like to use. They don't

54:10

have any preconception anymore what

54:12

is right or wrong in

54:14

this regard. And I really

54:16

enjoy the fact that they

54:18

are so just doing what

54:20

they like to do. And

54:22

that is great. And if

54:24

we help them with our

54:26

software to do. to express

54:28

themselves I'm happy but if

54:30

they are using anything else

54:32

on stage I'm happy too.

54:34

I suppose then the question

54:36

really at the heart of

54:38

it for me is like

54:41

what you with using a

54:43

computer on stage and really

54:45

any live performance you know

54:47

speaking of you personally what

54:49

do you like to give

54:51

yourself to do you know

54:53

what and I suppose by

54:55

extension what do you think

54:57

are interesting things to have

54:59

to do live and what

55:01

things do you relieve to

55:03

the computer and offload? Okay,

55:05

there's reality and there's my

55:07

idealistic fantasy of it. In

55:09

reality, what I'm always having

55:11

control over because I find

55:13

it super essential is many,

55:15

many aspects of the sound.

55:17

So if I... If there's

55:20

real-time synthesis, then there's synthesis

55:22

parameters that I can control,

55:24

decay times, filters, modulation, index,

55:26

whatever. Just things that allow

55:28

me to shape something from,

55:30

let's say, a very sign-wavy

55:32

baseline into a screaming monster

55:34

and being able to articulate

55:36

that. This is the one

55:38

thing that I enjoy a

55:40

lot. The other thing where...

55:42

On a conceptual level I

55:44

have much more ideas than

55:46

what I ultimately end to

55:48

do is having access to

55:50

structure in in more complex

55:52

ways. What I mean with

55:54

that is the ability to

55:56

recompose a track immediately out

55:59

of a spontaneous feeling of

56:01

how the track has to

56:03

be, keeping the complexity of

56:05

it. And this is the

56:07

challenging one, because I could,

56:09

for instance. If I would

56:11

perform with a drum computer

56:13

on stage, it is so

56:15

easy to change the pattern.

56:17

If you have any drum

56:19

computer that has this 8

56:21

or 8 style button line,

56:23

then you can have so

56:25

much fun on the fly

56:27

changing the base drum snare,

56:29

whatever. The problem with this

56:31

approach is that if you

56:33

do this, your brain is

56:35

fully occupied with that and

56:38

that's it. And we saw

56:40

and we heard all these

56:42

sets where people are doing

56:44

this. and some of them

56:46

are really skilled with that

56:48

and it's great to watch

56:50

them but ultimately there's also

56:52

a limit of the complexity

56:54

you can reach with that

56:56

method. And do you mean

56:58

by the way like composing

57:00

on an XX style thing

57:02

live you know start with

57:04

a blank pattern or well

57:06

that the thing is not

57:08

every possible pattern is a

57:10

good one and not every

57:12

possible pattern fits with every

57:14

other possible element in your

57:17

composition. So if you are

57:19

creating a new pattern on

57:21

the fly on the fly

57:23

on stage. you have to

57:25

adhere to a certain formalistic

57:27

style in order to make

57:29

this a success. So if

57:31

you lay a straight for

57:33

a beat, you have certain

57:35

freedoms where to place elements

57:37

and still kind of danceable.

57:39

And this is what people

57:41

do. And it's great fun,

57:43

but it's also predictable. And

57:45

if you want to do

57:47

something that is more complex

57:49

rhythmically, more polyrhmic, more demanding,

57:51

then there is a lot

57:53

of things that simply can

57:56

go wrong. So you

57:58

might end up with. a ratio

58:00

of 90% of your time you're

58:02

trying to find something and 10%

58:05

of the time you are successful.

58:07

That is also not acceptable. And

58:10

that means if your goal is

58:12

to have, let's say, a really

58:14

complex drum pattern, but the ability

58:17

to actually perform it, you have

58:19

to come up with a clever

58:21

meta idea what this means. And

58:24

then ultimately at the end of

58:26

the day, If you think about

58:28

the effort it takes to build

58:31

something like this, then I personally

58:33

very often just give up and

58:36

say, yeah, I play a media

58:38

clip or, and that's it, you

58:40

know. Yeah. Or you could give

58:43

yourself like a use some Euclidean

58:45

generator maybe and constrain the parameters,

58:47

right? Something like that, exactly. But

58:50

then again, I end up with...

58:53

Some of the patterns are

58:56

good, but the patterns that

58:58

are good are also the

59:00

patterns that I could quickly

59:02

program by myself. So finding

59:04

a performance method that combines

59:07

an interesting aspect of surprise

59:09

and consistency at meaning is

59:11

a challenging one. An example

59:13

where... I've noticed and I

59:15

feel that a lot of

59:18

energy went into exactly that

59:20

question, and where the results

59:22

are in between acceptable and

59:24

mind-blowingly good is Ochakker. Yeah.

59:27

So, because for them, this

59:29

is obviously a decision that

59:31

they made at some point

59:33

to say, okay, we want

59:35

this ability to shape. And

59:38

the process of shaping is

59:40

so essential to the work.

59:42

that they build a system

59:44

that allows them to do

59:46

this. And yeah. So I

59:49

mean, do you know more

59:51

about them? Have you spoken

59:53

to them about how they

59:55

do it? because

59:57

I'm very interested

1:00:00

to understand what

1:00:02

they give themselves to do. what they give

1:00:05

mean, I understand a little

1:00:07

of it, but because I mean I understand

1:00:09

a patch on it. but it's

1:00:11

very neat and not very

1:00:13

revealing. but it's very neat and not very revealing.

1:00:16

But I understand the, I

1:00:18

believe I I believe

1:00:20

I understand the motivation and the

1:00:22

underlying the underlying It seems that

1:00:24

I, It seems that, from

1:00:26

my understanding and correct me if

1:00:28

you you. do or disagree, they they

1:00:31

basically well Well, they have designed

1:00:33

sort of sort of meta patches that are like

1:00:35

modular synths, of course, of course

1:00:37

that have have and other components

1:00:39

they can probably put

1:00:41

in, probably put in And call and

1:00:43

it feels they have like

1:00:45

there's and they're like, you know,

1:00:47

hey, this is going to

1:00:49

be where they're like you know hey this is

1:00:51

gonna be intro and then they they they

1:00:53

controllers for it, you know,

1:00:55

do they? it have this, do

1:00:57

nice, this this nice monome style little

1:00:59

controllers. So they have, they have there's

1:01:01

definitely a tactile element element

1:01:04

is that buttons to choose?

1:01:06

And it's just buttons and and

1:01:08

in a way, the usual.

1:01:10

tiles yeah in a way the there's definitely

1:01:12

a lot of there's definitely

1:01:14

a lot of meta thinking like

1:01:16

a knob a a function that

1:01:18

controls the structure a of setting

1:01:20

or deleting a step on an

1:01:22

deleting a step on a head yeah and

1:01:24

I find really rewarding.

1:01:26

rewarding rewarding I was going to

1:01:28

say, it does it very quickly. seems like very if

1:01:31

I'm not mistaken that they play

1:01:33

live with the same things they compose

1:01:35

with. live with the same things they

1:01:37

compose with. Possibly. judge from

1:01:39

the outside. from the outside.

1:01:41

Because is an interesting approach

1:01:43

in and of itself, in you

1:01:45

have of You know, if You a

1:01:48

you that is so complex. is so

1:01:50

complex and turned out to work so

1:01:52

well. so well, why not not using it also

1:01:54

for the creation itself? itself?

1:01:56

In that regard, it makes complete

1:01:58

sense to me. sense to me. Like, what

1:02:00

did the monodeck do? What

1:02:03

did you give yourself to

1:02:05

do in physicality with that?

1:02:07

I was also going to

1:02:09

ask you, sorry, it's a

1:02:11

long question, but then I've

1:02:14

also seen you, I saw

1:02:16

you play, I think it

1:02:18

was Houghton, and you were

1:02:20

doing the quadrophonic thing in

1:02:22

like a warehouse, and you

1:02:25

had a circle on, and

1:02:27

I was like, which was

1:02:29

unexpected, what was the intent?

1:02:31

And with the monodeck, what

1:02:33

did it afford you? Well,

1:02:35

the monodeck was an interesting

1:02:38

one because I built it

1:02:40

at the time of Live3

1:02:42

and I started building it.

1:02:44

And it was basically really

1:02:46

my ideal physical controller for

1:02:49

life with the idea of

1:02:51

controlling 8 tracks with volume,

1:02:53

effect sense and 3 parameters

1:02:55

that I can assign. and

1:02:57

a effect section so that

1:03:00

really the I have a

1:03:02

physical representation in front of

1:03:04

me without menu diving that

1:03:06

is the the main mixing

1:03:08

and synthesis in the center

1:03:11

and the clip matrix and

1:03:13

on the left side the

1:03:15

individual effects delay and the

1:03:17

reverb with every parameter that

1:03:19

I wanted to control on

1:03:22

a knob and on the

1:03:24

right side everything that is

1:03:26

in the master channel and

1:03:28

That worked incredibly well and

1:03:30

was an enormous amount of

1:03:33

fun. The reason why I

1:03:35

stopped using it at some

1:03:37

point was very, very simple.

1:03:39

This thing is heavy. And

1:03:41

together with the flight case,

1:03:44

this was 20 kilograms. And

1:03:46

it was the only one

1:03:48

of its kind. And I

1:03:50

was traveling, for instance, through

1:03:52

South America with it. You

1:03:55

are at the immigration and

1:03:57

you are waiting for three

1:03:59

hours to the immigration. and

1:04:01

you think of your precious

1:04:03

flight case with your once

1:04:05

in the world existing device

1:04:07

where you spend nine months

1:04:10

building it, rotating on this

1:04:12

circle, a conveyor belt, where

1:04:14

literally every single person who

1:04:16

is interested in this case

1:04:18

can just grab it. And

1:04:20

what could possibly go wrong?

1:04:22

Exactly. And at some point

1:04:24

I thought, no, I'm not

1:04:26

going to do this anymore.

1:04:28

And now it's... It's in

1:04:30

my living room and people

1:04:32

occasionally comment on it. I

1:04:34

mean, I was going to

1:04:36

say, this is also the

1:04:38

problem is that, you know,

1:04:40

now, yeah, yeah, for those

1:04:42

who are not seeing it,

1:04:44

we're just holding up a

1:04:46

launch control. It's becoming a

1:04:48

solved problem and obviously like,

1:04:50

you know, Akai and then,

1:04:53

you know, everyone's now creating

1:04:55

controllers that, and so I

1:04:57

suppose, yeah, it begs that

1:04:59

question of do you. What's

1:05:01

the, you know, what kind,

1:05:03

the kinds of controls that

1:05:05

you give yourself to use?

1:05:07

And it sounds like they're

1:05:09

more metal ones these days

1:05:11

than specific. Well, you know,

1:05:13

the, I mean, the launch

1:05:15

control thing, it's, it's not

1:05:17

the most beautiful thing on

1:05:19

the planet, but it does

1:05:21

the job. And if it

1:05:23

breaks or if someone steals

1:05:25

it, I just go on

1:05:27

the Tuman website or whatsoever,

1:05:29

and next day I have

1:05:31

a new one. And... it

1:05:33

gives me just a little

1:05:36

bit more peace of mind.

1:05:38

And that is actually also

1:05:40

nice when performing. Yeah. The,

1:05:42

since you mentioned the Cerklon,

1:05:44

I really admire that product.

1:05:46

I know Colin the inventor

1:05:48

of it, he's a good

1:05:50

friend and I applaud him

1:05:52

for being so stubborn. Yeah,

1:05:54

because you know he's he's

1:05:56

building this box and he's

1:05:58

dedicating more or less his

1:06:00

life his professional life into

1:06:02

it and It is amazing

1:06:04

in one side. It is

1:06:06

tedious in other aspects, it

1:06:08

has personality, it's beautiful, it's

1:06:10

powerful, it's an instrument, it's

1:06:12

a true instrument with all

1:06:14

the pros and cons of

1:06:16

an instrument. And if I

1:06:19

would say in a planet

1:06:21

where life would not exist,

1:06:23

I could see myself using

1:06:25

really the circleon as the

1:06:27

centerpiece of my sequencing. But

1:06:30

yeah, Ableton Life exists the thing.

1:06:33

Sorry Colin. I have both. I

1:06:35

have got a circle and I

1:06:37

also have Ableton Live. Well, I

1:06:39

was going to ask you if

1:06:42

you do use the session view

1:06:44

or the arrangement view more in

1:06:46

live, because I reflect on the

1:06:48

fact that the, you know, I...

1:06:50

actually weirdly just bought an Atari

1:06:53

to try and use some of

1:06:55

the old sequences things like creator,

1:06:57

sweet notator, to bless their little

1:06:59

carton socks. And I'm reminded of

1:07:02

live in a way, you know,

1:07:04

I know that, you know, the

1:07:06

session view, well, you know, clip

1:07:08

view, this whole thing is sort

1:07:10

of trackery. It is also sort

1:07:13

of like creator and in a

1:07:15

way, you know, they feel related.

1:07:17

I wonder how you, you, you

1:07:19

know, you know, That way of

1:07:22

working, there are two different ways

1:07:24

of working, this top-down, this left-right

1:07:26

thing. And I know that when,

1:07:28

you know, when the Atari was

1:07:30

king, that when Q-Base came out,

1:07:33

everyone was just like, oh my

1:07:35

God, I will never go back

1:07:37

to the top-down, weird view. I

1:07:39

will never do that. I always

1:07:42

want to see my track laid

1:07:44

out in that way. I'm curious

1:07:46

about what you feel about those,

1:07:48

you know, that, that way of

1:07:50

working and what... There's pragmatism. When

1:07:53

I'm working in studio on tracks,

1:07:55

it's arrangement. But for this live

1:07:57

performance that I have in three

1:07:59

days where I want to improvise,

1:08:01

it's all session view. Yeah. And

1:08:04

in a studio, I use session

1:08:06

view very often to quickly. try

1:08:08

things out. You know, throwing a

1:08:10

sound in there, playing it, seeing

1:08:13

if it fits with the others,

1:08:15

or for recording quickly on the

1:08:17

fly. So it's a very non-pragmatic

1:08:19

switching between those two. Do you

1:08:21

tend to like when you're working

1:08:24

on sound design, do you throw

1:08:26

stuff into like a simpler or

1:08:28

a sampler or do you... put

1:08:30

the actual waveform on the timeline

1:08:33

and manipulate it in an individual

1:08:35

track. Most of the time I

1:08:37

put it in the timeline because

1:08:39

I like to explore what the

1:08:41

different kind of warping transposition stuff

1:08:44

is doing. So that is more

1:08:46

my way of working. But I

1:08:48

also throw things in samplers of

1:08:50

course. I've always wished

1:08:53

for a long time that

1:08:55

Ableton Live had a way

1:08:57

of putting effects on to

1:08:59

individual clips. Would you like

1:09:02

that? Yes, no, I mean

1:09:04

everyone wants that. Put in

1:09:06

a support ticket. The problem

1:09:08

with all these wishes is

1:09:10

from the outside, it might

1:09:13

seem that there's maybe 1050

1:09:15

wishes that everyone has. From

1:09:17

the inside, it is more

1:09:19

the... that I mention of

1:09:21

several thousand wishes and every

1:09:24

single of them is conceptual

1:09:26

or programming or both work

1:09:28

to implement and this is

1:09:30

sometimes really really kind of

1:09:33

borderline frustrating because you see

1:09:35

all these wishes and to

1:09:37

every single one I know.

1:09:39

It bothers me too. But

1:09:41

being on the inside, I

1:09:44

also know what it means

1:09:46

to change it. And this,

1:09:48

this, you know. the kind

1:09:50

of the running gag is

1:09:52

how hard can it be

1:09:55

just add a button? Yeah.

1:09:57

And said by someone who

1:09:59

has never built anything or

1:10:01

like understands that adding a

1:10:03

button can blow up another

1:10:06

button. Oh exactly and I

1:10:08

myself often fall into this

1:10:10

thinking of okay let's just

1:10:12

quickly change this because I

1:10:15

have a better idea how

1:10:17

it can work. then I'm

1:10:19

convinced that this is a

1:10:21

job of a few days

1:10:23

and it's non-controversial and everything.

1:10:26

And then, you know, someone

1:10:28

looks at it for the

1:10:30

first time and says, yeah,

1:10:32

but now I can't do

1:10:34

a multi-selection anymore over several

1:10:37

clips because blah blah. And

1:10:39

then you look at it

1:10:41

and I think, oh shit.

1:10:43

I didn't consider that problem.

1:10:45

And then you ultimately say,

1:10:48

well... We don't have a

1:10:50

good answer for that. So

1:10:52

let's go back to the

1:10:54

old version. And yeah, this

1:10:57

is something where making a

1:10:59

product that has a huge

1:11:01

user base and people rely

1:11:03

on that certain workflows are

1:11:05

how they are. Everything you

1:11:08

change, even if you think

1:11:10

it's an improvement, it might

1:11:12

be a problem for someone

1:11:14

else. And yeah. It's tricky.

1:11:16

But we're working on it.

1:11:19

So some of the things

1:11:21

that people complained about for

1:11:23

a long time will ultimately

1:11:25

at some point be improved.

1:11:27

I mean every single release

1:11:30

we are improving things that

1:11:32

are really high on the

1:11:34

wish list of people. We

1:11:36

do our best. I was

1:11:39

going to reflect on the

1:11:41

fact that it also weirdly

1:11:43

feels like if you look

1:11:45

at pictures of like live

1:11:47

one. It doesn't actually look

1:11:50

that different to how it

1:11:52

is like intrinsically. Yeah. But

1:11:54

this is good and bad

1:11:56

at the same time. It's

1:11:58

good because it showed that

1:12:01

the initial concept was valuable

1:12:03

and it's good because it

1:12:05

gives the sense of feeling

1:12:07

at home. But this is

1:12:09

also an aspect where occasionally

1:12:12

I wish we could have

1:12:14

some broad ideas or actually

1:12:16

we have broad ideas like

1:12:18

radical ideas. But then when

1:12:21

we try to iterate through

1:12:23

We run in all these

1:12:25

kind of problems and Sometimes

1:12:27

it would be so much

1:12:29

more fun to just start

1:12:32

over from scratch and make

1:12:34

a new product. But of

1:12:36

course, that's not That's not

1:12:38

what we're going to do

1:12:40

because There are a lot

1:12:43

of people that rely on

1:12:45

it for it. It's responsible

1:12:47

for it. Yeah, also you

1:12:49

have just created the move

1:12:51

and you've got like, you

1:12:54

know, there's there's things like

1:12:56

this and you know, there

1:12:58

are other ways of using

1:13:00

live in a set in

1:13:03

effect in effect I wanted

1:13:05

to ask you about some

1:13:07

favorite devices, but I'm curious,

1:13:09

you seem to be a

1:13:11

Sinclair head. Would that be

1:13:14

fair to say, can you

1:13:16

talk a bit about that?

1:13:18

That machine and what you,

1:13:20

have you, I have read

1:13:22

somewhere, I don't know if

1:13:25

this is true, that you

1:13:27

were, that live, part of

1:13:29

lives inspiration comes from the

1:13:31

Sinclair. parts of life's inspiration

1:13:33

comes from everything. Yeah. Is

1:13:36

that true? Is it true?

1:13:38

Is the... Is it? No,

1:13:40

I wouldn't call it like

1:13:42

that. The Sinclair is at

1:13:45

the same point amazing as

1:13:47

it is ridiculous. So, the...

1:13:49

So, if someone today wants

1:13:51

to start making music, and

1:13:53

money is not the objection.

1:13:56

The last thing I would

1:13:58

recommend that question is getting

1:14:00

an old Sinclair. It makes

1:14:02

no sense whatsoever. It did

1:14:04

make a lot of sense

1:14:07

40 years ago, or 30.

1:14:09

It started as a university

1:14:11

project, based around a mini-computer,

1:14:13

a mini-computer in opposition to

1:14:15

micro-computer, so big computer, with

1:14:18

some synthesis capabilities at Dartmouth

1:14:20

Mouse College in the US.

1:14:22

It turned into a commercial

1:14:24

product a little bit later,

1:14:27

which was a very kind

1:14:29

of crude and strange FM

1:14:31

synthesizer with a built-in sequencer

1:14:33

and music printing facility, so

1:14:35

you could connect a printer,

1:14:38

since it was a computer

1:14:40

system. Of course. It could

1:14:42

also do a very early

1:14:44

on 16-bit monophonic sampling to

1:14:46

hard disk at a time

1:14:49

where no one else did

1:14:51

do this. So you could

1:14:53

run whole backtracks for pieces.

1:14:55

from the hard disk at

1:14:57

a time where people were

1:15:00

still spinning tape around. So

1:15:02

all that was super cool.

1:15:04

And they managed to get

1:15:06

a user interface concept together

1:15:09

with this big jog wheel

1:15:11

and a lot of buttons

1:15:13

and LEDs that once you

1:15:15

were used to it was

1:15:17

really really fast to operate.

1:15:20

So early Sinclair users loved

1:15:22

the fact that they could

1:15:24

be so quick. This is

1:15:26

why a lot of musicians

1:15:28

who could afford such a

1:15:31

system also enjoyed using it

1:15:33

on stage or as a

1:15:35

centerpiece for composition. I mean,

1:15:37

most notable people like Frank

1:15:39

Zappa, but Petmethini, Kavk had

1:15:42

a certain clavier system, a

1:15:44

big one and so on.

1:15:46

And later they added polyphonic

1:15:48

sampling. which, with 16 bits,

1:15:51

they were sampling at 100

1:15:53

kilohertz at a time where

1:15:55

the competition had, I don't

1:15:57

know, 8 bit, 12 bits

1:15:59

and much. So the idea

1:16:02

was always, let's build the

1:16:04

biggest, most expensive, most crazy

1:16:06

system you can build. And

1:16:08

then they got eaten by

1:16:10

companies like Emu Systems and

1:16:13

Sonic Archive who made much

1:16:15

much much more affordable systems

1:16:17

that basically ultimately could do

1:16:19

nearly as much for a

1:16:21

few percent of the price.

1:16:24

Exactly. And that was the

1:16:26

death of it. So the

1:16:28

question is why would you

1:16:30

want to engage with such

1:16:33

a system nowadays? As far

1:16:35

as the small FM version

1:16:37

is concerned, because it sounds

1:16:39

so gnarly. So it sounds

1:16:41

really, really completely different from

1:16:44

what you would expect from

1:16:46

Yamaha or any FM software

1:16:48

synthesizer, because it's the way

1:16:50

they do the math in

1:16:52

there is brutal. It's shifting

1:16:55

bits around if it's 8

1:16:57

bit integer table look up

1:16:59

stuff for those who know

1:17:01

what this means. It's rough.

1:17:03

It's noisy. It's dirty. And

1:17:06

for some strange reason, this

1:17:08

makes it extremely musical in

1:17:10

a really weird way. There

1:17:12

is some fascination to the

1:17:15

dirt there. So this is

1:17:17

the one aspect. And there

1:17:19

is a similar aspect to

1:17:21

the sampling. that

1:17:23

whatever you throw in, if you

1:17:26

transpose it a lot down, it

1:17:28

exposes, it's like slowing tape down

1:17:30

but not, there is some magic

1:17:33

to it. I did interview the

1:17:35

guy from a Sinclair and it's

1:17:37

like he did try to explain

1:17:40

it. I've had other people try

1:17:42

to explain what is happening there

1:17:45

and it interests me, you know,

1:17:47

especially when I know there's a

1:17:49

talk of warping in Ableton is

1:17:52

sort of... I know like since

1:17:54

Live 8 there was this whole

1:17:56

controversy that like warping is making

1:17:59

your sound bad you know and

1:18:01

but like it's interesting that concept

1:18:04

of time. time stretching well and

1:18:06

time stretching badly and I don't

1:18:08

know what the difference is. Ultimately,

1:18:11

it's a dinosaur and it's still

1:18:13

very fast in operating for certain

1:18:15

things. So it has this big

1:18:18

keyboard here and I can just

1:18:20

call up a sample, let's say

1:18:23

a single piano note and I

1:18:25

hit one other button which is

1:18:27

record and I just play. And

1:18:30

it records it as a sequence.

1:18:32

That's it. And this alone is

1:18:34

such a great thing. And if

1:18:37

I've played something for half an

1:18:39

hour and I liked it, then

1:18:42

I have the recording and then

1:18:44

I can actually export this as

1:18:46

meaty and do something with it.

1:18:49

Or I can record the sound

1:18:51

or whatever. But the reason why

1:18:53

I got this system, the big

1:18:56

one, is actually because... I know

1:18:58

it technically very well because I'm

1:19:01

curious and this system was intended

1:19:03

to be sold and I was

1:19:05

hired as a technical advisor so

1:19:08

I looked at the system and

1:19:10

checked if it's working and I

1:19:12

wrote down what is all broken

1:19:15

and a lot was broken and

1:19:17

I gave an estimation of the

1:19:20

value and all these kind of

1:19:22

things but I never wanted to

1:19:24

have it. because it's a huge

1:19:27

wreck that's now sitting here in

1:19:29

the way. And it was from

1:19:31

a person died and it was,

1:19:34

you know, stuff that belonged to

1:19:36

that person and they wanted to

1:19:39

get rid of it and at

1:19:41

some point they really begged me

1:19:43

to take it. So I got

1:19:46

it basically for the material value

1:19:48

and then I invested, I don't

1:19:50

know, half a six-month repairing. sourcing

1:19:53

parts, talking of other experts to

1:19:55

get in and back to run.

1:19:58

And now I have it. since

1:20:00

I have it, I use it,

1:20:02

but it's not something that I

1:20:05

would have had on my bucket

1:20:07

list. Does it, what does it

1:20:09

teach you then? I mean, is

1:20:12

there still, to feel it still

1:20:14

has beyond its narliness and its

1:20:17

speed, is that it? What can

1:20:19

we learn from it? Yes, in

1:20:21

detail there's some nice clever user

1:20:24

interface elements, how things work, you

1:20:26

know? So if it comes to

1:20:28

how you control a sequencer via

1:20:31

hardware, there's definitely some details that

1:20:33

are nicely done and you can

1:20:36

grab ideas from that. The other

1:20:38

thing it teaches is listening because

1:20:40

it comes with this computer screen

1:20:43

in a terminal but most of

1:20:45

the operation is just happening from

1:20:47

the keyboard with all the buttons

1:20:50

on it and that means the

1:20:52

only display you have is for

1:20:55

that time a pretty fancy but

1:20:57

it's basically one line of text.

1:20:59

And that means instead of looking

1:21:02

at a filter graph or looking

1:21:04

at a wayform or anything like

1:21:06

this, you just play and you

1:21:09

adjust and you listen. And I

1:21:11

find it often problematic that when

1:21:14

you use software, that you spend

1:21:16

so much time actually looking at

1:21:18

things. You know, you define where

1:21:21

the break has to be according

1:21:23

to the look of the piece.

1:21:25

and not according to what you're

1:21:28

hearing. And very often I deliberately

1:21:30

turn off the screen when listening

1:21:33

to my music. And I just

1:21:35

hit stop when I think there

1:21:37

something needs to change. And I

1:21:40

don't care if it is then

1:21:42

one minute or three minutes or

1:21:44

whatever. And these old machines, including

1:21:47

the Sinclair, tell you to play

1:21:49

and listen. I am sure I

1:21:52

saw a Max patch or Max

1:21:54

for Live patch that makes the

1:21:56

screen go black when you hit

1:21:59

baseball. Yeah, I made that one.

1:22:01

Thank you for that. I might

1:22:03

have to install it because that's

1:22:06

a good one. It's simply called

1:22:08

black. Yeah, I mean you can

1:22:11

close your eyes I know but

1:22:13

it's sometimes we forget because we're

1:22:15

so visual as creatures. If you

1:22:18

had to choose an analog since

1:22:20

to take on a desert island

1:22:22

do you have one or something

1:22:25

close to one? That is a

1:22:27

challenging question. I mean,

1:22:30

it's all very difficult

1:22:32

with a synthesizer in

1:22:34

general, but if it's

1:22:36

analog, I have to

1:22:38

admit I'm a bit

1:22:41

tempted to have a

1:22:43

closer look at the

1:22:45

MOOC muse, which seems

1:22:47

to be very powerful

1:22:49

and nicely done, but

1:22:52

I never touched it

1:22:54

or actually seen it.

1:22:56

I might consider a

1:22:58

small portable uorac case

1:23:00

with a... a dedicated

1:23:02

selection of modules, maybe

1:23:05

the thing to do,

1:23:07

simply because of the

1:23:09

amount of possibilities. Maybe

1:23:11

a small euro rack

1:23:13

thing and a four-track

1:23:16

tape recorder. Yes, so

1:23:18

a Fostex four-track tape

1:23:20

recorder, an unlimited stock

1:23:22

of working tape cassette

1:23:24

cassette. Exactly. And a

1:23:27

small modular rig. That

1:23:29

should be. What is

1:23:31

the future of music

1:23:33

technology? Oh God. What

1:23:35

would you like the

1:23:38

future music technology to

1:23:40

be I suppose is

1:23:42

more the question the

1:23:44

problem is? I'm personally,

1:23:46

I'm pretty much in

1:23:48

peace with what I

1:23:51

have. My, the older

1:23:53

I get, the more

1:23:55

I'm concerned with expressing

1:23:57

myself in a meaningful

1:23:59

way with the things

1:24:02

I already have at

1:24:04

my disposal. I'm not

1:24:06

looking for new gear,

1:24:08

I'm not looking for

1:24:10

new features, whatever I

1:24:13

really... And no new

1:24:15

way of working. Exactly.

1:24:17

This can always be

1:24:19

improved. There's always details

1:24:21

that I hate. There's

1:24:24

always things that I

1:24:26

would do better. But

1:24:28

it's not that I

1:24:30

say, oh my God,

1:24:32

I can't continue being

1:24:34

professional without tool X,

1:24:37

Y, Z. This days

1:24:39

are long over. But

1:24:41

it's also clear that

1:24:43

I mean the big

1:24:45

elephant in the room

1:24:48

is of course AI.

1:24:50

We're just at the

1:24:52

beginning and it's very

1:24:54

clear that it will

1:24:56

change. a lot of

1:24:59

creative industries and a

1:25:01

lot of ways how

1:25:03

people create and there's

1:25:05

no way around it.

1:25:07

We are as a

1:25:10

company looking into it

1:25:12

of course every company

1:25:14

is doing this because

1:25:16

well it's going to

1:25:18

affect what people expect

1:25:20

that is possible and

1:25:23

I see interesting things

1:25:25

there. But

1:25:27

ultimately, where this is going

1:25:29

to end and how much

1:25:32

of it ultimately really will

1:25:34

change how the majority of

1:25:37

people is actually creating, it's

1:25:39

really hard to foresee. You

1:25:41

could argue that for many

1:25:44

people, this idea of typing

1:25:46

in a prompt and getting

1:25:49

a track out is what

1:25:51

they want. If you consider

1:25:53

it a job. writing, uplifting

1:25:56

music and D major forward.

1:25:58

a car car

1:26:01

commercial, the AI

1:26:03

can take AI can take over

1:26:05

that job. know, why should know,

1:26:07

why through I go through brass libraries

1:26:10

and fire fire up 10

1:26:12

instances of spectra sonics

1:26:14

to get the correct

1:26:16

sound design for contemporary

1:26:18

car commercials? know,

1:26:21

that is gone. that

1:26:23

That's already more or

1:26:25

less dead. already more or less dead.

1:26:27

I can choose between

1:26:29

sitting in front of

1:26:31

my Sinclair via playing

1:26:33

some piano sample at

1:26:35

night with some lexicon

1:26:38

reverb on it with figuring

1:26:40

out what my fingers

1:26:42

actually can do and figuring

1:26:44

typing in fingers actually can do

1:26:46

or typing in Chopin like 127 BPM F

1:26:48

flat major, you major, I know that

1:26:50

know, then I know

1:26:52

that I personally would

1:26:54

prefer actually training my

1:26:56

fingers. And this

1:26:58

is the, I think in between

1:27:01

there is the reality of what

1:27:03

we are facing in the future.

1:27:05

facing in the future. still want

1:27:07

to do the manual labor

1:27:09

of moving MIDI notes around

1:27:11

and editing audio and playing

1:27:13

instruments and moving knobs. and moving

1:27:16

people will also want to

1:27:18

be able to type in

1:27:20

some commands to create some commands to

1:27:22

that they could never be

1:27:24

able to play. could never be able

1:27:26

to play. Well,

1:27:29

what this means for

1:27:31

software, we will see.

1:27:33

we will see. Well, thank you

1:27:36

very much. very Thank

1:27:38

you. It was a

1:27:40

long talk. was a long talk. Thank

1:27:42

you. I

1:27:59

liked having a long

1:28:01

with you Robert. Robert's new album

1:28:03

Studio, of which we were talking

1:28:05

about, is out now along with

1:28:07

all the other beautiful things he

1:28:10

creates and the live shows that

1:28:12

he does. You can go and

1:28:14

find his album. Go and look

1:28:16

it up, Mono Lake Studio and

1:28:18

all his other music and projects.

1:28:21

he is a wonderful person to

1:28:23

talk to and a font of

1:28:25

knowledge of a person who is

1:28:27

so legitimately making it happen on

1:28:29

a daily basis and yeah his

1:28:32

whole thing about my key takeaway

1:28:34

was how are you blending how

1:28:36

are you using ableton live and

1:28:38

not fixating too much on it

1:28:40

when you also have hardware around

1:28:43

you it was very interesting to

1:28:45

hear him say the thing that

1:28:47

you know he basically ingest all

1:28:49

the sounds does all the sound

1:28:51

design as one process and then

1:28:54

he does the music making is

1:28:56

the second process. It seems he

1:28:58

separates the sound design from the

1:29:00

music writing and that seems to

1:29:02

be such a significant way of

1:29:05

doing something like this because it

1:29:07

is so easy to go down

1:29:09

worm holes especially if you try

1:29:11

and use things like modular since

1:29:13

they are by their definition vastly

1:29:16

time-consuming and fixating things. You just

1:29:18

cannot quickly go to a modular

1:29:20

synth. and patch a sound from

1:29:22

scratch, that is not a thing.

1:29:24

But you absolutely can spend a

1:29:27

whole afternoon just enjoying yourself on

1:29:29

a modular synth and spitting out

1:29:31

sounds. Like I don't do the

1:29:33

thing that he does, I've just

1:29:35

let's make some sounds. And actually

1:29:38

what I end up doing is

1:29:40

I just sort of fine little

1:29:42

loops and noodles that I might

1:29:44

like to save later and throw

1:29:46

them into a folder. But I

1:29:49

don't actually want loops and noodles,

1:29:51

I want one shots. when it

1:29:53

comes to it. And so his

1:29:55

thing about just I just make

1:29:57

drum hits and single sounds. I

1:30:00

think that is just so obviously

1:30:02

like the better way of doing

1:30:04

it. Filling up folders with one

1:30:06

shots. It's actually something that I've,

1:30:09

a realization I had recently was

1:30:11

like, I'm gonna do that more

1:30:13

when I have like a patch

1:30:15

set up or an interesting sound,

1:30:17

just record one hit of it

1:30:20

and stick it in a folder.

1:30:22

No more than one hit, you

1:30:24

know, or maybe at C3 and

1:30:26

C1. But like, that's all you

1:30:28

need, just, that's useful. And then

1:30:31

you think about making music and

1:30:33

things like trackers, then that would

1:30:35

be just pure gold. Yes. Some

1:30:37

things are so bleedingly obvious, it

1:30:39

takes 20 years to work it

1:30:42

out. Every day is school day.

1:30:44

So yes, thank you Robert. I

1:30:46

hope you found this interesting and

1:30:48

I would encourage you to check

1:30:50

out his album studio as well

1:30:53

as all his other music. Thank

1:30:55

you to the beautiful people of

1:30:57

Sunk. who sponsored this episode, that

1:30:59

is Love Sinthe, you remember that,

1:31:01

Love Sinthe, to get 10% off

1:31:04

until the first of January 2025.

1:31:06

Sorry to you, if you're listening

1:31:08

or I so, you missed it,

1:31:10

but still worth going to funk.

1:31:12

And obviously, thank you, Signal Sounds,

1:31:15

for sponsoring once again and so

1:31:17

wonderfully. If you have enjoyed this,

1:31:19

please consider sponsoring future bleeps. It's

1:31:21

been real folks. That's 2024. And

1:31:23

I will now leave you with

1:31:26

the thought that the next year

1:31:28

is 2025 and we're halfway through

1:31:30

the like 20s. The 20s? I

1:31:32

honestly in my mind think it's

1:31:34

still like just been the 90s

1:31:37

and somehow we're a quarter of

1:31:39

a century into a new century.

1:31:41

It is not okay in any

1:31:43

way shape or form. Can someone

1:31:45

please stop time or at least

1:31:48

slow it down a little bit?

1:31:50

I hope you will find some

1:31:52

time to be chill and enjoy

1:31:54

yourself. in this

1:31:56

holiday period and

1:31:59

I wish you

1:32:01

the most wonderful

1:32:03

of new years. Thanks

1:32:06

very much and we'll see

1:32:08

you next time. we'll see you Bye.