nomos
Administrator
I'm just curious how many musicians we have on the boards here. Some of the people whose blogs I've been visiting have made offhand mention of their own music. Nick Gutterbreakz even posted some of his old tunes. So what are people making? What are you using to do it?
Myself - I started making hip hop in 1991. It got increasingly 'inauthentic' as I started hearing a lot more rave, jungle and punk, all of which had an energy that seemed to be missing from hip hop by mid-decade. I started making more overtly experimental music. It started like manic lo-fi Warp and ended in aural stasis. No movement. No sign of life. Sound for the sake of itself. This was the period when I swtiched from 'gear' to software and I had some trouble getting used to it. My output went way down and I nearly quit altogether. Then, in the last couple of years I've started playing with breaks and things again - mucking about just for the fun of it. It's not always super original but I'm enjoying myself again.
As for equipment - I just finished selling off all the electronic boxes I'd collected over the last decade: samplers, effects, four track, drum machines, synth, etc. Now I'm using Ableton Live, an Evolution Midi mixer and a controller keyboard for everything. I'm actually producing way more than I have since I was 19 or so, largely because everything is in one unit and I don't have to mess around with cables, settings and capatibilites anymore. It's great. I had one recent setback, however, when I found a Korg Polysix in the neighbour's garbage - pristine save for a leaky CMOS battery. I didn't have the heart to see it go but I don't have the electronics skills to fix it.
After all of this, however, I'm still not too keen to let other people hear what I do. It's partly a confidence thing, but in another way I guess it's kind of like my private world and I don't really feel a strong need to send it out for criticism.
So, anyone else want to let us know what they're up to? Whether it's commercially released or, as Nick said "music made by One for an audience of One."
Myself - I started making hip hop in 1991. It got increasingly 'inauthentic' as I started hearing a lot more rave, jungle and punk, all of which had an energy that seemed to be missing from hip hop by mid-decade. I started making more overtly experimental music. It started like manic lo-fi Warp and ended in aural stasis. No movement. No sign of life. Sound for the sake of itself. This was the period when I swtiched from 'gear' to software and I had some trouble getting used to it. My output went way down and I nearly quit altogether. Then, in the last couple of years I've started playing with breaks and things again - mucking about just for the fun of it. It's not always super original but I'm enjoying myself again.
As for equipment - I just finished selling off all the electronic boxes I'd collected over the last decade: samplers, effects, four track, drum machines, synth, etc. Now I'm using Ableton Live, an Evolution Midi mixer and a controller keyboard for everything. I'm actually producing way more than I have since I was 19 or so, largely because everything is in one unit and I don't have to mess around with cables, settings and capatibilites anymore. It's great. I had one recent setback, however, when I found a Korg Polysix in the neighbour's garbage - pristine save for a leaky CMOS battery. I didn't have the heart to see it go but I don't have the electronics skills to fix it.
After all of this, however, I'm still not too keen to let other people hear what I do. It's partly a confidence thing, but in another way I guess it's kind of like my private world and I don't really feel a strong need to send it out for criticism.
So, anyone else want to let us know what they're up to? Whether it's commercially released or, as Nick said "music made by One for an audience of One."
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