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Resonant Thoughts: Steven Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From” (2011)
“The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others… Continue reading
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Database: Virtual Riot On Building A Map Of Sound Design In Your Mind
“With Massive, before Serum, there were no tutorials. And I was just turning every knob and imagining what that might mean what I’m doing right there […] I was like, Just turn every knob, remember what it does and start to build in your mind a sort of map of, Okay, this does this, this does… Continue reading
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Keywords: Minimalism
(Photo: Sarah Dorweiler) Minimalism is an artistic philosophy of doing more with less (or doing less with even less), of limiting, reducing, or narrowing one’s palette of materials and toolkit of techniques with which to create. In music production, minimalism entails committing to, and maximizing the potentials of, a few good sounds (or one great… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Errollyn Wallen’s “Becoming A Composer” (2023)
“Trick yourself or be forced into writing something very fast and you will see just how quickly you become an animal. All nerve endings and responses, ears on wire stalks.You know it all already.” “Intuition is an awareness of patterns, above and below the surface, seen and unseen, heard and unheard. For me, the act… Continue reading
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Keywords: Iteration
(Photo: Katja Anokhina) Iteration is the production strategy of growing your music by tinkering over time with the goal of moving a track ever closer to having the right form for its feeling and right feeling for its form. Six examples from a thousand possibilities: begin with a plain drum sound and complexify it, give… Continue reading
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Database: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry On Instant Inputs And Outputs
“I’m a miracle man–things happen which I don’t plan, I’ve never planned anything…Whatsoever I do, I want [the recording studio] to be an instant action object, instant reaction subject. Instant input, instant output.” Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry database. Continue reading
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Keywords: Effects Chains
(Photo: rolandus.com) Effects chains are black boxes for processing sounds assembled without knowing their musical output until you hear it. Think of them as routes for sounds to travel, flowing from one effect to another and picking up distortions, resonances, artifacts, and colorations along the way. Effects chains allow the producer to think big by… Continue reading
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