A couple of years ago, after a long hiatus, I got back into making music. I’ve been listening to electronic music since the 90’s, but unlike the 90’s, the technology is much more affordable. So I got myself a Digitakt and a Digitone. I love these boxes and I’m still as excited about making music on them now as I was 1 year ago when I first laid my hands on them. However, a lot of what I’m creating seems to be some kind showcase to show off what the boxes can do. Lots of triggless trigs, probability trigs with various lfo setting etc. Most of the music I listen to is simple and stripped down, totally unlike the music I’m making, and it dawned on me that I’m not controlling the boxes, but they are controlling me.
I’ve decided to make some covers of the songs I like as a way to start making music more to my taste.
It would be interesting to hear if this a common dilemma, I’m kind of split between two ideas.
You’re enjoying making music you wouldn’t necessary listen to, so keep going.
Get back to your roots and make simple music you like.
Gear always dictates the kind and form and music you make in some way. So its not just your creative input and your choosen style that dictates the outcome its always to some degree the gear.
If you want to make a country record you would not sourround yourself with lots of elektron stuff you would take different guitars and even those dictate style. Depends on what kind of guitar you have.
But I like it. Choosing gear is to some degree a creative decision.
But real fun starts if you start to use your tools the way they were not ment to be.
Interesting topic. I’d actually prefer making music that has a lot more beat and swing to it, just to get that vibe going and get people to move.
But I’m no good at that, and I seem to have a knack for ambient, so that’s where I’m drifting. I don’t listen to much ambient and similar myself, but I do thoroughly enjoy making it, and ironically, I actually kind of like listening to my own ambient.
Am I even on topic? Anyway, that’s the only cents I have on the topic, either way.
One’s own creativity is not always realized in it’s most mature form simply as a result of what one has liked, been exposed to, or endeavored towards in the past. This is the essence of finding your own voice, for it is not to speak in the words of others but using your own language to describe things.
If you don’t like what you’re doing maybe that’s healthy, we are often our own harshest critics. If you want to do something else, it’s not necessary to stop doing what is working for you now.
Having options available doesn’t mean you’ll use them, it is true that without those options built into the boxes you might not cross certain boundaries and if you were making music on less capable devices maybe you would make something more simple, or perhaps you would feel that the device was lacking for what you wanted to do with it.
Some people have 700 tv channels and only watch 1, it sounds like you’re not that guy. If you want to be though, no one is stopping you and there’s nothing wrong with operating inside your comfort zone until you’re ready to move out of or past it.
But in my opinion no, the box is not controlling you if you can think these thoughts and summarize it in the way you have. You’re just self conscious about what you perceive to be your musical identity which is something people become very attached to over time. In my opinion this kind of introspective self doubt is the hallmark of impending progress.
I think algorithmic recommendations are a factor in this. If you make music and put it out, perhaps someone will listen to it if they like it. But if you put out some music as a SHOWCASE for a consumer product like the DT and DN other users and potential buyers will seek out videos to compare notes on technique or evaluate whether or not they want to buy a unit. It’s easy for gear centered compositions to become ingrained in the creative process and lose sight of the music that brought you to where you were when you started acquiring gear.
I view this from a slightly different angle in that I decided to get thingd that would force me to work differently.
I essentially make a sort of drum-heavy brand of abrasive library music, I suppose, which lends itself well to the classic hardware sampler approach (MPC, SP1200 etc). I have my method of making that stuff covered, thanks to Ableton, iOS, Maschine etc. so deliberately looked towards approaches that would push me into different areas.
For a hardware box I chose the Polyend Tracker; on iOS and within Ableton I chose Strokes. I’m looking forward to seeing how/if the tools change my approach to the music I make with them.
I’ve definitely been feeling this in various degrees over the past few years. I covered it from a slightly different angle in this topic:
Maybe not exactly what you’re talking about here, but I think it’s a similar issue. Feeling like I’m not using the machine properly even if the track I’m writing doesn’t even need any complex modulation/parameter locks/other forms of depth. For me, the dilemma came from years of writing chip music, where the limited software and devices necessitated maximising what is available, thus unintentionally turning it into a game of skill flexing—which I might add, is respected, but certainly not prioritised, in the chip scene—and that attitude for me carried on to how I use Elektron gear. Gotta make the most out of it.
I did manage to alleviate this last year by deliberately setting out to make some early 90s IDM on the Syntakt, and it worked out great. Your idea of making covers is a good one; it really shows how you can use the devices as tools to serve the song, rather than using complexity just because the machine facilitates it.
yes, i do, but this has nothing to do with gear.
either i just make music that i like and play it live 2–3 times a year, or genre that i don’t like much (techno, the mainstream of the underground) – thus have much more opportunities to play live.
no, jamming at home is not live, it’s a rehearsal.
(I think?) I am controlling my gear, I always explored random parameters under control with it and Elektron stuff is pretty good at it (it misses mod matrix). I always want to explore everything possible (at least try all parameters) to master the gear, in order to be free to choose what I prefer after. Takes time ! I am not obsessed by using the most complex things after, on the contrary.
For live stuff I used to plan very complicated stuff with complex live midi control, midi processing, several linked machines, midi guitar, 100% live recording…Never ending quest.
Now I’d want something simple and efficient, anyway I think I don’t care anymore about making lives.
That’s my case, not a problem.
Get back to your roots and make simple music you like.
My musical roots / preferences can influence what I do, as the gear I use. But usually I have no specific plan when I make music, it is unexpexted and empirical.
While I do agree that gear has the potential to influence musical directions, I refuse to let that happen a lot of time, if not most times. I hate the idea of pigeonholing myself, of narrowing the scope, of boxing myself, and I refuse to use a piece of gear for the specific type of music that it is generally known for. That is not the gear’s fault but the general human usage that leads to stereotypes.
I few days ago there was a discussion in some Discord about the Virus synths described as the trance producer’s synth, or something like that, and I was like, “that’s just so weird!”
The other thing about that is that these stereotypes can also prevent new users to consider a piece of gear for their own work because their work differs from what that gear has been stereotyped to be. For example, I’ve heard several times from people I’ve met that they even though they are musicians that enjoy exploring gear and getting deep with it, they wouldn’t entertain using an Octatrack because it is geared towards “hip hop, hop hop adjacent, drum and bass, techno, sample flipping production, etc” which is absolutely not true, just like a distortion pedal is not just for metal music.
I feel when I’m ITB I’m totally in control. I can find a sequencer, synth, effect etc that meets my exact need and I can take the music in any direction I want.
In hardware I am still directing the music to where I want it to be but with the rules of kit I’m using. So guess we are sharing control, the machine giving me a selection of tools and me using them to my benefit. Use its limitations to keep me focussed and decide if those limitations are holding me back or pushing me forward.
This is why I always sell on gear that I feel don’t fully meet my needs.
Also I really enjoy making a variety of music and rarely sit down to make a certain type of track that sounds like something I’m listening to. All about experimenting until something clicks
The positive thing about this is that when you see people using something that is pigeonholed as being for one genre but they’re using for something else entirely it can be really inspiring.
I’ll never forget Ove Naxxx brutally breakcoring with his MPC2000XL, for example.
But this feels like a huge difference- creative expression vs advertising. So far I’ve only made one video where I had the device name in the title, but I made a cover as an exercise to learn the device.
When I’m making music that I want people to enjoy for the music’s sake, I leave the technical info out of the equation.
Different gear always drives me into different directions. When I relisten to my demos on my youtube channel with various machines, the style always differs quite a bit.
Some more than others. A DFAM for example always takes you to places you‘d never gone on your own.
But usually I have specific goals in mind, so I learned that even elektrons often are a bit overkill for the stuff I do.
Most of the time I just need some vary basic drum and synth sounds, where something like a Roland T8 takes me quicker where I want to be than let’s say an analog rytm.
Guess I like making tracks more than making sounds
This resonates. I have had multiple hobbies where I later discover I was just ‘problem solving’ (e.g. to take that kind of photograph I think I must need that kind of of lens, then I discover that making that kind of photograph wasn’t really the thing I wanted to do anyway.)
I’m getting better at this … but I need to catch myself all the time. Taking a break from trying to to make music, to really discover stuff that’s both
what I’d enjoy listening to
what I think I’m capable of making at this point in time
and then working within the limitations of the gear I have.
So really … at the moment (to bring this back vaguely on topic) I’m music-driven at the moment and doing my best to avoid being gear driven.
I think it is good to have some complex gear and some simple gear, and don’t worry about using every feature on the complex gear, making music is about being selective and the most important thing is the end result, not the means to get there.
Anyway, that’s the only cents I have on the topic, either way.
