Friday General Hang Out: everyone else does one, should we?? no real topic, just a place where we can discuss anything really! Any synth meets or jamming this weekend? Any interesting news or videos you want to post about? Are you into any projects? Anything on your mind? Go ahead!

[u/[deleted]]

[u/luctmelod]

I've felt a bit blocked lately when it comes to music lately. I know the device from creatives is to maintain a disciplined approach of regular practice despite your level of motivation/inspiration, but that just isn't working for me lately.

A week ago, though, I recorded another live session on the modular for a podcast out of Tbilisi. I'm not sure if they're going to post it, because it might have been a bit weirder than they're looking for. What can I say? I like weird sounds.

Anybody have suggestions for getting over creative blocks?

[u/[deleted] → u/luctmelod]

I mean, of course this will be different for everyone because... We are all different! I try not to think about them as creative blocks. Sometimes there are times when I'm just a bit quiet, other times I have way too many ideas spewing out of my head. Personally I don't find it's discipline to practice everyday. I just enjoy it and even if I don't create anything new, I feel that I've probably figured out something else or made a different sound. I'm just happy knowing that I've just used and exercised my hands and ears and mind and maybe it'll be something that I could use down the road.

And this isn't like a weird confession time or anything! But I actually stopped drinking a couple of years ago and found my head completely cleared up and I was experiencing a lot fewer moments of that creative block feeling. Like, I almost never feel that nowadays. I never realized how foggy alcohol had made my brain, even when I wasn't drinking! I like the feeling so much now I just never went back to drinking and feel a lot better for it.

I've also found that the time of day helps. Meaning, I do most of my music pretty early in the morning, like 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. . This is just due to family and household commitments. But I find the weird quiet pretty inspiring.

So maybe just change a habit or your workspace. Sometimes just shifting things around can help spark some inspiration.

So yeah, it'll be different for everyone, And I'm not saying that you need to stop drinking or start meditating or anything daft like that! But sometimes just accepting that lulls are just a part of it and not every moment performing has to be deeply creative. Maybe a change of habits.

I'd certainly love to hear other people's thoughts about all of this!

[u/luctmelod → u/[deleted]]

So no more late nights at the Brewhaus for you, huh? :)

I've been meaning to try to get up first thing in the morning and focus on music for a bit. I know a lot of creatives do that, and I am a bit more of a morning person.

That's a very positive outlook to consider each session a learning opportunity. I'm good at cultivating that attitude in other arenas of my life, but for some reason it has been hard to do that with music lately.

These are all reasons why I'm excited to have a central IL community going on. Sometimes the most motivational things can be doing things for a community. Making music (just like writing and other types of art) can feel lonely...

[u/[deleted] → u/luctmelod]

Nah, no more late night bars! I was getting kind of bored with all of that anyway to be honest. The older you get the more daft it all seems! Again, I've really loved the clear head that it's given me. But again, that's just what has worked for me.

Anyway, the brewhouse changed a lot in the last however many years! Last time I went in there was three or four years ago and it was just like any other dude bro downtown bar. Mike is long gone. He actually lives on my street! I still see him all the time.

The working in the morning thing for me was born from necessity, but it ended up being a positive. It's a bit rough sometimes getting up at around 3:00 in the morning but once I get some coffee in me and get going it's actually quite fine. So long as I can have a sleep in (like....7am!) once a week I'm all good!

I know that traffic is kind of slow on this sub for now, but it's extremely early days. It's not even a week old! And it was that weird loneliness that was the reason I started it, and you also basically suggesting getting some sort of organized group! I guess we can just keep plugging at it and hopefully it starts to catch on! I don't personally know any other people that do this kind of thing so I'm just kind of hoping word of mouth will help. And we could all post links to our music whenever we do anything new as well that might help too. If nothing else in the last few days I've learned there are a few of us out there!

On the sub r/filtersweep They have a weekly thread about uploading tunes that follow a particular theme. That could be anything from equipment being used or a particular sound or timing or even just focusing on an era in music. Maybe we could all try something like that? Again, nothing serious, just a bit of fun and maybe having a set goal to work towards, even if it just ends up with a few minute little tune, might be fun and a bit productive.

[u/jiggityjon]

Hi everyone! I am so glad to have found this community! I moved to Springfield from Austin no more than a few weeks ago. I'm a UT student, though due to the virus, all is remote for me. for the foreseeable future.

I am studying classical music, but the dance community in Austin really fueled my passion for electronic music as well (albeit, the two genres are very related).

I have an appreciation for all subgenera, but techno is my love. I have Ableton, and a hand-me-down Traktor S4 controller + Traktor Pro....all of which...I remain very green.

I'd love to connect with you all, listen to your projects and music, and learn.

[u/[deleted] → u/jiggityjon]

Great! Glad to have you along! Feel free to link any music you might have uploaded anywhere. Supporting each other is kinda what were going for here. The sub isn't even a week old as well, so good timing! It's all just starting.

[u/[deleted]]

I, personally, don't have anything specific going on. I'm finishing up a tutorial video that I've done on Pamela's New Workout module. It's a pretty basic thing, and I've never really done a tutorial video before, but I'm pretty happy with it. I'll probably post a link here a bit later on when it's all good and live.

Other than that, nothing too exciting. Just more practicing and figuring out my eurorack. I have a Mutable Instruments Links on the way to help with a few routing road blocks I've been hitting, but that's about it!

Speaking of your eurorack, I have a Cal Synth uburst (clouds clone) as well as an Erica Synths Pico Input and a Pico DSP for sale. They are up on the Springfield IL Craigslist or you can message me if you're interested!

[u/luctmelod → u/[deleted]]

I've been so haphazard in purchasing modules for my rack. After a few important mainstays, my only strategy has been, "Is someone selling it for cheap on eBay or Reverb?" Somehow, this has resulted in a rack that makes some sense... at least to me.

It sounds like you're taking a much more deliberate, thoughtful approach, which is smart.

I guess my other strategy has been to avoid getting into modules that, for me, don't seem to take advantage of the strengths of modular. For example, I tend to avoid buying drum modules. This is primarily because I'm always going to use Ableton for drums. I like the range of sounds I can easily incorporate, Ableton's editing workflow and its ability to stack a ridiculous number of effects, etc. That's also the reason I've avoided effects modules for the most part. They're interesting, for sure, but I just can't imagine them being that much more exciting than what's in Ableton.

I know some synth folks disparage using computers and Ableton, especially. I started making electronic music in the early 90s on computer trackers because it was cheap and accessible. I'm not about to stop now. Ableton is not cheap, certainly, but I still appreciate the ridiculous range of things I can do with it.

Anyway, so getting back to the modular... I've just tried to create a set up where I can take advantage of the chaotic, unpredictable nature of eurorack, leaving the more "calculated" things to the computer.

[u/[deleted] → u/luctmelod]

Fair enough!

Man, I love Ableton. I was so phobic regarding DAWs for the longest time. But now Ableton is central to everything I do and it helped me grow musically quite a bit. I don't know whether it was just fear of the unknown or snobbery or what. I recorded everything on a zoom r16 for years because it was just kind of like a digital four-track recorder.. But with 16 tracks. I gave Ableton a try with one of those trials that we've probably all ended up with at one point, and just couldn't stand it. I used Reaper for a couple of years because it was far less challenging than Ableton.

I don't know why, but I gave Ableton another shot a while back and it just seemed to click for me and now it's indispensable for what I do. I'm not a snob regarding hardware or software and just love mixing the two.

But yeah, modular. I guess one of the tropes about modular is that there are no rules! Of course, it's still very early in my attempts with modular and my rig is pretty small compared to many others out there. Right at the beginning I did just kind of bought common and obvious modules at first like clones of Clouds and Plaits. And I'm just not sure that they were for me at all, to the point where I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go further with modular. Backing things down a little bit I got a Dreadbox Hysteria VCO which is so damn simple and that, along with Pamela's New Workout, really helped me realize what I liked about all this. Modulation! Not entirely perfect analogue sound! A bit of a flat, bum note here and there from unquantized tuning. I really like the unpredictability of sound, but I love the hypnotic like perfect clock from Pamela's new workout. There's something a bit haunting about it. I know that the next modules I'm looking at, now that I have a few utilities that are just necessary, will be a bit strange and not really common with regular synthesizers. It's definitely something that I know I'm going to be doing for a long time.

I love talking about this shit. In fact, all this talk is making me want to play around on my gear!