I tend to avoid personal posts like this, but I let my gear control me occasionally. The elektron devices are ripe with odd and beautiful sound spots which I’d struggle to discover without the machine in question. Anyone who’s sat down with the OT or A4 can probably agree that they’ve ended up twisting a track into something unpredictable and otherworldly via a mistake, or plain old sonic exploration.
The sonic exploration bit is the thing that catches me. It’s nice to ride around an audio landscape, tweaking and morphing for hours, slowly slipping into the realms of the unknown. I don’t often record whilst in this place, but I really should as it tends to resonate with me emotionally… but I’d rarely call it music that I’d like to share with others. I feel they’d be unlikely to appreciate it, as it’s more a memory of me releasing some emotions than music. I just use this time to learn the tools I’ve got, improve sound design skills and most importantly, to unwind.
If I’m trying to build a track I’d like others to hear, I’ll incorporate the more musical aspects of previous sonic exploration sessions in with the track. If I’d never spent the time letting myself be taught by the machine and learning how it works, I wouldn’t be aware of the massive number of tools and options available to me, already at my fingertips.