Great stuff!
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Forgot to mention him in my original post. Lusine is the shiiiiiiz! Just a Cloud OMG that was on repeat for like a month. Really blew me away. Might have just been where I was at at the time or something. Other people give it a listen and are like “meh…” Me… I was like “This is the best GD thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t even make music anymore 
” 
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I can visualize the concept of minimalism using Japanese line art as an example. They can, for example, capture the form and essence of a cat with 4-5 monochromatic lines of varying thickness. Contrast that with a realistic representation of a cat. Both expressions describe a cat, both difficult to master.
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Yup! That’s exactly where my head is at too. Simplicity is hard to master. That’s what is so intriguing about the Japanese aesthetic. A simple tea bowl, at first glance it looks like an old grimy bowl, better off going to Walmart and picking one up for a dollar right? But no, every “imperfection” is there on purpose and I dare anybody to sit down and make a tea bowl (chawan) like the masters do.
Same with cats and rabbits 
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I’m minimal in the same sense that you describe all though I’ve never considered myself a minimalist when it comes to anything really.
I have a lot of gear, but I only use a few pieces of gear for each track & I don’t like to suffocate my tracks with a lot of different sounds. I like my sounds to breathe… to stand out. & I also prefer hardware that’s really good at 1 thing rather than a jack of all trades.
Reading this thread I think there’s different ways to be minimal with production. The amount of gear you have in your studio, the amount of gear you use in a track & the amount of sounds used in a track.
I seem to gravitate towards music that is minimal as well. Even repetitive… Feeling the same rhythm for a long period pounding at the speed of my heart. It’s very meditative. & with music for me it’s all about feel. When a lot of sounds are used & a lot of change ups it alerts my mind which I normally don’t want when listening to music. I just want to feel it.
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thanks for reminding me of Lusine. haven’t listened to in quite a while! loving Sensorimotor right now 
he can’t be considered minimal though, since he has two of the same synth in his studio! even I’m not that bad (yet)! 
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This one really got me interested in minimal techno:
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About a week ago I had a request to sync two “minimal” synth tracks to a short video doco, so I bashed out a quick take for each while watching it, using only one synth with one patch for one track, as was the other track but with a simple bass beat.
Today he gets back to me saying he asked for “minimal you idiot. You know, like Kraftwerk!”.
Fuck it. Can’t do anyone a favour can you.
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Annoying. Reflects some of the above discussion about varying meanings/confusions about what constitutes ‘minimal’.
Did you like the tracks you ended up with?
Could you post them here?
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Isn’t Minimal Synth also a genre as well?
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I thought they were okay, since they matched the footage, but not Hollywood standard.
Here you go. Be kind.
These were on the spot improvs, 1st take recorded with no processing.
One was for a take of sombre Chernobyl footage today, the other was bright jazzy 1970’s footage from US nuclear power plants.
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Yeh, I actually like the record label too.
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What is minimal?
What is art?
What is minimal art?
Who really even knows. As far as my opinion, I feel these two tracks would be minimal to my ears. Especially the first track. I can totally imagine Chernobyl footage to this, nice work.
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Like the first one, definitely has a vibe to it that I am having trouble placing, 70s…? Not really though, i think that slight hint of distortion sitting on one of you tracks pushes it into a different feel; hmmmm… I wanna say spy; but not really; maybe like a mundane day in the life of a spy, the day any guy will have; picking up groceries, gassing the car. But still, he is a spy; and he knows.
2nd one couldn’t get into as much, liked it though!
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A spy falling asleep on a Rev2 keyboard, most likely.
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I often prefer reading descriptions & ideas of what minimalism is, rather than the musical outcomes.
And then you post this & it reminded me of what minimalism was to me back in the day. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
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What is it today if you don’t mind my asking?
My brother (who has a heavy programming / coding background) and I had a short conversation about framework vs workflow. One being a rigid structure like a toolkit or a set of procedures that allow you to build in a certain way. And workflow being more of an open ended type of thing based on patterns of thinking and memory and intuition.
In my head I had my ideas about creating music labeled as a framework, but I was calling it the wrong thing I guess because I definitely lean way further towards intuition vs “if this then that” type of creating.
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No probs, Glad you enjoyed it!
A very special track indeed.
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