Just had a thought, it’d be interesting to make a very minimal track that stands on its own as a basis for a track.
Then just add bits to it. I’m not a massive minimal music fan but I think this would be really interesting way of working.
I often hear minimal ambient stuff and think ‘oh man I would throw in some massive distorted drums right there’.
This blawan stuff is sick, can’t believe I’m only getting into it now, thanks for the recommendation
It’s amazing how really tough tracks are that way because they’re so stripped down.
From the album “LESS IS MOOR”, fittingly:
for me, all I use is an sp404a, 3 phones, h9,dd7 and a og koasilator. not that Im trying to be minimal, I’m just broke and trying to make songs on a budget.
Maybe you haven’t seen this then?
Blawan and Pariah live with hardware.
@ levitatingcoffin666 You might find that’s how it all started as opposed to some high concept.
Less gear is better anyway, I know that might sound heretical.
I watched another vid of these guys, and I spotted an m:s and digitone
You mean like make a track and pass it to the left? Minimal style?
Has this been done? Elektronauts collaboration project?
Hell yeah! F’ck sh*t UP with that setup!
My current setup: iPad, Digitone, Digitakt, CraftSynth 2.0, H9 Max, Zoom R16 recorder
I plan to use the above to jam outdoors but need to buy an expensive battery. I made a full length album and an EP in the past year using only one program on iPad and then doing the fine tuning, FX & mixing in the DAW. I don’t know whether to keep my AR, AK, OT (mk1 dark trinity) and AH.
Just remembered this, going through old tunes. This is about as minimal as it gets, they used to be more in the Breaks category than techno, until it died out. Even today it’s still a really clever tune.
Nice topic!
I took me a while to open up for minimalism. Starting 15 years ago with the approach ‘more is better’ I’m gradually changing my direction to ‘less is more’.
I think minimalism is something that every artist should master to succeed.
My current setup is OT, DT, A4mkII, Mother 32, DFAM, Gr-1, Blofeld and Pulse2 :).
It’s a quite a lot but currently I never use more than 3 at once.
Usually I just use a pair or even solo.
I even got rid of a mixer. What I have to ease me pairing my stuff is a DIY patchbay.
I’m interested not so much in an “instrument” for minimalism as a dynamics processor to help with the “hypnotic” quality of a threadbare synth and drum track.
I have a dusty 24 channel pioneer mixer, a delay unit, a colorful tube eq, and a SSL SiX (with bus compressor) going into an 8 channel interface with decent preamps.
When I make my next sale n’ upgrade, what would be a useful consideration for subtly shifting animation to a track? Rack items preferred over euro, I’ve been trying to avoid lunchbox modules.
Compressor, limiter, eq, or other mixing utility box i haven’t considered? I might think about a Sherman filter bank again but i’m looking for more… liquid than i am cacophonous (i have enough nasty devices, i want dynamically psychedelic?)
I feel a Fatso compressor/coloration might be useful, but I also have enough punch in the face coloration and want something sub rosa and minimal, something that can drag or push a track around a bit.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean. But if you’re looking for movement in your processing, then look at items with envelopes, envelope followers, LFOs, or CV ins.
Obviously Eurorack is king of modulation.
I recently bought the IOTINE Core 4. Amazing. Tonnes of movement, unfortunately not stereo though.
At the end of the day whatever you’re after is going to be a combination of items in an FX chain. By the sound of it I would start modulating things much more. Which could of course be done in a DAW too.
I’ve got LFOs through Pam’s New Workout and a Just Friends, I can get things going lovely and syncopated through sequencing, filtering, swing, envelopes/followers and some delay.
Once I get the interplay bouncing around, I just wonder what might be able to give additional depth and… stank to a sparse arrangement? Something more in the dynamics and psychoacoustics than textural “character” or specific FX.
I think I know what you’re getting at. But like most things there’s no magic bullet.
Have you tried modulating compression / distortion so it’s not always the same each note / hit?
Have you tried mid size processing?
Have you tried parallel processing? How about parallel processing highs and lows separately with different movement / processing?
I’ve been watching a lot of techno production videos - great techno is often simple sounding but actually there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.
I would suggest choosing an artist you like and seeing if there’s a tutorial online about some of the techniques.
But the takeaway is it’s all work - rather than necessarily a new thing to buy. That’s what I’ve taken away from my journey anyway.
Definitely, I have the buss compressor in the SiX, but I don’t have any other compressors or limiters in hardware and figure there might be a good offering for the m/s and parallel processing and the problem with most compressor demos online are that they’re centered around natural, live drum recordings and guitar tracks.
Keeping with the “studio as an instrument” vibe, how many mid-high end compressors are so playable and intuitive?
In the mean time I’ll be learning what I have as best I can, obviously.
No idea what your setup is or your musical genre / goals but a lot of this stuff you kind of need a daw for. At least for individual track processing, which is where it’s at.
I primarily make music in Eurorack. One issue for me is EQ. I have two surgical eqs in my case, a sampler so I can eq and then resample if I want, but it’s impossible for me to eq the 12 outputs in hardware, so it’s done in ableton.
All this stuff is very much music production technique, and something I’m learning too. Once you have your track recorded and multi tracked out, then you do all this in a daw.
There’s a mid side decoder module in Eurorack, but then you’d need a whole slew of modules to process both tracks. And that’s just for one voice.
Again no idea what your goals are but I think being very clear about what is achievable and realistic in hardware, and then working at getting the rest done in a DAW is the answer. For me at least.
As to your compressor question, not many. Core 4 I mentioned does it, Overstayer stuff, esp modular channel does it, but mega pricey.