When recording tracks some years ago using the Elektrons, I had a pretty standard approach. This involved making a bunch of loops on the Machinedrum and Monomachine, then recording a live mixdown as the final track, often after numerous retakes to mute/unmute stuff at the right time.
I recorded a whole album this way, and it worked a treat.
Thing is, nowadays, my whole approach to making stuff seems to have been turned on it’s head. I experience little or no inclination to save sounds and kits, let alone collections of loops. Music making consists of a period of time each day simply jamming on the machines, making and tweaking the sounds from fresh each time I go. Of course this means laying down loops, but once I’m finished, I delete the pattern, so that each time I come to the machines (MD and MM) they are empty of any content.
The nearest I come to recording anything is by hitting record on my Zoom H1, but I have to try and kind of ignore it, as knowing it’s recording seems to affect what I decide to do.
Times have changed. Part of me would love to have a bunch of tracks to keep feeding my Soundcloud, but then another part of me has become slightly apathetic about recording any kind of set pieces or having a “thing” to show for my creative adventures (which I really enjoy, especially going down the Monomachine’s rabbit hole each day).
The nearest comparison I’m aware of is when the Tibetan Monks make those lovely elaborate sand mandalas and then eventually go on to destroy them. My creations (I can’t really call them my creations, they just sort of appear as a result of interacting with this wonderful technology) don’t possess the grandeur of the mandalas, but the principle feels very similar.
I’m curious to know what other people’s creative processes look like, particularly how you approach recording tracks, or perhaps you’re also more or less content to jam away as a process with no fixed outcome, or somewhere in between?..
Interesting thoughts, very much the same here! I’m using my Elektrons plus a System-1 in a live looper type of setup where stuff is being overwritten and deleted all the time (and a lot is just being played on top without any recording/looping)!
My ultimate goal is to improvize on stage on a DJ set like level. No prepared patterns, no tracks, no set list, just a steady flow of creativity. The more you practice the more you can count on your creativity. In the past, I also improvized a lot but also had a collection of melodic patterns available.
Looking forward to reading ideas in this thread. I’m not sure if such a kind of setup is suited for the creation of tracks. I guess you have to fill a bank of patterns while improvizing instead of overwriting or deleting the same data again and again, and then finetune your trigs, automations, plocks whatever in the traditional way. I hope there is another way.
Another method might be to sketch a track structure on paper like a graphical version of a piano sheet etc. and practice that same ‘track structure’/concept over and over again until it sounds polished enough to be published as a track after just some mastering. Piano players also can’t finetune their mutes. They have to practice until it sounds perfect, some compression, voila. On the other hand, I don’t want to structure so much in advance, no intro verse chorus bridge chorus whatever approach. Just a steady flow. Of course you need a build somewhere and a break, as well as you need to introduce and combine different melodic themes but that’s it.
This kind of approach, where you just jam along, seems very similar to jazz improvisations. I know that some jazz players are present in this forum, maybe one of those guys joins this thread? Are jazz combos ‘doing more’ (of course it’s difficult, I respect that very much) than just improvizing and recording jams?
Whoa. This is my exact approach and dilemma as well. I’m too distracted to properly think about this at the moment, but I’m super interested in peoples’ thoughts on the matter…