ways to change musical output without buying new stuff

you like buying new stuff. i like buying new stuff too. want to start a discussion here about other ways to change musical palette than buying stuff.

what i wanted to discuss was different ways you feel that people have changed their music without adding or taking away gadgets.

for example when other musicians have visited my studio and jammed some tracks i always end up changing my mind about a lot of things. if a technique was explained in a forum post or book i might have ignored it because it hasnt been demonstrated, but when someone is in your studio using the same gadget that you always use but comes out with something you never thought of and a wicked sound or sequence or tune? also i tried some flstudio collaborations before and it worked out that i was really surprised by the way other people approached things in a way like "i never would have thought of that". also i think it's cool when you are influenced by people who arent famous and can pick up ideas from humble talented people. it was always bullshit when aphex says he wasnt influenced by anything or anyone.

also, after getting sick of soundonsound synth secrets i found that transferring alpha juno (timpani haha) presets over to a modular is a pretty good way to learn how to synthesise imitations of real instruments.

i guess the best way would be to apply specific composition techniques methodically, basically disable your taste preferences, and force yourself to adhere to a specific concept you haven't tried before. Just as an exercise basically. In theory. Never done it myself. But this is a good topic you brought up! And I definitely want to try this now.

or yes, as you mentioned playing with other people. I find this super difficult, but even if it's shitty one can at least learn something most of the time.

  On 7/18/2013 at 11:22 AM, phling said:

i guess the best way would be to apply specific composition techniques methodically, basically disable your taste preferences, and force yourself to adhere to a specific concept you haven't tried before. Just as an exercise basically. In theory. Never done it myself. But this is a good topic you brought up! And I definitely want to try this now.

 

or yes, as you mentioned playing with other people. I find this super difficult, but even if it's shitty one can at least learn something most of the time.

Yeah it's so simple to disable your preferences when you see somebody in front of you do something you never expected could be done. The effect is instant and it does influence the music that you make yourself. Joke: think of the Allegory of the Cave, and the guy is stuck in there and doesn't know anything about the world. Then you go in with an SH 101 and speakers and then let him play with it, you never know what kind of cool sound he will invent with it ;-)

- Try to imitate a certain genre

- recreate a song you like

- learn synthesis...errr expand on your knowledge of synthesis. Maybe even get a book or pdf or something with synthesis exercises.

- do a remix

Keep on jamming, experimenting, making tunes and having fun doing it : you might end doing pretty diverse stuffs / stuffs you haven't done before without even wanting to. Don't overthink it.

Throw away your favourite piece of gear ;)

Can't help you man cause I have the opposite problem... I Can't make two tracks alike. I can forget about making a coherent album.

  On 7/18/2013 at 1:20 PM, th555 said:

Throw away your favourite piece of gear ;)

Yes, throw it in my direction. ;)

  On 7/18/2013 at 2:14 PM, xox said:

Can't help you man cause I have the opposite problem... I Can't make two tracks alike. I can forget about making a coherent album.

Go for the most minimalistic yet inspiring set-up you can ?

Jamming and cannabis

faster or slower BPM? I tend to leave it at the daw standard 120 bpm when i'm just playing around with sounds, and then it becomes 120 bpm tracks.

  On 7/18/2013 at 2:18 PM, lin said:

 

  On 7/18/2013 at 2:14 PM, xox said:

Can't help you man cause I have the opposite problem... I Can't make two tracks alike. I can forget about making a coherent album.

 

Go for the most minimalistic yet inspiring set-up you can ?

 

I'm trying to do exactly that and still not enough... but I'm like that in everything i.e sports. Every ping-pong serving is different, every chess opening is different. I'm always trying new ways in expense of technique mastering cause I never stay enough on something to mastered it. But I'm pleased with the level of originality > if that's something that still exist.

  On 7/18/2013 at 2:37 PM, Hanratty said:

faster or slower BPM? I tend to leave it at the daw standard 120 bpm when i'm just playing around with sounds, and then it becomes 120 bpm tracks.

Try random BPM. One track of mine is made at 3,14 BPM...

I thought of this thread as I read some of the book Energy Flash by SImon Reynolds, published in 1998. I learned something about the evolution of early house music and the difference between deep house, garage, and jacking house, and acid house. Even though I had heard this origins story before, it's still inspirational, and READING BOOKS is a good way to get inspired to make more music.

2nd the notion of reading. I'm just about finished reading the Kraftwerk biography Publikation and the found the detail they managed uncover about the pre-Autobahn era really inspiring. So, I'm think of at some point setting a false limitation on myself to try and compose in a way they would've had to back then. So, no MIDI for examples, manually sync'ing delay times, playing all the synth manually, making chords out of monophonic synth patches. But using modern equipment against those constraints. So maybe something interesting will come out of it. Maybe not. But just an example of how stuff like that can go.

meditate

plug all your gear in backwards

  On 7/22/2013 at 12:16 AM, CharlesWatkins said:

meditate

Get a mic and use your voice for the sounds that you hear in your head. If you know your effects well enough you might be able to replicate them by using your voice :)