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My beginner notes on electronics, synths, music, and underground streams
connecting them all.
15 March 2023
Well I guess this has turned into a yearly retrospective. I've never got the steady habit of journaling, or to be honest almost any steady habits. But anyway when I left off last year I had just got the Linnstrument.
I didn't keep notes or anything (not surprising I guess) but somewhere around late Summer of last year I took a long layoff from electronic music, and just played my acoustic. Honestly it felt a little strange. All the instruments were sitting there on the desk, sort of looking at me and asking, well why aren't you playing us?
But let me back up a bit, because I just checked the dates of uploaded tracks to my Alonetone page (a site I found somewhere in the Fall of 2021). In April/May-ish I stopped in at American Music to check out electric guitars. I don't remember the timing of this exactly but prior to that I had gone to Trading Musician with TN and tried out a few guitars, and left feeling I was 'over' any electric GAS, but that clearly didn't last...I think it was that I started listening to Ben Monder and admiring the 1980 Ibanez he played, started looking at those and like models. American Music had an Ibanez that I thought might be similar, so went to try it out. As it turned out I didn't like the feel much, but then a downpour started so rather than drive off in the rain I decided to wander around the store some more.
There was hardly anyone in there but the staff, and I played a bunch of guitars, and what do you know but a cheap Squier 'contemporary' strat felt great, was cheap (relatively), and I think my IRS refund had landed a day before. So I walked out with a guitar.
Then that was the trigger to get the Adrenalinn III, you know, that thing I thought I'd get "if I ever got an electric, you know, maybe someday, but probably not".
So back to the layoff -- what happened? I don't know. Maybe my brain needed a break. Somewhere in that summer of 2022 I picked up the Akai MB 76 patchbay to help "tie my setup together", but I promptly set it to route all inputs to all outputs and only tonight, six plus months later, am I seriously looking at using it. Indeed, only in the last month have I started really playing and recording again.
Thankfully I haven't picked up more gear (though, God help me, I was eyeing a Conductive Labs MIDI connection box a couple of months ago...and am still feeling like I could use one!). With two controllers, a Norns, two synths, a DI/effects box (with drums!), a recorder (with effects), a patchbay, a mic and preamp, two acoustics and an electric, I have barely scratched the surface of what I can do.
I think part of it is that I am feeling the need to record more structured things -- songs? i don't know if I'd call them that. But right now I jam - and I like jamming. But it seems like just a part of music. I think one way into it might be to record covers. I have a list of songs I'd like to do and I've started working on Wild Horses. I've seen that people record a lot of material and then assemble those into 'tracks', working in a DAW I assume, which I don't use presently. Maybe someday.
So, now two years in, I guess I've reached peak gear. The thought of chucking it all and using my laptop definitely has crossed my mind. Well, I'd probably keep the Linnstrument. But besides shedding some weight, and maybe some GAS if the software tools are free, I'm not sure it makes much difference (if we're talking about electronic music) whether the tools are virtual or physical. You still have to use them. You still have to learn them. I like my little music desk and what I have on it, opening the manuals again and learning and relearning. It's not like I'm going to go crazy and get some modular setup or anything...right?
wakyct@tilde.team