work fast / fail fast
"🧲 💨"
i have always struggled to work fast in my creative musings, something always eating at me to "make it better." rarely do my changes effect the whole especially in regards to the time spent and what comes out on the other side. the time improving it would often be better spent starting something completely new.
the time i struggle with this the most is towards the end of finishing a song, and often, working quickly staves off the worries allowing the song to point me in the direction it wants to go so as to put my "stamp" of completion on it.
this helps me avoid the traps of "maybe i could have done this" or "maybe i should do that" that so often lead to aimless progress getting me to the incredibly stage listening, reflecting and hopefully, learning.
a familar / quick workflow
back in 2007, i stumbled onto monome and purchased one of their first products, the 40h, and i began using it with something called mlr which essentially maps an audio sample across multiple leds allowing you to play samples in an improvisional way.
monome created number of iterations many of which i owned (mutiple times over) from the 128 all the way up to the 256.
if it ain't broke
"don't fix it"
this monome/mlr way of working is something i've come back to many times primarily to play my songs in an improvisional way, and the reason(s) i often moved away from it was to: - focus on creating new songs - try to use my (more obtuse) gear to play improvisionally/live as much as i enjoy playing with my gear, the process/workflow is more akin to painting than playing realtime. so here i am, something like my 5th-6th time owning a monome grid to: - provide a workflow for playing live - something different from my typical paint brushes (gear) and more than anything, it allows me to quickly sit down and just jam without having to worry about so many variables. the only thing different is that i went down a rabbit hole of making setup as self sufficient as possible.
improving upon a successful formula
when the first monome grids came out they relied on max/msp, a visually oriented programming environment for audio and multimedia production, to play the variety of scripts for music making etc.
now there's the norns, a small, portable, open-source sound computer that dynamically runs scripts and DSP. so now the grid no longer required a computer to use. i did try the norns when it was released back in 2019, but the ecosystem was not quite mature and did not have the programming chops to contribute to it.
fast forward a few years later, and i'm settled into a completetly different field, one that complements the technicality of the norns. i opted to build a rework/remix of the norns shield called a shieldXL.
improving teh solder skilzz
more building
the shieldXL wasn't my only diy project for this revamp of a familar workflow, i also built a midi controller, the midi mixer one to allow further immediate control of things.
it's full of knobs
long story short
after building the shieldXL and midi mixer one i knew i would want to have a capable stereo effects unit for the shieldXL's output. after a lot of back and forth from gear like the panasonic efx-1000, the panasonic rmx-1000, and the eventide h90, eventually settling on the elektron analog heat +fx, with the entire setup comprising of the following:
quick/dirty tunes to come
i spent a bit of time grabbing old bounced samples i had used with mlr in the past and prepped them to use with mlre. i'm still tweaking how i will use all the keys on the midi mixer one, but all-in-all, everything is working. i am in chats with the creator of mlre to see what features will be included in v2 of mlre, things such as quick recall of presets and the ability to not save certain parameters (e.g. one uses via a controller). all that is needed now is to practice and begin bouncing down new samps from songs i've done recently.
other changes
"flexible effects"
i also spent time extending the use of my patchbay so that all effect ins/outs can be utilized since i only have 6 in / 6 out allowing the analog heat to be used across my setup.
patchity patch patch