Archive for the ‘creative mindset’ Category
Interview with William Rauscher (Night Plane, CCC)
Interview with William Rauscher (Night Plane, CCC)
I’ve decided recently to start doing some interviews with artists & musicians who I personally like & respect. My goal is to get into the brains of these people & find their creative approach. In my opinion, understanding how a person thinks creatively is much more important than learning a production technique alone. There will always be new techniques to explore (and I will certainly share plenty more) but approaching things from a “mindset” point of view seems that it would give more long term benefits and also deter the “copycat”approach forcing people to find their own creative way.
My first interview is with William Rauscher, who I originally came across through his fantastic remix of a band called Warpaint, which as of this writing is about to be released on Warpaints label Rough Trade (probably best known for signing The Smiths). As I dove deeper into his body of work, I really connected with his psychedelic vibe. He has a solo project he works on under the name Night Plane as well as a group effort under the name CCC. Both have a strong sense of who they are and what they are attempting to invoke in the listener. Links are both below and throughout the interview. I highly recommend giving the linked songs a listen to get a better idea of what we are discussing. His songs are made on a PC in Ableton.
Originally this interview was recorded as video screen sharing but was unfortunately lost due to a rendering error. Thankfully he was kind enough to answer some of the main topics in text format. Below is that interview. Enjoy!
1. You have great warm sub bass in your songs. I’d love you to walk me through how you’re getting these results.
A lot of credit for that goes to Hector, the CCC Roland Juno 106. All the hardware in our studio is named – there’s also Jojo the Jomox 888 and the two 707s, Selena and Esteban. For subby warmth Hector’s hard to beat, especially if you only use his sub and turn everything else down.
2.You have a certain way of cutting up vocals & layering vocals that creates a very dreamy vibe. How do you like to approach vocals when working on a new song?
I like approaching the human voice as an instrument. I’ll usually try to find a brief loop first that can function almost like a chant in the background, that can fade in and out in a sort of ghostly manner, and then build on that. On my remix of Warpaint, I first made a very filtered-out vocal loop that is off-time, it’s like two and a third bars or something, so that when it plays over the percussion it sounds extra trippy, like you’re spiraling down a rabbit hole. It’s also good to pair off different phrases that can form a kind of call-and-response effect when they’re placed next to one another. On “Parallel Lines” I composed the vocal line so that it repeats certain words or phrases to make the whole sentence more rhythmic, so I had Eric and Heather sing the vocals as if they had already been cut-up. Lyrics are important to me: they should appear to be indicating something universal but in an oblique way, so that anyone can project their own interpretation on them – I wish there were more songs about geometric shapes – I composed “Parallel Lines” in part because I liked “ target=”_blank”>Parallelograms” by Linda Perhacs so much.
3. What elements do you feel are necessary for a great club track?
The great thing about club music is that once you pay a certain price by obeying certain strict rules, you can do whatever you want. That functionality is very liberating. As long as your track is of a certain length, a certain speed, and has certain frequencies in it, you can do whatever you want, it can be composed of any sound in the universe. In CCC we adhere to the Law of 32: intros and outros must be 32 bars, because that’s about the amount of time that a DJ needs to mix from one track to the next. A great club track only needs what’s absolutely necessary. In general, the more elements I can remove from my tracks, the better they get. Pacing is everything: remember that a club audience will hear your track in a certain state of distraction. It’s not a concert where everyone is listening in rapt attention – they’re zoned out, dancing, talking with friends, so the music should be way more repetitive than something designed for home listening. I know that might sound like a bit of a no-brainer but it bears repeating.
4. Talk bit about the CCC collective and how that came about.
CCC is three of us, three Austin Texas boys to be exact – JM, Harry and me. It’s a multimedia project, so in addition to releasing records we’re in the process of printing a 100-page art journal about psychedelic drugs called On Acid: A Field Guide to Altered States. The performance division of CCC is myself and DJ Harry Bennett. Harry is the in-house decks captain and house music vet. JM is the designer and creative consultant. We’ve all known each other forever. JM and I met in physics class in the tenth grade, when he threatened to kick my ass if I didn’t stop playing this piece of shit acoustic guitar. I was fifteen and I was really into Beck. Later we became friends and nerded out over The Orb. We met Harry because he was living with Todd Ledford (owner of Olde English Spelling Bee label) at the time and we were using Ledford’s basement to record hours and hours and hours of drone music. CCC considers itself as continuing the work of groups like the KLF and Psychic TV: issuing mysterious transmissions, operating on the level of conceptual pop art, projecting an esoteric aura, treating the artistic process as an occult process. Every artwork is a religion of one person. “Vibrations” is probably the clearest case of sonic propaganda from CCC, as it’s composed as an aural equivalent to the brainwashing scenes from movies like A Clockwork Orange and The Parallax View.
5. What type of habits & mindset have you found important in building yourself from a complete nobody with no songs or DJ gigs under your belt to where you find yourself now?
You have to maintain a balance between listening to everybody’s feedback and believing in yourself. Everyone’s feedback is valid but in each case you should remember who you’re talking to – a fan, a promoter, a friend or a fellow DJ – everybody’s going to hear something different, which is fascinating. Everyone’s opinion is valid but nobody’s is the gospel truth. I was fortunate enough that after I interviewed Wolf and Lamb for Resident Advisor I became friends with them and Soul Clap who were extremely supportive of my work and instrumental in getting it to a larger audience. When “Str8 2 Ur Heart” got attention it taught me the importance of finding an overlap between what I liked doing
and what other people wanted to hear, and that in order to communicate with others through sound I was going to have to seriously streamline my compositions. I could keep doing dense, baroque explorations of sound if I wanted but that wasn’t going to flip many people’s wigs. When making deals I believe it’s important to be gracious but firm: courtesy and politesse are invaluable, but one should refrain from being obsequious. Standing your ground is a key to earning respect. Lastly, don’t look down on others for being opportunistic: the only way to get ahead is to ask for what you want. Also, if people don’t get what you’re about, fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em but in a nice way. Keep your head down and keep refining your work until it is impossible for people to ignore you – everyone respects good work and eventually the people who are supposed to hear your music will find you.
6. What are some of the things that put you in an inspired & creative mood? How do you motivate yourself when you just aren’t feeling it?
If you’re a creative person you have to decide whether your projects are going to be inspiration-driven or labor-driven. Don’t succumb to the myth that inspiration only arrives like a gossamer angel that possesses you. I motivate myself because I treat my work like work, not like a fun-time hobby just to blow off steam. Turn on your gear and go to work – inspiration will come. It’s a variation on Pascal, who says “kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe.” Also useful are any kind of pre-work rituals that can get you in the mood and help to symbolize the transition into the special headspace you need, that headspace that’s somehow disconnected from the rest of the world. Weed can be good for this – not that you need weed or other drugs to be creative, but their effects can produce that feeling of transition into an altered zone where you are mentally free.
7. Since unfinished ideas get you nowhere, what are some of your shortcuts to getting your songs across the finishing line. Have you built “go to” kits or templates to get you moving?
I have a personal library of loops because I’ve taken every track I’ve done and broken it down into little parts, this is an immense time-saver, even if the loops are used only for scratch placement. I don’t really know shit about soft synths, I wish I did. I try to know where I am in the creative process: am I in jamming-out mode? Am I in editing mode? Am I working on the middle of the track, the “peak,” or is this just the intro? On several occasions I’ve found myself releasing that the outro should in fact be the main part of the song – I wish I could compose an album that was just an hourlong outro.
8. What is your musical background? What bands have inspired you most?
I started playing piano when I was six and for a few years my mom was my piano teacher, she was a gifted singer and pianist and definitely responsible for putting that inspiration in my life. When I was a teenager and in college I listened to a lot of experimental music, high brow like Stockhausen but also low-brow like The Dead C and Sun City Girls. I was greatly inspired by drone-y sixties minimalism like Lamonte Young and Terry Riley and musique concrete like Pierre Henry. I think listening to all that stuff taught me to focus on the materiality of sound, and to cultivate an experimental attitude.
If you are a nerdy boy who plays piano and likes science fiction, like I was, then you will eventually discover electronic music. I’m always impressed with how inhuman electronic music can sound, and yet everyone wants to party to it. It comes from the future, it goes on forever, and it encourages revelry and ecstatic trances: what else do you want? I still am basically a rock person and the rock I like is all fairly trance-y – that strain of Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, The Stooges, and so on.
9. You seem to juggle a number of projects. How are you able to keep everything in order without dropping the ball on quality work?
I love collaborating because it’s a way to get out of yourself and your own petty ego. At the same time I’m grateful I have Night Plane where I’m totally in charge of it. If you’re doing multiple projects, division of labor is important – make sure you’re not doing the same job all the time or you’ll get burnt out, and have a clear sense of what each project is offering to you and what you can offer back to it. After working solo on Night Plane for a while it was really weird to actually have to express my ideas in language when
working with CCC! Totally different experience.
10. What are some of your favorite tools when creating music?
Hmmm I use Albino softsynth all the time basically, and Izotope Ozone, which is
indispensable for mastering. I have a library of analog drum machine samples that I
put through Reason which is extremely helpful. I love finding weird ways of vocoding
things.
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Shared links:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/12129-parallel-lines/
http://soundcloud.com/williamrauscher/night-plane-live-from-the
- we recently compiled all the CCC indie rock edits – we’re currently working on a future
release called the Liberty Lunch EP which will feature house covers of indie tracks like
Gold Soundz by Pavement and Gigantic by the Pixies. It’s named after the rock club in
Austin where Harry used to spin between acts.
_________________________________
I’d like to thank William for his thoughtful and detailed answers. I hope you got as much out of this as I did. Until next time… Happy music making!
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above).All your feedback & support is appreciated!
Extract Chains in Ableton’s Drum Racks for Better Drum Programming
Extract Chains in Ableton’s Drum Racks for Better Drum Programming
Here is a new video I just put together that will walk you through a new approach to drum programming. It allows you to extract midi parts from an existing midi loop so you have much more control over each individual sound within a drum loop. I apologize in advance for the sound quality of my voice later in the video. I actually recorded this video twice but got the same results do to a glitch in my screen recording software. I added text to the video so you can turn the audio off when it gets bad if you want.
Happy Music Making,
Jason
Put your Brain to work
Put your Brain to work
Your brain is a powerful thing. You hear this all the time but you forget just how amazing it is. Everything that has ever been accomplished has started as an idea or a problem to solve in the brain. Before I go off on a complete tangent I wanted to share some new ideas to boost your creativity.
I was talking to a friend who is awaiting confirmation on a release of one of his tracks on Richie Hawtin’s Minus label (fingers crossed). We’ve talked a few times about our approaches to music & productivity in general & we tend to both shy away from getting overly technical in our conversation. Instead we discussed training your brain for creativity & finishing what we’ve started as 2 of the most important skills to develop.
This friend of mine (who I may introduce to you in a later blog), has zero equipment besides his Mac. No outboard gear, no controllers. Just Ableton Live, Operator, 1 or 2 other synths…… and his brain. Imagine that, a guy with minimal equipment making minimal tracks 
This proves that you could make and release quality music without having to buy all kinds of equipment, but that’s another blog….
So instead of talking about how he makes his songs specifically, I want to share with you his creative approach. He is already a successful guy in a non-music industry, so he uses his idea generating & problem solving skills from one industry to the next. Ever notice that some people are successful in most everything they touch? I think there is something to the way these people think.
This is the simple approach:
1. Have a notepad & recorder with you at ALL times. For many of us, we have this all in our iPhone. When you make an intention to record your ideas, your brain tends to give you more ideas. The more you take notes, write down lyric ideas, mixing & structuring ideas or melodies, the more your brain will feed you. I tend to use iPhone’s notepad & email the note to myself. I use an ap called Record for all my melodic & rythmatic ideas as well as field recordings. I also keep a notepad available to write things down. Usually when I’m making lists. It doesn’t really matter what you use. It’s more important to just try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
2. Treat your brain like a well respected & trusted employee. Your brain is really only limited to what you feel it’s capable of. Put it to the test. My approach is to throw a creative or technical problem at it to solve before you go to sleep. You’ll be surprised how often you come up with solutions by morning or within a couple days. I’d suggest starting small, just so you build a bit of confidence but once you get the hang of it, you can give it bigger & bigger tasks. Before you go to sleep, create a picture in your mind of the problem you’re facing solved & then let it go. When you sleep, you tap into some serious resources that simply aren’t available in your waking life.
3. Dream Log: Although this is completely not neccesary, I do my best to remember & write down my dreams, even if they seem irrelevant. The reason I do this, is that it trains your brain to tap into your dream state resources while you’re awake. I think that is the point where fresh new ideas flow the best.
I could probably go on and on with more tips related to these 3 but I’d prefer to stop right there and let you put these to use asap. I’d love to hear your results as well as ways you use to put your brain to work!
Happy music making,
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above).All your feedback & support is appreciated!
When to give up on music
When to give up on music
I want to talk about those feelings that you’re getting nowhere with your songs. Perhaps you listen to a song on the radio or in a club and just think “there is no way I’m going to be this good”. Maybe you’re having a hell of a time learning a new piece of equipment or software. Maybe the technical side of things has you overwhelmed or perhaps you have plenty of technical skills but your ideas just seem uninspired. Maybe you are feeling like whatever gift you had for this, you’ve lost. Maybe you’ve never felt you’ve had a gift for making music.
It would be fair to say that once you’ve had a few accomplishments under your belt, that your confidence improves. It’s definitely a good feeling to do something that gets attention and a pat on the back (even if it’s from your own hand). Unfortunately, after the buzz from that accomplishment has come and gone, you start to question whether or not you can do it again.
Maybe your early musical accomplishments were a fluke. You start to wish you could bottle up that formula and pour a little on everything you did but of course if that worked, everybody would be cranking out smash after smash.
Some people become afraid to branch out and explore new musical territory. They’ve got a reputation to withhold and they just can’t fail. This can create long periods of writers block (which is really just the fear of sucking turned into a lack of inspiration).
The fact of the matter is that whether you are a beginner or a veteran, you are going to have creative spurts followed by lulls. It’s natural and is nothing to be afraid of. It’s the natural flow of things.
For me, I’ll just be messing around with a groove and things will start to get interesting. Pretty soon I’ll have added enough parts to make a pretty sweet 32 bar loop. I’ll play this in my headphones over and over getting really pumped about what I’ve made and then I’ll let it be for the nite. I’ll go to sleep feeling confident and totally in flow with my creativity. A day or 2 might pass before I open up the song again & all of a sudden things just don’t sound as cool as I remember. It sounds like somebody came in and messed it up. Next comes the complete confidence crash. All those fears of not being good enough come out. This feeling sucks.
It’s pretty natural to be uninspired when this is the vibe we are bringing to the table day in and day out. There are several things you can do outside of throwing in the towel though and I’d like to discuss some of them. Some approaches may directly conflict with another approach, so feel free to pursue the one that vibes with you most.
Keep Going
Being stuck in the unfinished song syndrome is the point the separates the boys from the men (or girls from the women). With any worthy pursuit you are going to hit a few walls. This is just a way that life filters out those who aren’t worthy of the prize. If you’ve been a quitter in the past, all that is required of you is to stand back up and have another go.
Keep this in mind…
If you haven’t had these feelings of being a failure, you probably haven’t accomplished much.
Roadblocks are actually a way of knowing that you are reaching beyond your comfort zone. I actually look at it as a good thing, an old friend. Welcome it willingly and you can transform it into an allie. It’s those things that feel uncomfortable at first that can be the birth of some of your best work.
Yes, I understand that sometimes you will be in the full creative flow and bang out something great without much struggle & this is something we can always hope for, but to expect this type of flow as the norm is to miss the bigger picture of what an artist is and what an artist does. You have to embrace the bliss and the dirt, the feeling of being lost and the joy of finding yourself again.
In nearly everything you do that is worthy of your time, you are going to lose the plot for a bit. You just want to make sure you allow yourself a breather to recharge if you are running on empty (more on this later).
I have several articles in my blog archives the can help you if you are stuck in “unfinished song” mode. Here is a specific article that you might want to start with:
Curiosity
Chances are you are taking this music thing way too seriously and it’s taking the fun out of creating. One way that I like to recharge my batteries is to pursue curious experiments. For me this usually starts with a “I wonder what would happen if..”. One experiment was to see how many ways I could process one loop through different effect chains to create an evolving part that kept me interested for, say, 15 minutes. This might not turn into a song in the end, but it very well might be a joyful pursuit that might put a few more tools in your creative toolbox. It might inspire you or boost your confidence and at the very best, might turn into a great piece of music.
The great thing about curiousity is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it doesn’t expect or require perfection. Instead it puts you “in the moment” and just allows whatever happens to happen. Brian Eno is known to spend most of his time setting up an experiemental process for music to just happen on it’s own. I like this approach, especially when I am feeling uninspired. I just create a process that allows the music to make itself until I decide to take a more active role in it again (if that even becomes neccesary). Sometimes if you stop trying to control music, it starts to evolve almost on it’s own. You almost become more of a witness to what is taking place.
Think of creative ideas as something that is “out there” in the cosmos. Every idea that can be thought and every song that can be made is already there. You are not the maker of music. You are simply a vessel in which music comes through.
Mozart had a very similar experience of music. He felt that he was simply given full works of music, already completed. His job was simply to get out of the way and write down what had come to him.
When we realize that we are not the makers of music, we can put more of our focus on getting ourselves in tune with the source of the ideas. Obviously, expressing these ideas efficiently will require some skills and proper tools, but you can always find someone who has the skills you currently lack.
Take a break
The real question is whether you are putting yourself in a state of mind that makes you feel inspired or if you’re giving in to mundane daily habits that are uninspiring. When many of us feel uninspired, we find ourselves constantly thinking about our lack of drive and feeling guilty about pursuing our many distractions. We often try to keep close to home “just in case” inspiration strikes, thus continuing the path of an uninspired life.
A better approach is to allow yourself to quit making music. Take away the option of making music and give yourself a month, 2 months or even longer to pursue other interests guilt free. Maybe you want to travel, or write a book, learn to become a better cook, expand your social network (preferably face to face), or learn a new language.
When you stop feeling guilt for not being musically creative, you can pursue many other aspects of your life with much less resistance. Everybody needs a break to recharge their batteries and many of us never do that. We become convinced that somehow running on dead batteries will eventually lead us to our best work. In reality, if we look at most, if not all, of our favorite artists, we find they draw inspiration from a variety of life experiences, not from spending endless days in their studio. Allow yourself to quit making music for a bit and fill your empty cup by getting out and doing life. It’s a good idea to keep a notebook and/or a recorder close at hand. When the ideas come back to you, they tend to come on strong.
Work with a partner
I find that working with another person can really help bring out the best in eachother. It’s good to work with someone who has strengths that are your weaknesses and vice versa. I’ve found that I might hit a creative high when my parter is at a low or he can pick up the slack when I’ve hit a breaking point. If you don’t currently have a person to work with, consider finding someone, preferably in your local area. If that is a no go, you can always find someone through the net that you can send files back and forth to. Although it won’t quite be the same as working with someone in the same room, you can always work with screensharing software which is the next best thing.
When all else fails, allow yourself to suck
That’s right, if you can’t seem to get anything good out of your self, enjoy the process of sucking. See how bad you can make something. Do all the wrong things and enjoy it. Laugh with your inner critic because you can both agree “yes, this is really embarrassing”. Keep going, make it worse! Embrace the suck in you. It’s liberating!
Eventually, you will find yourself enjoying the process and having a laugh. You may even find that you hit a roadblock in your suckiness and simply can’t come up with a way to suck any worse. You might even accidentally do something that sounds good. As you go through this process, you will find that you are in one of the best mental states for being creative and as you are riding that wave, you may even have the drive to open up one of those unfinished songs and push it a little further.
In conclusion, there is no time to consider giving up on music completely…unless perhaps you are these guys….
Happy Music Making!
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above).
All your feedback & support is appreciated!
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