Metronomica.blog
jamuary 1, 2025
For a while now I’ve been lusting over the idea of “getting back into” modular synthesis, which means spending an inordinate amount of money on a Eurorack modular system. I had a full case a few years ago — an Intellijel 7u 104hp — that I parted out and sold. I wanted the case to be so many things, and it ended up being bad at all of them. It couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be for sound synthesis or sound mangling, and it was a pain in the ass to record. It was fun to turn on, but I would always feel friction when it came time to make music.
But this time, things would be different! I’d get a 6u 52hp case, and fill it only with effects modules to mangle sounds. But I’d need a module to get the samples into the case. Or I could just send sound out of Bitwig using an Expert Sleepers module. But then I’d be shackled to my computer, and I’d love to use the modular outside of the studio. Actually, 7u might make more sense. Just in case I want to throw some extra modules in there. I might need a big mixer, after all, but I wouldn’t really need a big mixer unless I had a bunch of sound (or CV) sources… so maybe I should go up to 9u…
I bought an iPad.
When it comes down to it, I want a single box that has immediacy, connectivity, and opportunity. I want to build ambient songs without sticking to a DAW, but I want to be able to send multitrack recordings to my computer in case I want to edit everything surgically. I want the thing to be fun to play with and perform on.
Modular hits a few of those desires, but not all of them. It’d take me months to build up a modular case that I might enjoy using. And the iPad I purchased is the same price as one(!) of the effects modules I had my eye on.
I am planning to use this device to make music, and make it easily. I have gathered a few apps — all pretty cheap, comparatively, and a delight to play with — and connected everything to my Dropbox, which has a lot of samples, from both third party companies and myself, monkeying around with programs like Forester and Scapeshift.
My goal is to participate in Jamuary, during which musicians commit to making music, in some form, every day during the first month of the year. That’s it, really. But it’s so easy for me to not make music, because so often the music I make feels slight or not worth finishing or following up on. In Jamuary, I’m just going to make the stuff. There’s also Finish February, wherein you take all your Jamuaries and turn them into something approaching an album. Maybe I’ll do that, too. 1
For now, I’m going to dive into some of these iPad apps: the famed Borderlands, a fun granular app where you drag clouds of granularizers on top of waveforms; Fugue Machine, a wildly fun midi sequencer that turns a simple sequence into a complex web of noise; Samplr, a powerful sampler that allows for gestural control; and, of course, AUM, a mixer that allows you to gather all these disparate apps together and create something unified.
Today is the first day of the month and marks my first iPad “jam.” It’s simple and ramshackle, as I’m just starting to learn how these pieces fit together.
There are three voices:
- A four-note piano melody via a Decent Sampler instrument played up and down and all around by Fugue Machine, through Rymdigare for some cool spacey lo-fi effects;
- A piano sample granularized by Borderlands;
- Another piano sample sliced in played in Samplr.
That’s about it. I think there might be something here. The main piano line has an interesting, mysterious feel to it, never really settling or resolving, and the grains flitting in and out contribute to it. It doesn’t feel much like a song, though, but that’s fine. It’s certainly a start.
I’d like to release at least a couple albums this year, after going dark for four years as They Danced Like Programmed Angels until the blackgaze-inspired “Stay This Way Forever” last year. Who knows how I’ll release music anymore, considering the bifurcation in genres that I make, but that’s something I can decide once I actually have made the music.↩︎
// tags: making music jamuary