photo credit: kevin dooley

I’ve been back

from my holiday and mired in the depths of unemployment for almost three weeks now. It’s often thought of as a paradise, but in reality it’s a little bit depressing, this not having anything to get you moving once you wake up. Or perhaps I’m just not the right person to appreciate large amounts of hours with nothing particularly pressing to fill them up with. For the first week or so, I had the task of getting my thesis resubmission process completed. Which I did, after spending a painstaking day re-jigging some images and chasing down signatures from various faculty members. So that kept me occupied. After I’d done that though, it’s been pretty much been a week or two of very little at all.

Wait, sorry. ‘After I’d done that’ is probably a little too glib for what it actually represents. I am now officially done with my thesis. It’s complete. Finished. Kaput. I never have to look upon its smug, papery face ever again if I don’t want to. Well, that’s a lie, I’m currently flicking through it for table scraps that I can try and mash together into some semblance of a meal that a journal editor might like to chow down on. But the main thing is that I have passed and I will never have to do something so incredibly hard ever again. So yay for that. Alright, back to the main point of the post.

In order to keep myself from going completely insane at home, I’ve been trying to make sure that I have goals to achieve each day. These range from the mundane (make sure I get the dishes out of the dishwasher and put on a load of washing) to the necessary (go for a run so that I at least leave the house once a day) to the creative. And strangely enough, the creative ones haven’t yet included writing. I have yet to write any new fiction since before I left for Sydney, back in September. This is probably the longest I’ve ever gone without writing something, anything, for a few years. And the urge still hasn’t taken me. I have no doubt it will come back eventually (and hopefully in time for my resolution to write a novel in 2012) but for the moment, I’ve got nothing going on in the writing department with the exception of a COSMOS article or two. Oh, yeah, I’m an occasional paid science journalist now (:.

Anyway, so instead of writing, I’ve been turning to other forms of creative output. One which has turned out to be surprisingly rewarding is that of programming. Now, I’ve tried to program before, and you’d think my background in disciplines that use logic as their main way o’ doin’ stuff would result in me being an apt pupil. But the language I chose to pop my “Hello world!” cherry was Fortran, and Fortran can be a little difficult for the newbie. So this time around I’ve been easing myself into it by adopting Python as my tutor. And so far, the results have closely resembled this xkcd comic. I’m following the excellent Python for Absolute Beginners book by Michael Dawson, which walks you through a number of game-based programs and teaches everything from basic programming workflow to more advanced techniques. It’s already got me dreaming of all kinds of text-based adventures that I could create.Of course, I’ll need to figure out a whole heck of a lot more stuff before I get that far, but the possibility is firmly embedded in my head now.

The other thing I’ve turned (or should that be tuned?) back to is playing around with sequencing. As previously mentioned, there’s a (FREE!) tracker known as Buzzmachines that offers a complete digital solution for making a song from beginning to end, with one of the most elegant graphical interfaces ever devised. And it’s been really fun to mess around with sounds and such. So far I’ve been playing around a lot and not making a whole heap of songs, but here are some little tunes that I’ve been happy enough with to upload to my Soundcloud:

Peachy keen — Trying to emulate the arpeggiated style and substance of chiptunes, though I did use a lot of sounds that are ‘illegal’ for the genre (i.e. delays, etc.). Still, I think it came out okay.

Shred test — I was linked by wauterboi to this excellent VST called Shred, which emulates guitars rather bloody well. So I ended up playing with that and a rhythm gate to make something a bit more driven.

Little mountain & Easte-reverb — These are part of an ongoing attempt to make some music that I can share with my fellow writers as songs that aren’t going to distract them. Kind of like the Ghostly ‘Music for creatives‘ album (which you should definitely get if you haven’t already).

So that’s a few of them. I’ll be trying to get maybe one per month done, as the mood takes me. But really its all about enjoying the process, rather than any kind of output.

And that brings me to another point I wanted to make in that, for me at least, I think it’s important to have multiple outlets for creativity. I don’t think I could exclusively stick to one way of bringing ideas into reality; I’d get either bored or stale in my methods. Even from just the two examples I’ve put here show how bringing learning into your life can result in new ways of expression: I now have the ideas of a text adventure and a themed album floating around my head. And who knows how those ideas will interact with the rest of the stuff that gets thrown in there? And before anyone gets any misconceptions, no, I’m not looking to make money out of these things. Of course I’m never going to get signed to a label or picked up by EA (not that I’d want to in the latter case), but it’s fun to try new things! And that’s what I’ve been feeling like doing lately, trying out new stuff.

Alright, well that’s enough rambling from me for the moment. I hope you’re all enjoying the lead up to the holiday season. Let me know your plans in the comments, or tell me some of your alternate creative hobbies, I’d love to hear whether your outlets have interacted with each other in unexpected ways.

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photo credit: altemark

Today, I’m delighted

to present an interview with a very talented young musician named Isaias who goes by the moniker of wauterboi. I stumbled across wauterboi’s music completely by accident, while looking for some help with a program called Jeskola Buzz (don’t worry if you don’t recognise the name, it’s explained in the interview). After listening to a few of his songs, I downloaded, and eventually bought, his latest album, entitled if then. According to my ears, wauterboi’s compositions being together instrumental influences such as God Is An Astronaut and Explosions In The Sky, mixes them with industrial bands like Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy, and then dunks them all in a variety of flavours that range from chiptune melodies to D’n'B filth. Think Tweaker, but (sadly) without the access to the high-profile vocal talent. Certainly impressive work for someone who’s half a decade away from being able to purchase alcohol.

I had the good fortune to be able to quiz Isaias over the digital divide, so read on as we discuss boredom, the music industry, creativity, and careers. To set the mood for the interview, why don’t you head over to his store and stream his album for free? I guarantee that by the time you’ve finished reading the interview, you’ll be ready to click the buy button and support an up-and-coming talent. Alternatively, I’ve embedded a couple of my picks throughout the interview, so feel free to click on those.

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toothsoup: So, who is wauterboi? Tell us a little about yourself.

wauterboi: I like to think I’m wauterboi. (I think.) I produce music here in Las Vegas and I have ever since I was ten. (For the record, I’m sixteen at the moment.) I write music as a means to escape. Escape what? Boredom. It’s also nice to have all these crazy projects I do bring feelings to you without words and in a very experimental way. Overall, it’s fun.

TS: How do you make your music? What are your tools of the trade?

WB: I make music using a run down and (kind of) abandoned modular tracker made for Windows 95. In lay-mens terms, I have to write out all of the notes and automate everything using hex. (You know, the crazy number system that goes from 01-0F then repeats with an increase of ten.) I also have to pray that it doesn’t break on me, but I have found ways to add stability.

People tell me all the time that the program sucks and that I should be using mainstream stuff out there – you know, stuff like Reason, or Ableton, or whatever else you can think of. I actually downloaded the trial for Reason a little while ago and I thought it sucked.

Why is this? Well, for one, the program I use is free. It’s also not CPU or Memory rape from trying to pretty and have a fancy GUI like all the others. Jeskola Buzz doesn’t even have a piano roll editor and I love it. It’s simple. It gets the job done without all the BS unless I do things like add additional instruments, hacks, or plugins. All the others have the priority of looking sexy and having a rather large price tag. Let me tell you – the only thing I ever spent money on was a twenty dollar copy of VoxengoElephant, a VST limiter that makes sure that your overall sound doesn’t go over a specific volume. (Great for preventing earaches!)

Also, Jeskola Buzz’ source code was recently found by the developer and has been updated constantly now. He’s building off of what he had and it’s been pretty cool messing with the newest versions of Buzz – Vista/Windows 7 style!

TS: Your latest album, if then, features a wide variety of electronic styles such as industrial, dance, chiptune, and D’n'B. Is there any particular reason why you tend not to repeat a general style?

WB: No. I don’t know what happens when I open my music program and I start making music. When I begin, there’s no chance you’ll know how it’ll end up sounding at all – which something I actually like because I don’t like writing music to formula or trying to write for a specific genre. I write music with the intention of sounding good – well, at least relative to me.

Also, sounding different for every track kind of makes the album more exciting to listen to because you don’t know what’s coming. You don’t get bored with it. On top of that, since there’s so many different genres, there’s probably going to be at least one that you’ll enjoy out of all the others, which kind of adds a little bit of accessibility for everyone. Someone can like Chiptune and hate Drum n’ Bass, and then there’s others who are the complete opposite. Some might like the elements of of Drum n’ Bass and Chiptune and never had a chance to see them collide. Maybe they didn’t like a genre, but when I play this way they can enjoy it. It’s kind of nice to have that ability.

TS: On your about page you say, in reference to the use of the Jeskola Buzz tracker:

“A lot of people actually dislike it because of the fact that, “it’s so hard!” and then fly to another program with a fancy GUI. The truth is, they need to be bored.”

I found that last fragment really interesting. Looking beyond Buzz (which is a powerful, if not completely user-friendly, tracking software), do you think that people ‘need to be bored’ in order to be creative? Is there a restlessness that drives you to create?

WB: Hell yeah. The entire reason why I began writing music is because I was bored out of my mind with a pile of video games I’ve already beaten and a TV that played mindless BS 24/7. I was tired of everything and I decided to pry open this random program and while all my creations sounded like crap it was awesome and it killed time. It was fun.

That isn’t lining up who I am now though. When I start writing a track, I start to play and improvise random melodies or drum patterns and what not and that’s how all my tracks start. Just a random melody I accidentally made. I do not force tracks, and that’s why I believe boredom is an important part of the music-creating process. Boredom will lead you to try new things and not be afraid. Boredom will cause you to challenge yourself – and that’s what I have done for six years. Boredom will give you the ability to keep trying. Boredom will make you do things you wouldn’t normally do, because I mean what else is there to do with your time? You’ve got nothing else to do! What are you going to do? Play that video game you’ve beaten three times? Start collecting stamps? Yeah right, you’re gonna be a musician, or at least be some kind of bored one.

TS: As a solo artist, do you find it hard to motivate yourself to make music?

WB: No, not really. I like writing music. The only problems I have are random bouts of writer’s block, which can be solved by giving yourself a minute and doing something else.

TS: You released if then with an interesting payment model: listeners can stream the entire album for free, download a portion of the album, and then decide if they want to buy it. What drew you to this kind of distribution method?

WB: Well, I’ve been around many, many pirates in my life. (Pirates being pirates who pirate music.) One of the main reasons they pirate isn’t the reason you would normally think – they often pirate the album to see how it sounds and see how they enjoy it and then, depending on how that turns out, they buy it. On top of that, audiophiles like to download the music in the highest of qualities ever known to man, and so I kind of thought to myself for four years about a method that would let you “test-drive” the album, and that method is what I use today. You can download the EP containing a portion of the tracks, and depending if you like it, you can purchase the album in whichever quality or format you like.

Is this in anyway my battle against pirates? No, I could care less if you didn’t buy my album. (I’d care if you did though!) I’m not going to chase you down with a knife to get my five dollars. Why? I believe that if my music is any good, I’ll be getting it anyway, or at least a thank you or friend request. I get all three and there are alternative ways to show your appreciation. Money isn’t everything.

In fact, I love the spread of music so much, I uploaded my music for free on a private tracker, got featured on the front page, and got over 1,000+ downloads. Super exposure, much?

I do not like the way music industries provide their music currently. It’s a little bit harder to figure out if you like a track or album now if that makes sense. If you want to do the 100% legal method of checking out an album, you can go onto iTunes and check out their thirty seconds put right in the middle of an unintelligible piece of the song leading you to believe, “Well, I think I could like this… I guess.” If you want a sketchier method, you can check out the tracks on YouTube in high quality… sometimes… Having all the tracks streamable and some tracks downloadable for free completely takes the middleman out. Having me distribute it the way I’m doing now (and for cheap) allows everyone to get a chance to do something as simple as listen to me. Industries now are all about money, and I don’t feel like you should have to pay a listening tax to enjoy music.

TS: You’ve mentioned the fact that you’re a very young artist, is creating music something that you think will stay with you for the rest of your life?

WB: Hey, if it works and I can get somewhere with it, yes. Seems like a slim chance though, but that’s just the pessimistic side of me being a baby. :P

TS: Related to that last question, the luxury of boredom is something that can disappear once school finishes and jobs start. How do you think you’ll handle that change?

WB: I always thought about being a computer programmer and doing music off to the side for the fun of it and for free. This is something I’ve thought of for a while actually.

Generally, the way I look at it I have a bunch on my plate right now and somehow I get music done. My parents are divorced and so I live at like three or four houses every week, I have a lot of AP and Honors classes, I am actually involved in the administration of a lot of gaming servers away from music, and then just the little things of life cause my plate to overflow just a little bit. I can (for some reason) do all this now and produce music, so I would imagine that having a job in the mix would cause less time but not make it impossible for music to be made. Music is my home away from home – there’s no leaving!

You’ve also got to remember I work on music everywhere. When I’m in class, I think of drum patterns and what not using my desk (which has been known to irritate people, haha), when I’m on the bus I’ll dig into my program on my laptop, on my way to places I’ll do the same, when I’m at my cousin’s and my two homes, I always work some stuff in. I’m constantly moving around and I still get work done.

TS: Do you think that producing music is something that you will pursue as a career? Can you see yourself getting a degree or pursuing a job in sound engineering or something similar?

WB: My dream is to become a relatively famous musician. I idolize Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and other artists like crazy – I want to be like them. (except I wanna be me of course)
Also, yes. I love working with audio in general. Haha.

Career-wise, from what I’d really enjoy being to what I’d enjoy being, would go something like this: Musician, computer programmer, graphic designer, website designer, some kind of designer, writer, etc. I just don’t want to be in an office or in a warehouse.

TS: Lastly, do you have any hints — technical or otherwise — for people looking to get into using Jeskola Buzz or trackers in general?

WB: Work with what you’ve got and don’t quit just because the things you possess aren’t the things you’d want to use to get the job done. 3/4 of my music was done on low-end computers – all kinds of them. At some point, 1/4 of my music was accomplished completely with free software and on a computer that shut off every thirty minutes randomly without warning. Advance technology-wise as you go. Currently, I’m on a cheap Compaq laptop I stole from my mom, haha, and I’m getting stuff done. The only other piece of equipment is something I just got this year – a lovely $100 MIDI keyboard from Sam Ash with some aid from the profits I got from if then. While I’ve got a little more on this laptop, I have worked under the pressures of lag, memory rape, CPU destruction, random restarts, presets and full-songs disappearing, massive external hard-drive failures, and just straight up technical tom-foolery. Persistence is your friend. Boredom is your friend. An open mind is your friend. Patience is your friend.

Also remember that generally everything gets better. Slowly, but surely, things get better. Everything. Techy stuff, your music, your mind, you – everything. Six years, and I’ve made it this far. It’s not that far, but it’s far enough to show that you can very much do the same and probably better. :P

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So there you have it, some very telling words of wisdom at the end there. Just keep at it and things get better. Anyway, if you enjoyed the interview and want to have a peek at more of wauterboi’s world, you can find his website over at wauterboi.com, and he tweets @wauterboi. As previously mentioned, you can buy or stream (or buy, seriously) his two albums at his page on Protagonist Records. Do some good, support a young artist. As a final note, I should also mention that I’ve found his music to be incredibly good to write to. Strong beats and compelling melodies do a good writing tune make.

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photo credit: el patojo

Another attempt at

automatic content generation I’m afraid. At the end of every (working) week I propose to list the top three songs I’ve listened to for that week and explain why I have that artist on my hard-drive and why I felt like I needed to listen to their song. So here we go:

Justice — D.A.N.C.E. :

This week hasn’t been that fantastic for me. I’ve had a lot of setbacks and a general malaise concerning the future of my research. Not only are Justice one of the few bands to interest me in dance music, they just make it so damn fun with this song. Crank it on any night when you need a pick me up; guaranteed party starter.

Elbow — Grounds for Divorce :

Got stuck in my head from a chance hearing on the JJJs and then I had to listen to the whole album a few times. I first heard Elbow on a flight on the way back from London. I was delirious and sick and it was due in most part to these guys that I had the most awful dreams I’ve ever had on an aeroplane. Which is a bit strange considering the harmlessness of most of the songs and their lyrics. Still, they didn’t win the Mercury prize for nothing, absolutely stellar song and album (Seldom Seen Kid).

Opeth — Lotus Eater :

Grabs you from the moment the drums start up and Akerfelt informs the listener that ‘Liquid is in your throat’. Very intense, very screwed up song that is a perfect example of some of the best that Opeth can do. Watershed is my album of choice if you’d like to get into the band, then work backwards through their catalogue.

Until next week! (:

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