The Post-Logic Saga Part 1

2024-10-29

So in my last post, I had a bit of a spiral into strange territory where I repeated a common pattern in my life, identifying a problem and trying to find the ultimate solution that fixes everything forever right now.

This approach is a great way to make sure you never manage to do anything ever. Upon closer inspection, the problem which initially appeared to be "I want to stop using Logic Pro X to produce music" is actually an assemblage of multiple problems which I will presently outline.

Problem Number The First:

When this Mac breaks, I don't want to buy another one.

Apple computers are not repairable, if you take it to Apple themselves, they'll charge you an exorbitant amount of money and wipe all of your data, to make the value proposition of just buying an entirely new computer seem more reasonable in comparison. I will not engage with that system again.

If this was the only problem I had, it would be quite a simple fix. Begin immediately the transition from Logic Pro X to Ableton Live, and when the Mac does break, purchase a different laptop. That second part is worth expanding on. As much as I love this ThinkPad x220, realtime music production is a cpu intensive task, and unfortunately this computer is simply not powerful enough to meet my requirements. Noticeable input or loopback delay is not acceptable for producing music. Now I do own an upper mid-tier desktop computer which is certainly powerful enough to handle this task, but I like the flexibility of producing music on a laptop. I will likely end up purchasing either a modern ThinkPad model, or a Framework laptop as my replacement. This will also solve some other problems of old ThinkPad usage, namely the shitty microphone and speakers, as well as poor battery life.

So to solve this problem alone, the only action required of me right now would be to obtain a copy of Ableton and begin using it, to ease my eventual transition away from Apple.

Problem Number The Second:

I want a machine to produce happy accidents.

This one is really throwing a spanner in my otherwise simple problem-space. It's also a little hard to articulate precisely. DAW software can do everything, and it can do everything pretty well. No matter if I'm making jungle, noise-rock, post-punk, techno, whatever genre, whatever instrumentation, it's all executable with confidence within the DAW. This seems like the opposite of a problem, and on the level of practicality, that is correct. It's extremely convenient to have one system of software which can take care of all of one's diverse musical needs. However, I also find it deeply uninspiring. After so many years of working "in the box", I find that increasingly I am closer and closer to exhausting the unexplored space which might spark inspiration. I want my music to sound new and interesting, for my own artistic fulfilment. I want to explore something sonically which is personal and unique. The fact that:

a: The tools allow me to make whatever noises I want to make.

b: I am hyper competent with those tools.

Leaves me with a sort of "blank page paralysis". I want to work with tools that feel more "living", which respond to the things I'm doing in unexpected ways, and have subtle nuances which I don't immediately understand. Like a real instrument. I want to problem solve on the fly, and I want my solutions to be hacky and messy, because that leads to outcomes I would never have produced intentionally. I want a machine to produce happy accidents.

One time, while bored and waiting in an airport (is there any other way to be waiting in an airport?), I decided to give myself a challenge, to produce a genre I had never made before, Riddim dubstep. I've barely listened to this genre, let alone produced in it. Like 30 minutes later I had a fairly professional sounding riddim drop. And it was booorriiinnggg. It was simply too easy.

Problem Number The Third:

DAWs are too totalising.

For reasons I'm not quite sure of, I want different tools for different jobs. I want the way in which I make "guitar music" to differ radically from the way I make "computer music". Once again, the DAW makes everything too seamless.

Problem Number The Fourth:

Often (but not always), I would like to "perform" rather than "program"

Whether it be with an array of synthesisers, or with guitar and drum loops, or whatever, I find myself more inspired by the modality of recording a performance over programming a song. In other words, acting in real-time. This is strongly related to Problems The Second and Third. I like it when I listen to a band and it feels like they've captured a particular performance of a song, rather than just created a song out of thin air. My music generally falls into the second category. In other words, this Problem regards the re-separation of composition, recording, and performance. As of now, they're all entwined into one process of "production". Something about the vibe of this feels off to me.

Problem Number The Fith

Free Software.

For reasons relating to my personal principles, I would rather use Free Software over proprietary software. Ableton is proprietary software. The existing Free DAWs suck ass.

Conclusion.

Problems The Second through Fourth are solvable given enough money, but I do not have that much money. Therefore I would ideally like to solve these problems in software. This once again makes my life even more difficult. But it sets my current task to be simply: "fuck around with as many things as you can get your grubby little hands on, and see if you can find anything cool." This seems vague, but doable. So I will keep your guys updated in this series of blog posts whenever I have anything to share regarding new tools or techniques I have found. Thanks for reading, thanks for keeping rss and blogging alive.