CREATIVE LIMITATIONS
In my last post, I mentioned the formation of a collaboration with Darwin Grosse called (no)poem. When we where putting this project together a few months back we started by defining a set of creative limitations which would inform the art for our first mini-tour through Lincoln and to Des Moines.
We created this set of limitations:
- Desktop only
- No keys
- No laptops
- No synced clocks
- No sampling of each other’s output
RIGS
For Darwin, this meant a modular-centered rig:
- TipTop Station 252
- Boss RC-505 desktop looper
- Max percussion patch + Beststep Pro running on a small tablet
For me this meant an Octatrack-centered rig:
- Electron Octatrack
- Waldorf Blofeld Desktop with custom presets from init, custom wavetables, and custom samples as oscillator sources via License SL
- Instrumentality for Blofeld are via a custom Lemur patch on iPad (USB Midi with Camera Kit) and Octatrack (MIDI)
DIFFERENT WORKLOW = DIFFERENT CREATIVE RESULTS
Different rigs and different workflows yield different results of course. A hardware focus means our eyes are free to focus on graphical scores (more on this in a future post) and paying attention to each other’s body language. No keyboards means we have to use knobs, buttons sliders, cables, visual feedback from hardware, and in my case, physics and multi-touch through the Lemur interfaces. Again, this changes the creative result – especially when playing tonal passages without being restricted by a 12-tone keyboard interface.
TRANSCENDING TECH TO SERVE THE ART
If you’ve been following along here on Modulate This! you know I’ve gone deep with both the Octatack and the Blofeld for many years now so this upcoming tour is the culmination of a lot of work to create expressive workflows around these instruments.
UPCOMING POSTS
Stay tuned for more detailed posts on how I’m using Octatrack (see dedicated category), Blofeld (see dedicated category), and Lemur. I’ll also do some posts on working with grphical scores and free-running clocks.
Lastly, tune into to Darwin’s new blog All Things Modular to learn more about his rig and artistic process.
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Mark Mosher 