Not sure if youre familiar with this dude, he's been around for a minute on yt but he easily has the best Blofeld content imo ... the dude can program the hell out of it and make it sound gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24BsNkTH_KY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq3gVIfyJS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0uGxdmCkR8

Check out his other videos:

https://www.youtube.com/@vinyljunkie07/search?query=blofeld

Was this the one you were talking about? Ive owned a few dedicated sampler in my days but never a Roland sampler. The XV5080 I owned was the closest, it wasnt a tradition sampler in that you could record into and edit/chop things but you could load sample into it like the Blofeld and it sounded really nice. Thats always something Roland got right, all their boxes sounded great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xmn_UrzYn0

@johncave
Hi John,

All set:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-71jUQPkUNBrMKMlR7cJQSbYP0gLKN4D/view?usp=drive_link

I took a slightly different approach to it than the old mix, but I think this one sounds better overall. Let me know what you think. If you dig it, I'll start on the next one! - J

Was going to mention this before my kid came in... have you seen these yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCqp9N2q9u4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY0bRaKWLmk

Not sure if you're familiar with No-ID (he's a producer that has worked with Kanye and JayZ) but these two vids are an awesome look not only into his studio (which borders of insanity), but his approach to sessions with his co-producer Jimmy Douglas. We all have different approaches to mixing , but there's something I really liked that Jimmy mentions in at 7:40 which is his approach to mixing which I found really interesting, or as he calls it "addition, not subtraction". He focuses on creating headroom so increase loudness, which seems obvious enough but is something we sometimes lose track of. I tend to go the opposite direction because I tend to start with really dense mixes and I find I have to pull back or remove elements in a mix to create more space, and I think a lot of how we mix is dictated by genre and what sounds right to us. Interesting nevertheless.

Studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNEUyEz3lN0

Session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9mm995LYec

@samuraitracks , @johncave , @numaphlex , @izlo , @midge-f , @joe

Happy monday!

industrial breakbeat track. Messy machine groans. Beautiful slow eardrum implosion 

Bandcamp release page: 
https://colog.bandcamp.com/track/crisis

Soundcloud release page:
https://soundcloud.com/co-log/crisis

Hi @midge-f @aidene,

This is just a welcome email for your private session forum. This is normally the place where we recap discussions from our private sessions. Feel free to use this as your own personal space to share thoughts and ideas for your music. If you have any questions or comments for me directly, you can reply with @aymat to your posts and I will receive a notification letting me know. Glad you're here and looking forward to working with you! - Joel aka aymat

@izlo @numaphlex @johncave @midge-f @samuraitracks

Hey gang,

Sorry for the radio silence recently! Lot's going on!

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I've been quietly working in the background preparing for a site migration for the site, shop and forum.

Currently, everything is built on wordpress, which has been fine until recently. From a security standpoint, its been a bit of a pain as Ive had to continuously patch the site more often than I'd like. The site is secure however, it's taking considerable time out of my week to keep doing so. So I decided to migrate the site to Astro which is framework that should not only make things very lightweight, fast and more secure. I'm also migrating the shop to an open source alternative as well.

Which comes to the forum. Currently the forum is built using WPForo which only works with wordpress. I've looked at several options for replacing it but have decided on using Discourse which should be a bit of an upgrade from where it is now. Everything that this forum currently does, Discourse can do and one additional feature that is lacking which is private messaging and a better notification system. I'll be doing my best to try and migrate as much of the existing content from the forum to the new Discourse build and including member accounts. Btw if you'd like to change or update your current user name, please let me know.

My hope is to have the transition complete and live by this coming weekend and will keep you posted when everything is ready. Thanks -J

@aymat 

Hi Joel, created this as my updates were starting to look messy/cause spam in the Release Schedule and Article Interview channel, and I want to summarise everything here to make it easier for you once you come to read my messages. (Since I'm not sure how to delete them).

1. Your original master for Shoot By Mistake has grown on me a lot.

2. I'm steadily working through answering all the interview questions. I've done about 8 so far, so I'll be done with those later today, and follow up here with a link to that (+the accompanying images you wanted).

3. I've been making a second track for the release through the week. It is now fully mastered and is 5 minutes and 37 seconds.

I've thought of a name: 'Raison d'etre'. 

I'd like it to come before Shoot By Mistake in a mini LP release containing both tracks. If there's any reason you can't do that, it's okay. You can just upload Shoot By Mistake on its own and I can upload Raison d'etre on my own bandcamp. 

Here's the Drive link for Raison d'etre so you can download/listen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ICbG-QyJWXydpsTQK9pXi2imL1UjS04/view?usp=sharing

Apologies again for spamming the last channel!! Hope everything is going smoothly for you now

@johncave

John!

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you! I've been juggling a mess of updates with the upcoming site migration and it's been a real test in patience! 🫠

The good news is I finally put together the questions for the release interview. These are based around our conversations, your music, influences, creative process, and your experience working through the coaching sessions. If you can choose 10 questions that you're most drawn to and answer those in as much or as little detail as you like, that would be awesome. Or, if you feel like answering all of them, even better.

1. John, you originally contacted me because you felt your music was good but consistently unfinished. Since then, your productivity has ramped up... you're working on an album, you've released several singles on your own Bandcamp, and now you have your first release on Latent Forms. Has working toward an actual release changed the way you listen to your own music, or the way you think about what it means for a track to be "finished"?

2. You've mentioned that you've only been producing for around three years, and yet your music already has a remarkably developed identity. Do you feel like you've found your sound, or does it feel more like you're chasing something you can hear in your head but haven't completely managed to capture yet?

3. You're at an interesting point in your development as an artist, where your instincts and tastes are already quite established but there's still so much room for them to evolve. Are you excited by the idea that the person who makes your fifth album might be almost unrecognisable compared with the person making this one? Or is there something about your current perspective that you'd be afraid of losing?

4. One of the things we've discussed is your relationship with creativity. There's an interesting paradox in the way you've described it... you can become deeply immersed in your creative world, but after long periods of creation, your brain can struggle to catch up with the real world and begin assigning it dreamlike qualities. Do you think you're ultimately trying to escape reality through music, understand reality through music, or build an alternative reality that feels more meaningful?

5. A lot of your visual references... Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, Y2K, retrofuturism, vaporwave... seem to occupy this space between the technological and the human. What is it about that in particular that feels so emotionally powerful to you?

6. You're interested in both futuristic technology and nostalgia for older technological aesthetics... Y2K, vaporwave, 80s/90s imagery, retrofuturism, cyberpunk. Why do you think the future seems to feel more emotionally interesting when viewed through the lens of the past?

7. You've described the album you're currently working on as exploring the polarity of technology... how it can be "unmistakably beneficial to the creative," while also contributing to derealization, alienation, and a sense of distance from the world around you. Can you talk about how that relationship with technology has developed for you, and how you think spending so much time inside a technologically enhanced creative world affects the way you experience the real one?

8. One thing that's come up repeatedly in our conversations is that you're very comfortable getting a track to that 80% point, but you've described the final stage... the polishing, transitions, ear candy, mixing, mastering, and ultimately calling the track finished... as much more daunting. What do you think makes that last 20% so difficult for you, and why do you think you've found it easier to create the music than to finish it?

9. You're studying music, building an album, learning instruments, buying hardware, and experimenting with going DAWless... you're exploring a lot of different sides of being a musician and producer at the moment. Do you feel any pressure to figure out what kind of artist you want to be, or are you deliberately trying not to define yourself yet?

10. You talked about 2814 and imagining what their ambient music would sound like "layered with breaks, and with more progression." That's almost a description of an artistic problem you're trying to solve rather than simply an influence. How often does your music begin with the question, "What if this thing I love was something else?"

11. Can you speak a bit about your release "Shoot By Mistake"... what influenced or inspired you to make the track, and what do you hope listeners hear that isn't necessarily obvious from the music itself?

12. Is there anything you'd like to share with readers about your experience through our coaching sessions... anything that surprised you, challenged you, or changed the way you approach your music? And, looking ahead, what can we expect from you in the near future?

I'll also need some images, ideally 2 to 3 that I can use for the side bar and one to use for the hero image. These should be photos or images of things that are important to you and that you feel represent who you are as a producer.

My plan is to have the track fully mixed and mastered this week for a Friday release. If you can get all of this out to me soon that would be awesome but if you need more time or over the weekend, let me know and we can schedule the release for next week.

Hope you're doing well and I'm so looking forward to getting this together! - J

Book an appointment

@izlo @numaphlex @johncave @midge-f @samuraitracks

Hey gang, touching base on releases. There are approximately 5 upcoming releases which take us into late November. The plan is to release very two weeks as things ramp up. The next releases currently scheduled are from @johncave and @numaphlex with John's release sometime this week and Numaphlex in the last week of September. Beyond that we will have some new members on-boarded next week for the preceding releases as well as some non-dnb releases from myself. So plenty of music lined up and very excited for the next coming weeks as I have some additional news which I hope will make a big impact on the site and the community.

I'll be contact you guys individually to touch base as things are rolling out. Talk soon! - J

This is pretty cool for anyone thats interested and its FREE : https://www.autodafe.net/vintage-emulator-studio.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5n_Lpz328Q

Another cool 303 plugin, this one actually looks pretty insane in terms of features... 

https://www.if-tah.com/devices/sting/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWe8SAwS0r0

@samuraitracks @johncave @numaphlex @izlo @midge-f @joe

Hey peeps!

Diffused Memories Vol.1: Foundations is out today... FINALLY! 

This is my first sample & serum library and the first in the Diffused Memories series.

It's a collection of 50 curated atmospheric pads and textures for dnb and jungle that I developed from personal projects. HOWEVER, even though they started out as sounds in dnb projects, they are perfect for just about any genre... maybe not polka... but you never know! 🧐 

Anyhow, just wanted to share the link, you can have a look and listen here:

https://aymat.org/product/diffused-memories-vol-1-foundations/

And if you're interested in picking it up, you can use this code for a 50% discount:

SESMEM50-DM01

I hope you enjoy it and let me know if you end up using it in any of your productions! THANKS!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm_a-dJ7iOA

@izlo @numaphlex @johncave @midge-f @samuraitracks

Hey gang, I'm thinking about running a group session once a week, just for an hour to have a beer, shoot the shit and talk about music production. The regular sessions will still be the same, but group sessions would be more of a hang out. It would depend on everyone's sechedules but I'm open to having 1 or 2 a week in case some cant make it. 

I'm thinking or Saturday and Sunday. Is this something youd be interested in? If so, let me know and I'll organize it. Thanks! - J

Posting to remind you to send me Val's music!!!

Also extra info about release stuff recently; I won't be putting songs out quite as fast in the coming week as I have recently. I got these 2 recent tracks done quick to enjoy my final days of freedom before I have some employability training stuff to do all week :cc. (will be too drained to make music) And also want to spend some more time with my gf

Making my recent tracks has been a blast. Music has felt increasingly like an escape for me recently, I've just been kind of depressed but making music is the only thing I enjoy. It's incredibly rewarding hearing people enjoy my releases so far since I put so much of myself into them.

The M3 mixer is cool and I'll integrate it. It's miles from my current workflow, so It'll take me some time to become familiar with it. Same kind of thing stands for ozone - I made these recent tracks partially to test the waters with it. I appreciate the bandcamp advice too. Sooooooo ready to make money and end the misery of looking for work in this forsaken country

I'm excited to hear your mix and see it on LF!!

@samuraitracks , @johncave , @numaphlex , @izlo , @midge-f , @joe

Second track guyssss. This one is better than the last one. Cleaner mix and I just like the vibe more. And it's TRANCE the best genre

Bandcamp release page:
https://colog.bandcamp.com/track/from-osiris-xoxo

Soundcloud release page:
https://soundcloud.com/co-log/from-osiris-xoxo

Thank you to those who followed!!

@samuraitracks , @johncave , @numaphlex , @izlo , @midge-f , @joe

Hi all!!

I just released my first ever single on Bandcamp and Soundcloud! It's a weird fusion of Dark Electro / EBM / Atmospheric Drum & Bass.

Bandcamp release page:
https://colog.bandcamp.com/track/vile

Soundcloud release page:
https://soundcloud.com/co-log/vile

More to come soon! ️ ️ ️

Hi Joel,

Hope you're well and mixing/mastering my track isn't causing you too much of a headache!

I have a random question about your hardware.

I started trying to master one of my tracks with the Izotope Ozone suite as you recommended, but, even with all tracks bounced, I run into ram issues / I think some disk swapping which is causing stutters/crackles even on the highest sample rate I can have my DAW at.

I'm just wondering, what are your pc specs? And what do you do to overcome CPU/Ram issues in final production stages. I'm starting to master/finish some mixes of some songs for my album and the process is excruciating. (I'm on a 2018 macbook pro with an i7 and 16gb ram).

Thank you,

John