8. Sam Sakr: Textures, Music Production, and Sold Motorcycles

[@lukepatch5160]

Nice one Sam!

[@sakrmusic]

Thanks so much for having me! ♥️🙌

[@FrapTools]

Any time!

[@MrRachele]

Wonderful talk guys. Many things I can relate to. Especially the journey into eurorack and how it rewired my thinking. Sam, great to hear you confirm my thoughts on stereo recordings. I have been trying to explain this to people for years, and very few understand. Some fellow producers are always telling me to refine my sounds by recording stems. But that method of working does not work for me. If I put my sound engineering hat on I understand what they are saying, and that their intentions are good. But they inevitably look at me like I am metal and don't know what I am talking about, which can be a little disheartening if I am honest. I mash and mangled sound to create whole new sound pallet. If I separate them out, it does not work anymore! I loose the essence of what I was creating. it's no longer a piece of music, it's a bunch of sounds engineered, and it's lost it's purpose. So why do I do this? Well Techno! When on the dancefloor in my party days, I used to listen to world class techno (proper techno) DJs mash tracks up to create their own version of sound. The way they EQ'd the records at different points always made for great listening experience, and an ever evolving one. I bring this style into my live performance as well. It's always translatable in the studio and out, and always creates a slightly new experience, especially when playing at different venues. Thanks again. 🖤

[@FrapTools]

At the end of the day we need to come up with ONE audio waveform; whether we reach it through individual stems, or an analog mixing desk, it's not the listeners' concern!

[@markosulz]

Thanks for the conversation ❤

[@Pspiralifemusicandedu]

If I interpreted it correctly, the last question for Sam where he describes a module idea that has a sequencable set of envelopes made me think of three modules that already exist which if there features were combined, might have the outcome he is looking for. The first module being the Verbos Scan & Pan which is very similar to the Joranalogue Morph 4 in its feature set. A common use case being that you use an external sequencer or sequence of voltages to step/morph through each of the 4 channels of the scan & pan/morph 4 so that it outputs different audio or modulation sources either one at a time or blend between them. I'm not s 100% sure on this, but I belive you would be able to patch the cv of 4 different envelopes into each of the Scan & Pan/Morph 4's inputs, and maybe achieve the different envelope speeds that way. The other module that comes to mind is the Frap Tools Fumana, which I believe has 16 envelope followers in it. I wonder if you could combine the scan&pan/Morph 4 features with something similar to the envelope follower feature of the Fumana (except replace the envelope followers with envelope generators) to get the result that Sam is describing.

[@Pspiralifemusicandedu]

Giovanni, at 45:00, you guys speak about the gap between what you're capable of playing versus what your current interests are, and I just had to say that I relate to this so much, and struggle with it in some ways too. In fact hearing you guys speak about it really highlighted how significant it is in my experience. As a producer and composer myself, with satisfaction in what my music project has achieved, (which was 95% achieved before I became interested in modular synthesis and broadening my knowledge in sound design/synthesis) I indeed at times feel frustrated that I have only released two tracks in 5 years that have been made with modular synthesis (bitwig's polygrid & eurorack) as the main source of sound. The mix of desire to compose/produce with the stronger desire to explore and understand new ways of approaching synthesis to satisfy my mind's need for the novel has definatley changed my output of work not only with my compositions, but also with the output of educational content. There is a wide gap between what I want to explore and implement, vs what I am already capable of producing. And yes a large part of my audience would likely be content hearing more music from me that was produced using techniques that I have become second-nature to me. That gap also is felt in the topics that I can teach students, and in what I am currently more interested in. More often than not, when I sit down to dedicate time to creating sounds with eurorack, even though I have a sound in mind, or the intention to read the manual of a module, the tendency to stumble across so many sonic possibilities often means that I take months to complete a track instead of weeks. I'd love to know if you guys have any tips on finding a balance!

[@FrapTools]

Thanks for the comment! I would say that the balance is very hard to find, but maybe a good starting point can be a good and honest feedback from the audience (let them be listeners of your music or students for your classes). Oftentimes an idea becomes "stale" in our mind because of our sole judgement, and if we have other points of view we may judge it more objectively.

[@Pspiralifemusicandedu]

@@FrapTools that’s a great idea, I’ll be keeping that in mind thanks!

[@Pspiralifemusicandedu]

On the topic of recording stems vs recording stereo mix from the analog sum, I guess the dream is to be able to have a eurorack system that includes ample ability to refine the important aspects usually easily done in a DAW (channel/bus mixing, EQ, Dynamics Processing, stereo imaging etc). But do so with the precision and high standard in the external hardware. Ideally, when it comes to the DAW mixing stage, you would then have fewer stems (group stems) that all contain the combination of elements along with the analog summing effect that you captured at the source. You could then refine the mix using further group processing and/or mastering-style techniques to make any adjustments to get the final result. I suppose this is where having channel/bus mixing, EQ, Dynamics Processing, stereo imaging eurorack modules that are flexible enough to replace the need for the dependence on DAW plug-ins plus being able to patch while in the sweet spot would come in. On that note, is that idea behind the release of the Frap Tools 500 Series Dynamics 2806? And, would Frap Tools ever consider creating cv controllable Eurorack versions of this category?

[@FrapTools]

It's an interesting point of view, but the point of our discussion was even simpler: it's not just about the audio processing and the whole digital v/s analog debate, but rather about the nature of summing stages themselves. Two mixes done on separate mixing devices just sound different, and it's very hard to recreate a mixer's character on another device. The 2806 was built mostly to provide a flexible and straightforward tool to solve most of the engineer's tasks without wasting time, so yes, it fits this overall conversation! At the moment we aren't thinking about a "porting" in the Eurorack format, but a major redesign may be a good idea!