Module

I've had a few people ask me about my debut album Module recently.

It came about from sitting down with all the kit I'd managed to muster as a 18-year-old and going, "What can I make with this that won't be terrible?"

Full-on dance music was out, really - I didn't have access to anything vaguely analogue sounding, so I decided to go down the electronica route.

The first track I recorded was "Yes to All" and that formed the basis for the sound of the album. It had very short samples in it as I only had very restricted sample time before I upgraded the RAM in the sampler: a lot of the percussion came from me doing weird things with the pitch controls on my RM1x.

Here's the full kit list I used for it:

Yamaha A4000 sampler
Yamaha DX100 synth
Yamaha (detecting a theme?) CS1X synth
Yamaha RM1x "groovebox"
Cool Edit Pro (some effects and sound editing)
Spirit Folio Notepad Mixer
PC running Cubase Score (MIDI only)

The bit-reduction on the A4000 is basically "the sound" of that album - I used it on pretty much every single channel in every single track! Everything is mixed super warm to the point of being seriously muddy, but hey that's what you get with lo-fi! Oh yeah and the entire album was actually mixed IN the sampler, as you'll note that I don't have enough channels or anything approaching a DAW to mix anywhere else - crazy behaviour I know, but I got pretty good at it! Determinance was mixed on that sampler as well.

The Yamaha A4000 is one of the best bits of kit I've ever owned, hands down, possibly THE best. Its sound and architecture were spot on and it was super powerful - such a shame it's obsolete now.

I still have all the stuff listed above! There's almost no point selling the sampler, the mixer is busted, the CS1X is still my MIDI keyboard (I wrote every single thing that's been released on it). I'd love to get the RM1X and DX100 out again and mess around with them, but I just don't seem to have time to start setting up hardware. My setup is as lean and mean as possible because of my situation right now, but that's good as it keeps me pumping out tracks on a regular basis.

You can buy Module from the Mode 7 Games store if you're interested in getting hold of it.

As I've said, I'd love the opportunity to do more electronica but it's just a time thing. I've really concentrated on the dance side of my output for the last year or so, and things are starting to take off there. As I gain confidence as a producer I'm starting to reintroduce a lot more experimental techniques and take things in a bit of an unusual direction. I'm hoping that the remix I'm doing right now will be a breakthrough track for me: I'm definitely aiming for something original.

One of my ambitions is to release a double artist album - one disc of listening electronica and one disc of mixed trancey stuff - that would rock. If I ever get the chance to do that, then I will.