In The Studio

In the studio with Fluxwarp

This week, we catch up with Italian producer, Fluxwarp!

Jaz from the RepostExchange Team

How long have you been producing music and how did you learn?

I’ve been producing music for the last fifteen years, initially for fun, then a bit more seriously, dedicating to projects of different genres including a wide range of club and rave oriented dance music, modern electronic from easy listening to experimental and soundtracks for movies and theatre. But my musical journey started years before, precisely in 1990. I was just a child when I started playing classical with the violin and approached to an early music software on a personal computer, an Amiga 500, where I made first rudimentary attempts of computer music-making.

I grew up as a traditional musician and performer exploring different instruments, playing bass guitar and synthesizers in many bands, gradually shifting away from classical music towards electronic, pop, and jazz, more and more attracted by composition and arrangement.

It was just after my first contact with the underground techno music scene that I realized I should have gone much deeper with electronic music. So I bought my first electronic instruments, a Korg ER-1 Rhythm Synthesizer, a simple yet powerful analogue drum machine that introduced me into a new way of thinking about music, and a Novation A-Station, a compact digital synthesizer for generating tones. One of the things that fascinated me most at first it was having an instant, musical feedback from the machines that were just sounding cool, like playing in a band, with also the possibility of fix and record songs during the workflow. The excitement of being able to create a full track by myself induced me to spend a lot of time practising and working out ideas.

I moved to the computer pretty soon to explore new software, I remember Fruity Loops and Reason at first, and every learning source was precious at that point. I started to read a massive amount of articles, manuals, forum discussions and searched for every interesting tutorial about production, mixing and sound design I could find on YouTube. Curious to learn more about it, I attended the Music and New Technologies course at the Conservatory where I acquired recording, sound design, acoustics, and computer programing skills, which I extensively use in my production today.

What DAW(s) do you use and why?

After many explorations in the realm of music software, I have chosen Ableton Live as my main DAW. I use Live to do pretty much everything from recording to the final mixdown, as well as for live performances. When I started using it, Live was particularly fast and immediate compared to other platforms, especially for writing and arranging purposes. You could connect and route everything in a second, sample new material and arrange the existing one at the same time, and make MIDI assignments with a simplicity never seen before. An ideal workflow to keep fresh ideas coming and not getting lost between windows and menus.

I do a lot of stuff out of the box these days and Max for Live - a platform to build your own tools that you can also find inside Live - is very handy when it comes to connecting external gears. I love the modular approach that M4L gives to the whole thing, you have no boundaries with that.

What are your favourite pieces of gear and why?

Bass guitar and master keyboard are definitely the instruments I spend the most time with, it can be to elaborate ideas or just space out, but they really are the instruments I couldn’t live without.

I have a Yamaha TRB-II and a Fender American Deluxe Jazz bass that I love, both with four strings.

I also make quite an extensive use of a modular synthesizer in Eurorack format that I’m configuring to cover most of my needs in terms of sound mangling and generation. I really love its unpredictability, it often comes in form of micro variations but it’s enough to make it closer to a living, more natural and organic instrument compared to software. You can never expect what will come out exactly and this makes every performance more adventurous and unique.

A mention should also go to Access Virus TI2, it’s becoming an old one but I still use it a lot for any kind of sound.

What are your favourite software plugins and why?

Xfer Serum is the synthesizer I use most today, it can cover a wide sonic palette with high-quality output, it is just perfect when I need a responsive digital synth. The oscillator section can go really in-depth, it has infinite tricks and a ridiculous amount of filters and menu possibilities. I remember I suddenly bought it at half price when it was launched and I couldn’t have imagined that it would become a reference point for wavetable synthesis a few years later.

I also use Spectrasonics Omnisphere quite a lot, it comes with some very good sound design tools and effects combined with a huge SoundFont library that you will never finish exploring, it’s a world of its own.

I am really happy with Universal Audio plugins for mixing, I use Pultec Eq, EL Fatso, and Ampex ATR-102 in almost every session to saturate and colour the sound. FabFilters are my go-to for clean, surgical operations.

I am always in search for unique sounds, so I also like to have the possibility to modify or even build my own instruments and effects in environments like Native Instruments' Reaktor, that contains some mind-blowing ready-made instruments, or Max for Live, where imagination is your only limit.

How would you summarise your approach/workflow when creating a track?

I still focus on many dance music genres like trance and techno, where I found some more standardized procedures and styles to achieve, so I decided to approach to Fluxwarp project with the aim of having no rules at all. I always start from an inspiring idea that changes from piece to piece.

I sometimes find myself playing for hours on bass or piano, recording and saving the best ideas, same can happen on synthesizers or drum machines. One of my favourite approaches is definitely to start from a vocal, then build a track around it.

I experiment a lot to find new sounds, sometimes layer rhythms of different pulsations to create excitement or I play with the arrangements to completely change the original sense of a melody.

When I find something that sounds good to me I start to add layers of sound, I usually create more versions to chose from, then try to be more creative as possible with few materials. I finally edit and process putting a lot of attention to the details until all the things work well together.

What resources do you use to improve your craft?

The main resource is the music I like, I listen to a lot of different stuff every day, I love to discover music that I never heard before. I take from there most of the inspiration, motivation and ideas that I study, change and then use in my music. When I hear a sound or an arrangement that I like, Google or YouTube become my go-to resources to find the process or the technique used to achieve it. I also learn a lot every time I can directly share the experience with other producers in the studio, and this is happening more and more often.

I recommend Mr Bill’s YouTube channel (and music) for advanced Ableton tutorials, he has been crucial when I was making the first steps and he still always gives me fresh ideas to work with.

I follow many other YouTube channels dedicated to the most varied music things, I am a fan of Andrew Huang, Look Mum No Computer, mylarmelodies, dude837 to name a few. Gearslutz is my reference forum.

If you’re into Max for Live and ready for some reading, I also recommend Electronic Music and Sound Design, a book, two volumes actually, that taught me a lot about computer music, basic sound principles and electronic instruments programming.

What is the last YouTube tutorial you watched that you would recommend to other Re-Ex Members?

Well, I recently felt the need for upgrading my technique arsenal, so it’s about sound design. There is this guy called Au5 that shows some crazy next level things with Serum. Enjoy!

What knowledge or advice do you wish you'd learned earlier?

Try to be as creative as possible with the instrumentation you have, you don’t necessarily need tons of samples or the latest plugin versions to make things work. Concentrate on a few instruments, record your sounds and make the most out of them.

What challenges related to making music do you face and how do you overcome them?

I challenge myself every day to find the proper mood and a clear mind at the right time, to stay updated, inspired, to be musically fresh, to achieve good sounding mixes, to find money and time to support my activities. But this is what I chose so it’s a challenge in a good way, and I just take it day by day.

Can you share any killer tips or techniques?

I usually like to work with my hands on synths or controllers to add various amounts of human feel to the sounds. It is surprising for me how the same instrument can turn into a completely different one by simply changing the way you play it. There are many possibilities to do it, hardware midi controllers, sequencers or futuristic apps like Lemur or TC-Data are my main choices.

For the same reasons I often record drum loops with pads or deactivate the grids when programming rhythms.

I also use generative and stochastic processes quite a lot to create sound material that would be hardly possible to realize by programming or performing on the instruments. With various forms of randomization in controlled amounts, it is possible to obtain even many hours of constantly changing soundscapes in which to navigate to find the more interesting parts. It sounds complex but the result can be even relaxing.

Do you use any online tools to assist with the production process?

Not really. I like to work with synths and samplers to make my sound, I occasionally use sample libraries that I carefully select and try to twist in unique ways, or just put my hands on instruments and use the computer mainly as a recording and mixing tool. I’m don’t make use of those online services offering ready-made stuff for your productions, I just think we gonna take all the fun out that way, with the risk of sounding all the same.

Having the possibility of constantly stay in touch with other producers, collaborate and compare works with them is a great thing that I missed in the past, I have to thank some online resource for this, including Re-Ex.

Do you try and get feedback or suggestions to improve your music? If so, how?

Yes, any constructive feedback is welcome, I receive many from the various social networks and RepostExchange has been, again, a game-changer for it. I also am in touch with many labels and producers, and I frequently exchange musical feedbacks with them.

In the early days as a producer I rarely had the opportunity to listen to my music playing from big systems, so I was looking for feedback from the people at every live gig and this helped me a lot in refining some skills.

Which track are you most proud of and why?

I could be proud of my latest works since I feel I’m getting better in reducing waste of time due to perfectionism or overthinking on the tracks. This is traduced in better feeling and major spontaneity during composition and listening. The remix of Nyquism's Bittersweet is a perfect example of that, I made it all in one breath and I am very happy with it.

The track Zone also has a special meaning for me, I’m not particularly proud of it but I have a very good memory of the moment in which I made it, and it also represents the first step of the new Fluxwarp journey.

Has RepostExchange affected the way you make music? If so, how?

Thanks to Re-Ex I could get in touch with a lot of people and get constant feedback on my musical works. This hasn’t affected the way I make music, but it certainly gives me a good dose of motivation every day.