Jonathan van Clute stops by to discuss room treatment and some early electronic music influences. We talk about different creative workflows including writing from an acapella. We also discuss how electronic music and the term electronica have evolved over time. Lastly, Jonathan gives some great tips and apps for making electronic music one your phone or ipad.
Episode Links:
Jonathan van Clute:
Soundcloud:
Tutorials:
Sonic Academy : https://www.sonicacademy.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjo2JBhCRARIsAFG667WnBRGheWBwZ_Crwa3nf_brbB9xtA-XS2XT_x1D1bYCT73BrA7GoCYaAg1FEALw_wcB
Ask Video: https://www.ask.video/
Berklee Online: https://welcome.online.berklee.edu
Sadowick on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SadowickProduction
Influences:
Hooked on Classics: https://open.spotify.com/album/3ja7CEvtGHq95Fv3p10vUd?si=kwAv-TDYQqmKO24SpX97Ew&dl_branch=1
Hardware:
Juno106: https://tinyurl.com/aj8k5e33
Focal Alpha 65 Monitors: https://tinyurl.com/vrt456zt
Room Treatment:
Prime Acoustics: https://tinyurl.com/5famwprh
Overhead Acoustic Cloud: https://tinyurl.com/36m7447b
Sonarworks Room Mic: https://tinyurl.com/scbrbnav
Apps:
Propellerhead Figure:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/figure-make-music-beats/id511269223
Korg Gadget:
https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/korg_gadget/
Auxy:
Ableton Link: https://www.ableton.com/en/link/
Episode Summary:
From a young age Jonathan wanted to write his OWN music. He is a multi-instrumentalist playing piano, viola, and cello. He discusses doing releases on his own on cassette…getting a friend to make some airbrush art for him and creating and selling 100 copies of his own album.
When people ask him what instrument he plays, Jonathan tells people “I play the computer.” Jonathan discusses the differences between working with virtual instruments rather than hardware synths and keyboards.
Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos was one of Jonathan’s early influences. He considers the album one of the seminal albums for electronic music. Interestingly, the album was composed on monophonic synths one track at a time. Another early influence was Hooked On Classics – a series from the early 80s that consisted of an orchestra playing a continuous mix of famous songs set to a TR-909 beat.
Other influences for Jonathan included New Wave artists like the Pet Shop Boys and electronic artists like William Orbit.
Jonathan takes a deep dive into room treatment and room measurement. For sound treatment he uses London set from Prime Acoustic. He mentions how calm and peaceful his room makes him feel because the room is treated. In particular, he emphasizes the importance of using bass traps, reference tracks, and having an acoustic cloud over your head. In addition he discusses the importance of treating a room with a room-measuring microphone.
In releasing music, Jonathan has worked with a music production coach in the past. He focused on mass creating 9 ideas in various styles with various stages of completion. From here, he began to whittle down the tracks into a common style. He has always struggled to find his sound and this was a helpful exercise in trying to answer that question. Much of his music was electronic and new-wave influenced, but predates the term ‘electronica’. However, he now considers that to be a fitting category. Eventually he chose 3 tracks that fit together to release as his Huxlous Aldey Red EP.
Jonathan has explored various workflows in his production. For instance, on his track “Vermillion”, he used an acapella vocal for inspiration. He actually found the acapella for “Call Me Maybe” and wrote new music to support the track. He then removed the acapella and had his instrumental track to build from. On the other hand, when starting with a blank DAW, Jonathan recommends just putting ANYTHING in and building off of it.
For using mobile music applications, Jonathan likes to use his phone as sound input for his Mac. He has also used Link to make applications talk to one another on mobile. He then simply records the audio onto his desktop when he gets home. Favorite mobile apps include Propellerhead Figure and Korg Gadget is closer to a mobile DAW and has powerful sounds. He also likes Auxy, which has some loop functionality, but less functionality than a full DAW. Another thing he likes about mobile producing is that he can change his environment. For instance, one of his favorite places to produce mobile music is in an art gallery.