I’m putting together some ideas for my next record. I like to start with a bit of a plan like the one below, but I think this is probably the most formal and structured plan I’ve made.
The purpose of plans, as I see it, is to provide the first steps and the ways forward when feeling a little lost. They’re not to be stuck to in a very dogmatic sense – I’m very comfortable knowing that I can and probably will deviate from it.
A big focus for this plan is to separate the different stages of the creative process onto particular pieces of equipment. I’m beginning by gathering a bunch of material onto the Tonverk SD card, then sketching on that box, before moving to Bitwig to record into and flesh out, then Live to do a final round of touch ups. I’ve found this to be a good practice, as it really forces me to be aware of what stage of the creative process I’m actually working on. In modern DAWs, you can do everything, from sketching to arranging, processing, polishing. In my experience, this vast amount of options can stifle creativity, mostly in the early stages of building a work. I’ve made a conscious effort below to assign myself particular platforms to work in at the various stages of creation.
Skill development goals:
- learn the Tonverk deeply
- learn Bitwig deeply
Inspirations:
- Murcof
- Taylor Deupree
- Loscil
- Purl
- Lawrence English
- Offthesky
- Abul Mogard
Aesthetics:
- Dystopian, but moments of light
- Cinematic
- Not only long droning pieces: more ‘composed’ and shaped
- Tapey, driven, textural, experimental
Creative Framework/Limitations:
- I will begin with a pool of materials, some recorded by myself, some gathered from elsewhere.
- I will do all writing, sketching and sequencing on the Tonverk.
- I will record and do additional creative processing in Bitwig
- (I am leaving open the option of jumping to Live if this is really hindering the creative process),
- I will carry out an additional round of and creative processing in Live.
- I will write a development log specifically for the record
- Descriptions of what I did,
- ‘Findings’ and discoveries about the equipment and techniques,
- Reflections on how it’s going.
Process:
- Gather materials:
- Record improvisations
- Source samples
- Record instruments
- Load onto Tonverk SD card
- In Tonverk:
- Build the sketches on separate patterns in the Tonverk
- Process sounds
- Focus on one piece per session
- Record into Bitwig
- In Bitwig (if realy struggling with creative flow, jump into Live):
- Carry out additional processing
- Record extra layers
- Adjust arrangement
- Export stems, bring into Live
- In Live:
- Mix tracks
I want to document these sorts of projects on the blog, and so I’m adding a post category of ‘DevLog’, and a post tag of the record title, which is currently “tonverk_record_2025”; it’ll change eventually. For future works, where I carry out a similar process, I’ll carry out the same format, adding them to ‘DevLog’ category, and adding a new post tag for the record title.
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