Feature | What’s So Special About Analogue?
ANALOGUE SEQUENCING
It’s not just the synths themselves, but also how we interact with them that creates magic. Rob Redman steps up
The one constant in musical production is that you need a way to get your musical ideas from your brain to your listeners. There are clearly many methods for this but there’ll always be a need to get the notes into the instrument and, performance aside, the most common method is through sequencing. Sequencing itself has a touch of the artform about it, as it can be far more than simply plotting out pitches over time, with possibilities abounding for adding nuance and humanisation.
If you’re new to production, or have never toyed with sequencing, it might feel like a strange land, where no plucking of strings, or beating of drums is needed. Rest assured though, that this doesn’t make it any less musical. It’s still your musical decisiveness that creates the end result. Sometimes sequencing can be used as a helper: if you want to perform at a gig, you may use sequenced elements to free up your hands for other tasks, like playing an improvised line on keys, or lining up other channels or tracks.