Music in the Dark

I’m sat here in the dark, Jupiter crossing the sky. The streetlight outside my window is due to go off any minute. I’m working by candlelight — it’s my only option right now. I haven’t plugged my lamp back in since rearranging my office. I’m writing music. Not with the PC I’m typing on, and not with paper.

In front of me are two devices I feel very lucky to own: Elektron’s Digitakt and Digitone. They’re music-making devices, two of my favourites. Between them, there’s enough to build fully-fledged songs, no other equipment needed. They work together via MIDI, a protocol somehow unchanged since it’s invention in the 80s. It still feels like magic to me; two independent devices, perfectly in sync, made possible by just one cable.

Making music with hardware is a new adventure for me. I’ve been making electronic music with PCs since my teens, but jumping out of the box has been…jarring. Eye opening. Rewarding. I’m nowhere near being able to call these boxes “an extension of myself” as I would the familiarity of keyboard and mouse. I’m still learning their possibilities. Their edges. What they want from me.

And it’s so much fun.

At it’s heart, the Digitone is an FM synthesizer. FM typically looks like wizardry, moving from simple waveforms to mind-boggling complexity with just a few parameters. While the Digitone is praised for the clarity it implements FM with, it’s still a form of synthesis I’m not truly confident with. It always feels like I’m barely scraping the surface when I’m using the Digitone. Like there’s an entire ocean waiting for me, but I don’t have any goggles yet. I need to explore it more.

I feel much more at home with the Digitakt. It’s a crazy versatile sampler, and I love playing with samples. If synths are like throwing pottery, samplers are like hewing marble, and I’m much handier with a chisel. There’s something delectable about taking an audio recording, something set in stone and fixed in place, and shaping it anew. You can create entirely new worlds from the observations of others. Like continuing a conversation.

With these devices, I find so much therapy. I’ve never been good at verbalising my feelings; sometimes I struggle to describe them even to myself. But music has always been my way around that. I know what my happy sounds like. My sad. My anxiety. Much of what I create doesn’t merit sharing, but the half-finished songs and sketches littering these devices still tell stories. They’re like emotional snapshots, windows into conversations I’ve had with myself.

I don’t play any traditional instruments, but I’ve never felt like I needed to. These are my instruments. These are my voice.

Usually, they form part of a bigger hardware music setup, but my dad kindly made me a beautiful custom desk to replace the beaten up one I bought from IKEA years ago (I’m incredibly grateful), and these are all I’ve plugged in so far. I’ll likely write more about the whole system when I’ve got everything rigged back up.