I Tried To Make Music The Exact Same Way I Did 20 Years Ago

I️ was an “IDM” producer from the early 2000s and used to chat with Ben on AOL IM, back when he was known as simply flashbulb. After losing touch I️ just recently found this channel. What a trip. Congrats on the success man.

The JX-8p has a "feature" where if you jiggle the memory card just right before loading, you get a bunch of super-randomized versions of the patches stored on it.

Dude you have absolutely NO idea how shook i was to find out this cozy music channel ive been watching is the fucking LAWN WAKE guy. You're an absolute beast i've bumped your old Flashbulb albums so many times in my life

Being into aphex twin and having no idea what the process could even be like I am glad to have this window into how you did your craft in that time.

It’s funny how after all the years you put his hands / fingers exactly the way they have previously worn off the paint below the jogwheel and transport controls.

Fun Fact: for one of my first forays into music writing, I interviewed Benn when I was in High School for a now defunct website called exploding plastic. Benn was nice enough to answer all my questions and give me a link to an advance copy of Kirlian Selections. 15 years later I'm still making music and have amassed a fair bit of gear as well. Glad to see you're still plugging away and getting your shine Benn. You deserve it.

"one day they just forgot i rented it" huge massive big ups to OP's mate at the rental store, legend.

I need more of these corrupted factory presets

WAAAIITTT YOURE THE FLASHBULB??? OMFG. I used to listen to your music years ago when I was first getting into IDM/electronic music. Undiscovered colors!! Tomorrow untrodden! Miles and miles!! Kirlian Shores!! I actually used variations of Kirlian [insert word] as aliases online. trip down memory lane! you got me thru a lot of middle school and early hs! I make music now too haha. Chicago represent!!

that 2000s period was the golden age of IDM according to me, i love the sound of that era!

I bought my DSI Evolver when i was in highschool, 2002 or something, this was before paypal and i had to call DSI to place the order and I ended up talking to Dave Smith for 45 minutes about electronic music

I loved this. To contrast, I would love to see how you would approach creating your old sound on modern gear, mainly so we can see where your workflow has improved.

i've recently found cds that i made 20 years ago and despite having picked up a degree in sound engineering and music production in the intervening years i cannot replicate the tracks. the limitations of the gear i used then seemed to produce more creativity. great video

I want this sound to come back. This is definitely the sound of the late nineties/early 2000s drillnbass/braindance/idm, which have faded away in popularity now.

Me making music in 2002: hooking a MIDI Keyboard /guitar/mic up to a computer with a sequencer and plugins. Me making music in 2020: hooking a MIDI Keyboard /guitar/mic up to a computer with a sequencer and plugins and actually knowing what I'm doing.

I still love this dude even though he told me my record collection is going to give me cancerb

I'm an 18 year old swedish producer who found you through spotify 2 years ago, found you through youtube a year ago. Red Extensions of Me and Kirlian Selections have been really influential to me, and I'm getting goosebumps listening to these sounds you're able to create with gear seemingly from the stone age. This is amazing.

Ages ago on the metatone forums you posted a list of everything used to make M3 and I saved it for some reason. Seems relevant "Software: Cool Edit Pro, Coagula, Sound Forge, Fruity Loops, Acid, Buzz Tracker, Goldwave, Mobious, Wave Surgeon, Logic Pro, Vegas, pretty much everything from TC Native, all extensively modded and clogged with VST/DX plugins, some homemade. Many more to this list, but you get the point. Hardware: Roland (JX-305 Workstation, MS-1 Sampler, SP-202 Sampler) Korg (X3 workstation, AX1000G effects processor/acoustic modeler) Various mixers, homemade fx boxes, etc, etc. My main computer is a D800MHZ Athlon w/ 256 mb RAM and about 140gb in hard drive space, which is where I do 80% of my work."

Whatever that variable resistor is inside of that "Value" wheel is a AAA grade component.

This was definitely worth it. There is some emotional center in my brain that's been hit by watching you immediately fall back into the flow of a cherished set of tools you haven't touched in years. Like your comments at the end suggest, it's a good reminder that "a good craftsperson knows their tools" and that the level of drive you have to make music is far more important than the amount of gear you have.