Let's start by talking about your current approach to recording. I saw that the most recent Octant album [Car Alarms and Crickets] was finished this summer.
Yeah, we started in October of last year and worked on it over a seven-month period.
And were you recording in your house mostly?
We pretty much did it all out of our apartment. In Seattle, the rent is so high we just had a tiny little apartment. Compared to now, in Chicago, we have a much larger apartment paying the same amount of money. But it was tiny in Seattle — we had one room that we lived in and one room we converted into a recording studio. And then I did all the drum tracks in a practice space, which was really hellish because I was surrounded by hardcore bands. I would have to get there at five in the morning, before all the slackers got there. There were many times when I set up all my microphones and then there would be this loud "bwwwwwah." So that's part of the reason that it took so long. There were a lot of re-dos.
So, would you bring an ADAT down to the practice space?
I have a [Roland] VS-880 hard disk recorder. I use that to do all my field — I call them field recordings, where I go places and record my instruments that are too loud to record in my apartment or I go and record other people, other instrumentalists, in their homes. Then I sync them up in Pro Tools after that.
Are you using the Digidesign 001?
On the last record I used Pro Tools 4.3.1 and I didn't have the Digi card — I actually did it on the Mac A/V card on the G3, so it was all in 16 bit, it wasn't 24 bit. But then what we did is we went into a studio that had a full-on Pro Tools 24-out system and we bussed all the tracks out through tube compressors and tube amps and tracked it analog to clean off the rough digititis. And it seemed to work pretty good. In retrospect, I would probably invest in a 24-bit card and do it that way, but we were kind of tight with money.
So with only an A/V card in, you could add, at most, two tracks at a time?
Some of the stuff was done mostly on the VS-880, where I would put a test tone on every track, and then peel them off, two at a time, into the computer — sync them up there. I really focused on getting good tracks, trying to develop each track, as opposed to when you're in a studio where you're pressed for time and you just play and then see what you get, make the best of it in the mix-down. I wanted to do the opposite thing and work on all the tracks, work on incorporating digital-style recording with live recording. "Digital", meaning loops and edits and sound manipulation.
How did you record your first record [Shock-No-Par]?
I tracked that all on the VS-880. It has 64 virtual tracks, although you can only play back eight at a time. I used it as a storage — a tracking device. I would record the drums in Tassy's parents' garage, or in various other places, and then go home and add tracks. I would store up about 16 to 24 tracks, and then we took it into the studio at Jupiter and at that time we synced it to a 24-track 2" machine. We then peeled the tracks off onto the 2" and mixed down analog. It was similar to the second album, but done a bit different. With the VS-880 you don't have as much editing capability as you do on a computer.
Would you choose to do it that way again?
I think for the next recording we may go into a studio and do it live because there's more acoustical elements to the new material. I'm really longing for really deep analog sounds. It'll probably be partly done in a studio — definitely the drums in the studio and a lot of the bass — and then I'll have all the tracks dumped onto Pro Tools and take it home. And then embellish in Pro Tools — or, actually, I've been using Logic so I'll probably use that. I might do some mix-downs in the studio, but I'm really looking for more fidelity in the recordings. The next record is more conducive to that style of recording — it's more warm, the songs are warmer.
Do you use recording in your writing process, as a tool for writing, or taping practices?
Actually, I have been doing it that way for a while now. I've come full circle. In other bands, and when Octant first started, it was more of an art project. I had these kinetic sculptures that I was sequencing on a Mac Classic. I would make patterns with a grid sequencer, a step sequencer. It was pretty random. I would place drum notes on the computer and then use samples. Different samples would go with different drums. I would have vibraphone sounds or bell samples going with the drums. Then I'd mix up the patterns and vary them as the piece went. It was one piece, basically, called "Remodeled Percussion."
Was that the robotic drums?
It was that and some other sculptures that went along with it, and other sound mechanisms. That was for an installation performance. And then it evolved into a band after that. But now I'm going back to where I'm sitting down and writing the material instead of writing while I'm recording, how I have done with the past two records. I'm actually sitting down with a piano or a guitar or a drum sequencer and composing, as opposed to creating loops or patterns as I'm recording.
Do you have a background in traditional piano music?
I do. I studied classical piano and classical guitar growing up. My family is very conservative, so when I was in middle school watching MTV and wanting tobearockstarmymomtoldmeIhadtoplay classical guitar. Before that, I took classical piano and sang in choir — very traditional — and bass drum and kettle drum in school band. And then, when I went to school at Evergreen, I took some theory classes to learn counterpoint and how to compose in a classical style, just to get a good, solid background in jazz and classical composition. Then I started to venture toward experimental music and electronic music. I ended up becoming completely engrossed in it. I did all my compositions on a Buchla synthesizer. That's where I started to learn electronics, from wiring LFOs, oscillators and filters and seeing how the whole electronic music system functioned. When I graduated I got one of those 101 project kits from Radio Shack and I started building my own oscillators, LFOs and filters, and then started making my own designs. Then I got a job doing electronics, and from there on it snowballed and I became completely engrossed in it. Also, in school I did a lot of kinetic sculpture, electromechanical stuff, and I made instruments as well, so when I finally had enough electronic knowledge to create electromechanical instruments, which was a pipe dream I had when I graduated, I started Octant. Then I devoted all my attention to it. That's my evolution. Meanwhile I was playing in rock bands, punk bands, Mocket and Satisfact. But those projects are over now.
Someone told me that for a while you were making and selling electronics?
I did that for a while, but I wasn't making enough money to make it worth it. So I decided to devote all my creativity towards instruments for myself, as artwork. Mainly because it turned into a business and I was caught up in bookkeeping and trying to fill orders. I made these light-sensitive tone generators that were pretty makeshift — they were tiny handheld instruments, the chassis was an Altoids can, and it had a 9V battery and a little oscillator. It was actually a pretty thick-sounding oscillator — it had an inductor coil so it was actually pretty hot, pretty loud. Trading Musician sold 30 of them and Catch of the Day sold 20-30, and then I decided to stop doing it. I was hand-soldering and hand-drilling and, with parts and all, I was only making like six dollars an hour. It was great because I was selling art, but it got very difficult. So now I just focus on developing one-of-a-kind pieces, and putting lots of work into the aesthetics of it, the way it looks and the way it sounds. Most pieces I create are for my own performance or recording, and I'm sure down the road I'll have so many pieces I'll have to sell some. I do hire-out projects for people, like Miranda July — little things for people, but they're usually not too happy when they get the bill. [laughs]
They don't realize what custom electronics means in terms of money.
Yeah, it's not a very lucrative field to get into, or I haven't found it to be anyway. I'm still going to make some more Theremins. I have all the parts to do about 30 more, so I'll probably sell those as a limited edition directly off my website. A lot of what I do is I buy a lot of junk and I pick out the parts that I like and I create Frankensteins. Like I'll pull a filter out of a synthesizer and an oscillator out of another thing and piece them together, then throw in an LFO that I built, or a sample and hold circuit that I built. I like to build stuff from scratch, but [with found components] a lot of the work is already done, so for me it's not worth inventing because somebody already did all the math, so the actual invention comes in putting the pieces together. That's how I build my instruments. I have drawers full of different things I've collected and I label each drawer. And I also collect a lot of toy sound circuits that are pretty generic. You can also get chips that make different kinds of sci-fi sounds or whatever, or any kind of sound. They're little synthesizers that have pre-set sounds in them. They all have analog oscillators, so what I do is tap the oscillator and I create CV [control voltage] inputs and then I can modulate the sample rate. I hacked apart a Dr. Sample and created a light interface for it, to modulate the sample rate and the various effects.
Wow. You should write some articles for Tape Op.
Yeah, I've got some stuff I could send you. I'm trying to make a circuit that will be the world's easiest LFO circuit, using LEDs that flash automatically, and controlling the voltage that goes inside of them. It may actually be a random LFO circuit — the modulation would be in the amount of random activity, it wouldn't necessarily be in the pulse rate. I also do a lot of circuit-bending [see more below]. I've also veered more away from electronic tone generation and gone towards electromechanical, acoustic-electric sounds. Like this one thing I'm working on is a switchboard for 24 motors with rare earth magnets that spin underneath strings and bow them without touching them. And then it utilizes electromagnetic pickups. I'm trying to create more melodic instruments. A lot of what I've made is atonal. It's a lot more difficult [to make melodic instruments] and it requires a lot of respect for instruments that have already been developed. You also have to think about different ways of manipulating objects to create sounds that haven't been done yet. But the thing with electromagnetic instruments is that there's still a lot of room for innovation. I mean, there's the Rhodes piano and the electric guitar, but there are so many other ways of harnessing the sound of metal vibrating over an electromagnetic field that haven't really been explored yet. And there are different ways of acting upon the metal — of hitting it or plucking it or bowing it — that haven't really been explored yet either. I'm also interested in creating sound tanks and creating acoustic-electric effects. For example, a spring reverb is a simple one, but I'd like to create something that uses sympathetic strings and maybe utilizes different types of environments, like water. Different spaces for the sound to resonate in. It helps a lot with electronic music because a lot of the problems you have with electronic music is resonance. Acoustic spaces can solve a lot of problems and create harmonics that make it a lot more rich sounding.
What of the instruments that you've built are your favorites? Which ones do you use live?
I'm really happy with the new version of my robotic drum kit. I haven't had the chance to unleash the possibilities of what I can do with it yet 'cause I haven't had a practice space. There are interesting polyrhythms I can do with it that an actual live drummer couldn't or wouldn't do. So I'm really happy with that. I have a new light-modulated sampler too, the Dr. Sample with some other samplers built into it as well. There's a bunch of lo-fi sample rate, 4-bit samplers in it as well that have analog clocks. So, with light, I modulate the voltage of the clock and modulate the [sample playback] rate. You can get some really interesting sounds with that, you can manipulate it with your hands. It's like a turntable almost, but even more malleable because you can move it really fast. And the way it's set up is very ergonomic. I build all my light modulators in spheres and your hand fits perfectly over it and the light drapes across it evenly, so it tends to be really fun to play and a lot of interesting sounds come about. And then I have a bunch of little toys, more novelty instruments. One instrument I built out of a Tommy organ keyboard, I gave it a talkbox-like feature. I put a telephone speaker on the output so you can stick it in your mouth and slobber all over it. You can create a filter with your mouth. It's a fun instrument because it's a toy, and I tapped the pitch resistor to give it a variable pitch control. The neat thing about it is when you vary the pitch control, the keys go all out of wack, and the relationship changes, so that instead of half steps you get quarter steps, or whole- tone scales. Another thing I just did is a tiny synthesizer, which is a Frankenstein creation. It has an interesting sound because the oscillator is from a toy keyboard and what I did is I circuit-bent, meaning I went in and put my thumb on the ground and moved my finger around while I played it until I found warbly sounds, or until the sounds were broken-up.
So it was actually conducting through your hand?
