Should producers and beatmakers be calling more upon sounds heard in everyday life when making music? TOKiMONSTA does, and it’s a key part of her artistic process.
In a new episode of MusicTech’s My Forever Studio podcast – in which we sit down with producers and have them select gear for their fantasy Forever Studio – the veteran DJ and producer dives into her approach to using field recorders to source sounds for her beats.
Asked about her process using real-world samples, she explains: “If I go out and I use my field recorder to [record a] twig snapping, you know, maybe a car door shutting, stepping on rocks or sand, whatever, all those sounds are [a] nice texture, so it’s using those to layer. Then you have an unlimited amount of samples in that way.”
She adds that another benefit to capturing her own samples for beats is that they are completely unique.
“I’ll always know that those are my sounds,” she says. “And so if I have stock kicks and I like the body of it, but maybe it’s not fuzzy enough or it doesn’t have the tack I want, there’s always a way to manipulate real life. Something from real life that’s recorded to give it that umph.
“And if I have a good field recorder, it’s. It’s unlimited. I can keep making sounds and manipulating sounds, I guess, with my stock Ableton plugins.”
She recalls: “I made a bass line that I recorded playing something that wasn’t real. Like I had tapped on this really interesting surface, and then I pitched that sound into a bass line. It required a lot of work, but those are just the little, little things. And people might not notice. It may not matter to anyone else, but for me, it’s fun in the process of creating stuff like that.”
Speaking more broadly on the importance of enjoying the creative process, TOKiMONSTA concludes: “The more fun the musician has, or the more satiating it is for the musician to create, the better the music is. That’s sort of where I’ve landed on my journey.”
The My Forever Studio podcast – created in partnership with Audient – sees artists, producers, and engineers create their dream fantasy Forever Studio. However, hosts Chris Barker and Will Betts impose some strict rules. Our guests are permitted a limited number of items in their creative space, so they must choose carefully. There will be nostalgia. There will be anecdotes. There may be gags. But there will be no bundles!
You can subscribe to My Forever Studio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and check out all episodes so far via MusicTech.
