by admin | 16/122025 | Thoughts
Ok, mid-December. Already. I’m a little late with this blog entry, because I had to recover: I just managed to survive the Black Friday madness, barely. But I did, so I got back to writing this blog-thing here. And now almost every shop and software vendor seamless ramps up for Winter, Christmas and multiple other Sales. It’s amazing how some try to outsmart the competition. Starting their sale weeks before the main event, or giving it just one more absolutely last overtime until it’s really over. And it’s not that I don’t like steep discounts. To be honest, I actually held off on some planned online shopping, to see if I could get it for less, in that period. But one or maybe two reminders in my inbox would’ve done the job perfectly. But no, a constant influx of advertising the same sale over and over again. To the point where I hesitated to buy a product I initially had on my shopping list, just because I could not stand seeing that promotional crap anymore. That’s how “black” this Friday has gotten. It’s not all bad though. I’ve gotten my hand on some very good deals of stuff, I otherwise would’ve missed out on. Stuff I already enjoyed using very much. And I’m talking mainly about software here. Virtual instruments and effects, spicing up my workflow in unexpected ways. And it’s interesting to see how each of these offering companies have a different approach to Black Friday.
Only a few resist to give any discounts at all. I can totally understand that. If a good product is priced well, it does not need to get discounted to find customers. At least in theory. How that plays out IRL? I don’t know. But judging from my own experience, there are definitely some very special products out there, that convince me easily to pay full price. They don’t trigger anything in me, but just wanting them. In a very honest way, for some very good reasons. Ultimately in the long run, those are among the tools I like the most. Stepic by Devicemeister for example, my favorite melody step sequencer plugin. I don’t know if it goes on sale at times, but I don’t care. It’s original price is 39 €, which is a more than fair price for what you get. It just recently got updated with substantial new functionality for no extra cost. It’s just one example of a software product in the realm of music production, that really doesn’t need any sale madness to appeal to me. A thoughtful and well-designed product is all it takes to convince me to pay full price sometimes.
And then there’s the whole “market” of free plugin instruments and effects. Offering so much stuff ranging from “ok, it’s there” all the way to “OMG, how is this not one of the more expensive offerings?”. And everything in between, not to mention the odd “pay what you like” or “buy me a coffee” stuff.
It’s really weird, but I kind of gravitated to the paid products for a very long time. They could come from very small and unknown developers. But I felt like I wanted to BUY a product. People put work into code I liked using, so I wanted to pay them. At least a “coffee” should be rewarded.
Well, while I’m at it, subscription models are not my cup of tea. With all the plethora of tools out there, I can’t possibly know how much and for how long I’m going to use a certain product. If I bought it, I can leave it alone and come back to it at any given time. Without having to pay for it in the meantime. To a very much younger me, such subscriptions could’ve been a very tempting offering, though. Get ALL the shiny (virtual) devices at once, for a pretty low monthly fee. That surely has some appeal to it. But then again, once you stop paying, no further usage allowed.
Interestingly, the same shady business model is applied to how most of us (me included) consume music these days. Who is really still buying music as download files or even saved to physical media? I recently did, but it’s a very rare occasion. I just ran across a Kraftwerk live recording and it was only available on CD. But usually I’m not, way to inconvenient. So, as most people do, I use streaming for daily music consumption. But this widely established and mainly used distribution method reflects in the compensation of the artists. In a bad way. What once was seen by some as a more easy entry to a potentially greater audience, turned out to be a lever for the “gatekeepers” over the pricing of the artists output. It only needs very barebone math skills to see how this doesn’t empower broader numbers of musicians to live by their often self-published work.
My brain keeps circling around this topic over and over again. I already very much like the possibilities to produce professional sounding output on a comparably low budget. I’m in the lucky position I always had some spare money to spend on all the beloved equipment and software I use. But when you’re young and just starting out into this world of production and publishing, you have to justify these then upfront costs with a realistically perspective of earning them back and make a decent living out of it. This—as sad as it is—seems to be unfeasible for the broad majority. Even very well established artist’s, with a decades long catalogue of publishing, often struggle to live by it at times. This isn’t how I imagine things to be, so my brain keeps circling. Observing and researching the workings of the music industry, because I’m so curious: will there be a solution to make all this work out in a better way?
Anyway, I wish you—the 1+ readers of these humble lines—a very relaxed X-Mas and a good start into 2026!
Best regards, Dareka
by admin | 02/112025 | Thoughts
November drifts in, carrying with it a sense of…ahem, ok, productivity. Yeah, that’s it. I’m doing so much at the same time right now, but I’m having a blast. Things finally seem to fall in place with a lot of the work I do. Tracks getting finished, this website is getting more polished and I’ve gotten a better understanding of some of the work areas I procrastinated successfully before. Like mixing. It really can be a beast at times. Stuff I thought wouldn’t be much of a problem in my works, turned out to hit me badly. For example, phase cancellation. I don’t really do live recording of instruments and I thought I could just ignore it being a problem in that context. Turns out it really can be a problem with wide spread ambient sounds and sampled noise. Well, does anybody listen to music in mono these days anyway? I guess so, many bluetooth speakers, some older phones and the all new iPhone Air are only capable of mono playback. But just like many other things that make you think WTF—in the first moment when they appear problematic—it’s doable. Thanks to all the people tutoring about everything on YouTube, solutions came up quickly.
By the way: many of those tutorials, explanations and in depth reviews actually helped a lot to achieve the skills I have as of today. And all the helping knowledge is free to have. Well, kind of, you just need to develop a strong capability to ignore the bad advertising habits of YouTube. They really seem to have a refined algorithm to hit the videos with the wrong advertising at the wrong time. But still, I would not want to miss the possibility to get so much useful information on that platform. This especially holds true for reviews and explanations of eurorack modules. There is just no way to get to know the workings of those—as fast and practical—as with the plethora of videos about them out there. Interestingly, this also holds true for the free to use virtual modules of VCV Rack. It has also been very inspiring to me to see how others put those modules to work. From the usual and well known combinations of the standard modules, to the totally weird experimental stuff. And inspiration is so crucial to any creative work. Inventing everything by one self would simply be impossible. Whilst being a graphic designer, I learned that you have to seek inspiration actively. Otherwise you will certainly hit a dead end sooner or later, no matter how skilled or talented you are.
Speaking of graphic design, I just found out about the Affinity apps getting assimilated into the Canva portfolio. Those are graphic designer tools for vector and pixel based graphic works. Similar to some of the Adobe apps. The Affinity Apps have been interesting, because they have been sold as a onetime purchase, whereas the Adobe Apps needed an active subscription. Now the Affinity apps—under the Canva umbrella—are given away for free. No strings attached. Besides the odd AI thing baked right into them. Of course there are rumors saying the AI will be learning from the users input. I’m just so glad I skip this part: having paranoid thoughts of such things, whilst working creatively. I guess AI needs some inspiration too? I just hope the music production sector is more resilient to such developments. At least we have a much broader spectrum of DAW vendors. This really gives me hope, some of them will sustain a more conservative approach to their business model, ditching the temptation to bake AI into the core software.
But back to the inspiration thing. Humans inspiring humans, I mean. This has been the driver for creative expression since forever, in my opinion. Doing similar things differently. Otherwise we’d be all singing the same songs, in the exact same way. Whilst wearing the exact same dress and having all the same haircut. Although there have been efforts to achieve just that, we’re not. Actually, being able to have a consistent flow of creative output is an asset these days. And that’s—by far—not just the case for the jobs considered being “creative”. It holds true for so many people, in so many different work environments. It can also be an enrichment for everyday live in general, to have such creative skills. To develop those—for whatever usage—we need inspiration.
Inspiration itself can be found almost everywhere. It may not jump at you, at times. But it also doesn’t hide, if you go and look for it, when needed. Actively looking for sources of inspiration—no matter how related to my current work—has actually prevented me from ever have gotten writers block. That, and the explorative recombination of known work practices and stylistic elements. In a way it’s the good old “out of the box” thinking, the “know the rules to break them” thing. And it works very well, for humans that is. Will AI be able to duplicate such practices, in a way that it helps it getting creative work done on point of the topic? We’ll see!
Best regards, Dareka
by admin | 27/102025 | Info
Ok, this blog thing here is taking shape now. At least in my mind. And if everything isn’t going too bad IRL, it will also show up here in digital letters, too. It really helps sorting my thoughts. Also it should help to keep in touch with the English language in written. With the first entry, I had my original text translated into English by AI. I also told AI to give it a different tonality. And although this really seems too work quite well, the way it rewrites the text isn’t really me. One on one translations, without changing tonality, doesn’t seem to work too good, I figured. So I decided to just write all this stuff here in the best English I can come up with, all by myself. Any grammatical errors or misuse of words are part of the experience. Like it’s not a bug, it’s a feature 😀
The website itself will also take shape towards its completion in the coming weeks. With what I have ready for the time being, that is. Sections and content are subject to change. It´s all a living process.
For this blog, it will be two main sections. For one, the monthly writing about whatever my mind is figuring is important – in the context of doing sound design, making and publishing of music and the odd off topic thing playing into it. Kind of like an editorial in a print magazine. The other will be a “Spotlight” section, highlighting some of the tools I use – be it software or hardware – that I find to be invaluable in my subjective opinion. No reviews, just showcasing and pointing out some of their features that stood out for me.
That’s it for now. By the way, general information on the blog or the website will be put into this “Information” section. So it’s all neatly organized, to be found when necessary. Like any proper sound designer should do with all things needed for work.
😉
PS: the featured image is AI generated. It’s creation got offered to me within the WordPress dialog. The corresponding prompt is AI generated too, with it’s generation based on the blog entries text. Although it doesn’t show me with with 12 fingers and two noses, this is creepy.
by admin | 07/102025 | Thoughts
October drifts in, carrying with it a sense of unease. The air feels unsettled, as if a phantom adversary lurks everywhere, fueling a constant imperative to fortify ourselves. Every leap forward invites public scrutiny and demands its own announcement. Trying to ignore all this is nearly impossible—and it inevitably siphons off energy that could be devoted to creative pursuits. Politics, however, will not be given a platform here. This blog is a canvas for my reflections, shaped by the processes of creating and transforming sound. It’s a space for exploration, untethered from character limits or targeted audiences. Here, I aim for intentional deceleration: stepping back, reflecting, and yes—thinking.
Choosing to immerse myself fully in sound design and, eventually, music production has opened up a world of discovery and boundless learning. Part of this journey involved mapping out the technical possibilities within the field. I quickly realized there’s an astonishing variety of devices and approaches to sound generation and processing. Synthesizers alone occupy a landscape so vast, it’s as if every conceivable human idea has already been rendered in hardware or software form. From the earliest attempts at crafting electronic sounds to the multifaceted practices of today, the evolution of technology and industry in this realm has been nothing short of extraordinary. I absorbed many chapters of this progression during my formative period of study and experimentation.
The dynamic interplay between old and new concepts continues with unstoppable momentum—a wild dash for ideas and recognition, each iteration faster than the last. For many, it’s not merely a race of innovation but a struggle for economic survival. Staying current grows more complex, demanding mastery of ever-evolving production techniques. Even as emerging tools like specialized software and AI-based utilities intend to make production more prolific and user-friendly, effective application still requires deliberate understanding. Taking part in this chase is demanding, and the effort isn’t always justified by the return.
While I’ve always found it invigorating to track these ongoing developments, the constant buzz does take its toll. Before it overtakes the joy of the craft, I heed the wisdom of others who have navigated similar paths. Again and again, I am reminded that focusing on a select set of core tools—and continually refining proven methods—can be invaluable in carving out a personal style. What were once technological limits are now, intentionally, embraced as creative boundaries by many musicians and producers. Consciously narrowing the scope amid endless possibilities is my strategy. The result should embody the “less is more” philosophy too.
One major tool in my practice is the modular synthesizer—complex by design, since its foundation rests on perpetual recombination. The possibilities have multiplied exponentially in recent years, offering time-honored systems in fresh configurations and introducing innovative modules that beg for evaluation. This ceaseless expansion is undeniably fascinating, but maintaining a disciplined focus—even here—is crucial, so creative energy remains central to my sound design.
Ultimately, striking a balance between appreciating the multitude of options and deliberately curating the tools I use is both my destination and my journey. I guess the old adage holds true: “the journey is the destination.” In that sense for me, the result is just a byproduct—something that might be streamed or downloaded and, hopefully, enjoyed by listeners.
Best regards, Dareka
“The day you stop racing, is the day you win the race.”
Bob Marley
by admin | 14/072025 | Uncategorized
A new post with text to test a thing or two.
