-mI AM NOT A PRODUCER


(image: Sina Schulz)



FOUND MYSELF - LIVE CUT
The EP My first tool to make electronic music was a drum machine, not a computer. Then a better one and then my first synth, a Korg Monologue. From the moment I pressed a key and turned the filter knob, I knew that this was my thing. It was for recording purposes only that I started learning Ableton Live. Despite some successes, I never really warmed up to the digital workflow. The grid kills my intuition for when a new sound should be introduced, the visual representation my feel for rhythm. There are countless options, countless too many. On the other hand, an electronic device is always limited. It forces you to learn its logic, but when you master it, you can make it your own. It becomes an instrument. But unlike acoustic instruments, electronic ones can play themselves, remember your choices, can travel through octaves. They help you composing, because they give you something back, hold a thought for you, or even suggest one.

To play live sets was my idea from early on, and most of my tracks were just that. But there was also a big uncertainty coming with that. I froze quickly in front of others. Partly because I lacked confidence in my taste, but also because I couldn’t articulate my ideas the way I wanted. It was jams and a show with rosie cpt that taught me to follow the vibe but respect your previous choices. More than that, she taught me to enjoy what I am doing and not be ashamed or afraid that people won’t like it.

Benjamin Flesser planted the idea to ask what the machine wants from me. I always tried to avoid harsh reactions when I changed filters, tuned oscillators, or when I used resonance and drive. Now I went to look for them, since they were part of the machine’s sound palette. Modulations, that would rip up the sequence, its harmony or rhythm were way more interesting than the sequence itself. What happens when an LFO provides the clock, but you feed it back to itself? How does the time structure change due to the amount of feedback? Would it turn into something rhythmically interesting, when I crank up the filter resonance, close the filter and give it a snappy envelope? I understood to use those reactions as possibilities to extend my idea, to tell another story above or behind it. Giving control to the machine is beautiful but fingers are modulators as well.
 Media:

1) “Found Myself” is an 11 min cut from my Live Set “Flows” at Block1. You can see the whole show here:



2) rosie cpt and I as Pattern Game at PULSE Winter 22
©2025Tobias Hausen


(image: Sina Schulz)
 “Not as with the instrument, which the worker animates and makes into his organ with his skill and strength, and whose handling therefore depends on his virtuosity. Rather, it is the machine which possesses skill and
strength in place of the worker, is itself the virtuoso, with a soul of its own in the mechanical laws acting through it [...]”

Karl Marx - The Fragment on Machines