I am not a Producer — I am not a producer

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I AM NOT A PRODUCER

(image: Sina Schulz)

I AM NOT A PRODUCER
Introduction

Or am I? Electronic music dominates my life for years, and I don’t spend a single day not engaging in it. My day happens between records, headphones, computer screens and synthesizers. Many weekends guided by the pulse of a kickdrum. Clouded memories. It can be toxic, but the energy of the club – particularly one, casts a spell over me every time. I don’t spend a single day without my machines, turning knobs or plugging in cables. Analyzing, thinking about them.

Producers are productive. I am not. In fact, avoiding productivity is what got me into this. For me electronic music represents subculture, freedom of expression, and experimentation. All of which are values that somehow contradict productivity. Productivity means using your time effectively and producing results. When I’m making music, I try to lift time instead of using it.

A machinist is someone who operates machines. So do I as an electronic musician. We tend to think of machines as tools to execute external will but operating them requires adaptation to their respective logic, their rules and limitations. It is as reactive as it is planned: A permanent exchange of feedback between the operator and the machine that can result in productive dialogue, or chaos.

“Machinist EP” is the result of a deep dive into the world of modular synthesis. The five tracks have been produced between November 2024 and May 2025. They display different stages of research into these kinds of instruments and methods to operate them. This blog is a reflection on this time. It takes the tracks of the EP as motives but on a free, associating base.

Picture: Photo of an old machine taken in a Berlin Underground tour.

Tobias 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