Cheers from Berlin

[Thomas Helzle]

Hey,

I found this forum a while ago and since I do weird music that doesn't really fit anywhere, I thought I might fit in here ;-)

Somehow I grew out of "normal" music over time.
First jingles killed my love for radio (which I adored as a kid).
Then "beats" under everything killed a lot of "normal" music for me.
Then total boredom with the mainstream drove me even further away.
By accident I found Sigur Ros, a total revelation at the time.
I found more icelandic and other music that I personally find "authentic" and inspiring, Amiina, Tom Adams, Zoe Keating and certain kinds of ambient...

As far as my own work goes, I'm on a life-long search for "my" music.
The closest I can get to describing it ATM is a forest or landscape where all kinds of things/beings/objects/whatever create sounds which in turn may or may not have rhythms, harmonies, structure. I combine sounds I personally find beautiful/interesting into such "environments", often using generative elements as the basis.
And that is what I personally listen to while I work, for hours on end - I guess it would driver others nuts ;-)

I always work in surround since I love to sit "inside" my music.

Here is a typical example:

https://thomashelzle.bandcamp.com/album/digital-nature-2

Works best in surround - the 5.1 multichannel flac comes as bonus item when you "buy" it (pay what you want).

As for tools, I mainly use Bitwig Studio as my DAW, but the new Usine HH 2 finally has the timeline of my dreams so I may use that in tandem with BWS.
Many plugins, some favourites are Molecular, Sandman, everything u-he, Chromaphone, StringStudio, Iris 2, Harmor, Ogun, Alchemy, Jamstix, Diversion, Tantra, Kontakt, Valhalla Vintage Verb, PIZmidi, everything ToneCarver...

And I love my Sony PCM-M10 for field recordings :-)

Thanks for having me!

Cheers,

Tom

[Thomas Helzle]

Hey aoVI,

hehehe - yeah, the legendary "Cats" thread I guess ;-)
I really digged the beta and the people behind the software and ended up working for Bitwig for 8 months last year as a freelancer doing controller scripts, artist support and all kinds of other things.
If anybody should be interested, I have some Bitwig Tutorials on my blog:

http://blog.thomashelzle.de/category/tutorials/

Cheers and thanks for the welcome :-)

Tom

[windspace]

Having followed your Soundcloud some time ago, I'm glad to see you've made your way here! Thank you the informative posts you've already made 😃

[Thomas Helzle]

Having followed your Soundcloud some time ago, I'm glad to see you've made your way here! Thank you the informative posts you've already made 

Hehehe - yeah, it was actually your lead that brought me here :-)
Your recently posted contribution to the AO Compilation brought me to the Bandcamp page, I liked what I heard and saw and thought I should finally join here...

I enjoyed KVR for a long time but during the intense months where I moderated the forum for Bitwig I grew a bit tired of its often rather unfriendly and sometimes plain silly aspects.
And I'm no longer that much into gearlust, I pretty much have my arsenal in place, although I keep my fingers crossed that Loomers !Epoch will become what I hope it will. :-)

It's funny - during the time working for Bitwig I hardly made any music, but afterwards something had cleared up inside of me and I knew what kind of music I want to make (which eluded me for several decades...). It was a really life-changing experience for me.

So now I'm looking for like-minded people and good vibes - both which seem to be found here aplenty :-)
I enjoy reading the experiences and thoughts of others here and already learned quite a lot.

Cheers,

Tom

[Thomas Helzle]

Yeah, I hope you didn't think me disrespectful of Bitwig and the hard work that went into it. I never trolled or got into the flaming that went on, just a couple of pics back before it was released, and like I said, never posted pics in the serious threads. All in fun. It seems to be doing pretty well.

No worries, that wasn't pointed at you at all - I posted cat pics myself and found them often rather brilliant - I mean, Bitwig WAS a long time in the coming... ;-)
I'm not married to Bitwig, as much as I love it myself, there are quite some things I hope to see improved in future updates.

It's more a general observation that KVR is quite a melting pot and more often than not it's about everything BUT creating music... ;-)

Cheers,

Tom

[windspace]

Having followed your Soundcloud some time ago, I'm glad to see you've made your way here! Thank you the informative posts you've already made 

Hehehe - yeah, it was actually your lead that brought me here :-)
Your recently posted contribution to the AO Compilation brought me to the Bandcamp page, I liked what I heard and saw and thought I should finally join here...

I enjoyed KVR for a long time but during the intense months where I moderated the forum for Bitwig I grew a bit tired of its often rather unfriendly and sometimes plain silly aspects.
And I'm no longer that much into gearlust, I pretty much have my arsenal in place, although I keep my fingers crossed that Loomers !Epoch will become what I hope it will. :-)

It's funny - during the time working for Bitwig I hardly made any music, but afterwards something had cleared up inside of me and I knew what kind of music I want to make (which eluded me for several decades...). It was a really life-changing experience for me.

So now I'm looking for like-minded people and good vibes - both which seem to be found here aplenty :-)
I enjoy reading the experiences and thoughts of others here and already learned quite a lot.

Cheers,

Tom

Well, I'm glad my post helped you find this forum. It has been a friendly and supportive community...I never posted a lot at KVR, but feel quite comfortable here as the folks here have been unremittingly helpful and fun :thumbsup: