# VCV - Loop of creativity [[VCV Rack]] ### Structure 1. Daily practice, and what is a session? 2. Session and building blocks 3. The feedback loop 4. Framing a session 5. Daily practice and creativity 6. Daily practice and finished works ### Daily practice and its structure I make music every day, and it was not something that came naturally. I will explain my approach in this text, hoping that you gain something from it. The stepping stone was establishing a daily routine. I wake up at around 6-6:30 am; I feed the animals, get some coffee, eat breakfast. I do the same on the weekend because I found sleeping in more stressful; I would be bored yet uninspired and frustrated. At around 7:00 am, I sit down, and I make music for two hours before switching to remote work at 9:00 am. The time from when I sit down at my synthesizer or DAW to the time I get up a “physical session”. Getting up from my chair means that I will take at least a few minutes of break before sitting down again. It can also mean that I am done for the day. The time spent working on a single musical idea, without interruption, is a “musical session”. The limited-time during the work-week is beneficial: I split my time into “musical sessions”, usually 20 to 45 minutes. A “musical session” is working on a single musical idea without interruption. What constitutes a single musical idea can vary. It could be creating loops on a groove box, mixing down an existing track, or doing some sound design — I will come back to the structure of sessions. This daily routine has been solidified by the 9 to 5 job I’ve held over the last ten years. Before that, as a freelancer, I would schedule check-ins or meetings early to keep me accountable. I now consider it as a skeleton onto which I can graft my pursuits. I leave two hours in the morning, ninety minutes at lunch, and two hours in the evening as blanks. This daily routine doesn’t mean I’m a hyper-productive straight-edge person. I will often fill the evening blocks with TV; sometimes, the early block will be just reading random articles on the internet and arguing with people on discord. The structure helps me plan what I want to do without worrying about time management. Through repetition, the routine has become almost automatic. I find that after thirty days, it becomes harder to not do the activity I have been doing in the morning than doing it. To avoid getting distracted during the session itself, I will turn on twitch and stream my desktop. Usually, nobody watches; just knowing someone might drop in and see me browsing twitter is enough to keep me focused. Over time, more people have subscribed; I am unsure how to feel about that. The innocence of just doing whatever I feel like doing is getting lost. I am not ready to give up just yet however; I feel there is a hidden lesson trying to be being candid in my work while people are watching. # Musical sessions and building blocks A “musical session” is working on a single musical idea without interruption. Musical idea is whatever makes sense to you. For me, it’s usually one of the following: * making loops in a groove box or on the PC * creating presets in a synthesizer or groove box * making a patch in VCV rack or reaktor rack * recording a drone or ambient layer * creating sampled loops by recording a synthesizer * sorting my samples in different collections, extracting one shots, setting start and end points * recording or arranging a sketch (a musical idea with a beginning, start and end) * arranging a loop or sketch into a full track * doing a mix-down pass on an existing track * doing a hardware jam * sorting tracks for DJing into playlists * browsing through tracks on bandcamp and in my library * recording a DJ set I think of a session as a very limited process that takes musical inputs (I call them building blocks), and produces new building blocks. Building blocks can be: * patching diagrams, actual patches (software or physical) * audio clips (loops, one shots, full stems) * synthesizer presets (VST presets, or VCV patches or strips, DAW groups) * melodies and grooves * groovebox patterns * track sketches and arrangements * DAW effect routings * mixdowns * DJ sets * livejams The scope of a musical session is very narrow; both in time, and in terms of musical process. This lowers my resistance to getting started. I don’t need to feel inspired to chop samples; and I can grind my way through laying out a sketch — for example by using arrangement cliches, or copying the arrangement of another artist. I also try to focus on quantity of outputs, not attaching much of my ego to their quality. It is hard to judge the quality of a building block on its own, especially just after creating it. A building block shines in context, and an ugly sample could become exactly the thing needed to polish up the texture of a track. The scope of a musical session is very narrow; both in time, and in terms of musical process. This lowers my resistance to getting started. I don’t need to feel inspired to chop samples; and I can grind my way through laying out a sketch — for example by using arrangement cliches, or copying the arrangement of another artist. I also try to focus on quantity of outputs, not attaching much of my ego to their quality. It is hard to judge the quality of a building block on its own, especially just after creating it. A building block shines in context, and an ugly sample could become exactly the thing needed to polish up the texture of a track. When starting a session from scratch (for example when creating new synthesizer presets), I focus on a technical aspect, because I have nothing to kick start the process. I will create rules like “make 10 patches that use the LFO in the audible frequency range”. When my session uses existing inputs (for example, when laying out loops to make a sketch), I rely on the quantity of building blocks I have created. I will put elements together until something interesting comes out. The more loops and sounds I have to chose from, the better. If really nothing fits, I will reach for sample libraries; maybe I’ll find something useful there — I can always remove them in the future. Musical sessions create a feedback loop. Each session uses inputs to create new outputs. This is why having a good workflow is important. The easier it is to load inputs and save outputs, the more you can focus on actual music. The feedback loop means that each session, however small in itself, will contribute to adding depth to your output as an artist. It means that a finished product can often rely on years of work; each preset and each clip and each loop has been built out of older concepts, older loops, older sounds. All this can be heard in the final product, by the richness of its sounds, the audacity and depth of its ideas, the confidence of its arrangement. It also means that final output does not rely on inspiration at each step. The final work is a result of the process more than of a single session; its artistic value is more than the sum of its parts. ### Feedback loop There is a feedback loop when working on music. A musical session doesn’t start from nothing (although it is worth trying to start from nothing from time to time). It might start with existing instruments, with existing ideas, with existing sounds. It might arranging a sketch, laying out loops to create a sketch, create new presets based on a starting preset. Each session also has a musical output. It can be a concrete output, such as new loops, new presets, new tracks. It can be a mental output (both conscious and subconscious), new ideas and concepts and inspirations coming together. And it can be an emotional output, creating and channeling joy / anger / fear. All these outputs are ready for the next session. ### Music sessions and building blocks I think of the time I spend making music as sessions. A “musical session” is around 20 minutes to an hour long; I will often fit multiple musical sessions inside a single physical session - a physical session being defined as the time from when I sit down to make music to when I stand up to go do something else. A “musical session” is working on a single musical idea without interruption. What a single musical idea means is left to the interpretation of the musician. To me, it is usually creating a loop on a groovebox, or creating a patch in VCV, or mixing down a single track - maybe even recording a full Dj set. A session starts with building blocks. A building block can either be a musical idea, a synthesizer, an existing patch, a preset, a melody. You take multiple building blocks, modify them, assemble them. This can be physical patching, connecting different synthesizers together, routing MIDI notes, routing audio, setting up effects. It can be virtual patching (like in VCV), selecting software modules, connecting them, setting up clocks, mapping a MIDI controller. It can be selecting and layering sounds, loading presets in a VST, looping audio clips, dragging in stems from a previous session, overdubbing with some live playing, arranging them on a timeline. Most certainly, you will start modifying the building blocks you chose as you start building up your session. You might build new blocks from scratch. Each musical session has a set of outputs. I think of outputs differently than goals. A session to me has no goal, but it has outputs. These outputs are new building blocks that I can then use in future sessions. Your intention, but also your workflow will influence what kind of output you get out of your session. Outputs can be: * patching diagrams, actual patches (software or physical) * Audio clips (loops, one shots, full stems) * Synthesizer presets (VST presets, or VCV patches or strips, DAW groups) * Melodies and grooves * Groovebox patterns * Track sketches and arrangements * DAW effect routings * Mixdowns * Finished mixdowns The easier it is to create and save these outputs, the easier it is to recall them, the richer your musical palette becomes. Of course, some building blocks are not tangible. A session will shape your voice as an artist, it will make you discover musical ideas and concepts that will stay with you beyond tangible building blocks. There is a psychological effect to focus on creating new building blocks, instead of focusing on complete pieces of art. It makes every minute spent working on music valuable - creating and storing presets is valuable, creating full stems is valuable, jamming with hardware and setting up mixer routings is valuable. There is one caveat, the outputs have to be saved, and organized so that they can be quickly recalled. For me, thinking of my time making music as a process that transforms building blocks into new building blocks removes a lot of the fear of making art. It is easy to sit down for a session - I can make something musically useful through sheer grind. For example, I can sort loops I made in a previous session. I can extract and polish one-shot samples and organize them in racks. It might not be very creative, but it is making music, because one day, you will drop one of these one-shot samples along side other building blocks, and it will find its creative purpose. ### Musical depth is not related to inspiration The musical depth of a piece, its value to the listener, how interesting its message is, is very often unrelated to the inspiration felt while making it. In fact, many of my better building blocks were born out of being uninspired, or plain frustration. I would sit down, and start with a novel concept. The first sessions exploring that concept feel tentative, insecure, meandering. There is no frame yet to guide musical intent, the room holding the possibilities of that idea is still dark. But often, the loops and presets created in those first few attempts are the most impactful; they are just not placed in the right context yet - there are no supporting elements to highlight what makes them so impactful. When refining the ideas, making them come to light, and then polishing them, what feels like progress in the moment is often just pulling the new ideas back to previously explored concepts. It will take time, a break between sessions, to fully establish the new discoveries.