Audiotool :: Yesteryear Gear Now Here

What is the future of electronic music? Well, that depends on how it’s made, where it’s made and with whom. With whom is an inserting topic… I’ll get to that sometime soon; but for now let’s take a look at an interesting how and where I just found the other day.

Increasingly there has been a push to move software off of the computer and onto what is known as the “cloud.” One such tool is Audiotool (created by Hobnox, an online entertainment and publishing platform based in Germany).

Audiotool is an online studio filled with just two classic Roland drum machines, an array of guitar sound processing stomp-boxes, a TB-303, a Yamaha Tenori-On like sequencer, a set of signal mixers with the ability to add as many of each component as you need. Drag and drop the units all about a large blank canvass and connect them together with good old 1/4” cables. To capture your mad beats, there’s a cassette tape recorder that gives you 5 minute runs of “tape.” Save and send.

In order to craft a distinct sound you have to get creative with the stomp-boxes and as each drum machine has separate outputs for each instrument of the kit, along with added signal splitting tools, you can go “hog wild” in making a unique DIY drum set. Though not an “end all” song writing solution, it does offer a grungy “hands on” sound generating creative solution –one that is based in the world of the early 80’s. So embrace the power of limitations and make us all a beat!

Now here’s where it gets deep!

A couple of questions I’ve been asking recently have further come about by seeing Audiotool’s interface. Do new or young musicians, growing up in a laptop based production world, need real world references in the their music making software to technologies and terminologies to that were once used but are no longer present? Say tape recorders and cassettes, guitar stomp boxes, an audio mixer with all its faders, knobs on an analog synthesizer –or, can new interfaces and ways of generating sound be created?

Why do we try to replicates the physical world online when online can be a completely new frontier that leaves the physical equipment that spawned it way behind?

If an artist has never seen or used a mixer with her hands, why is it in her software? Well, what do you think? Let’s get some answers going in the comments below.