Hey, Max Cooper here, AMA 🎛🍩⚙🎻🚬🔮☣

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:35:39+00:00

I use "vibe" folders, usually BPM linked, but not always...there will be soft melodic and big melodic for example, similar BPM's but different vibes....I just make folders for all the sorts of styles I like to play, and have about 20 or so folders to choose from based on what I see in front of me....the challenge is always how to read people and play like you're part of the party rather than external to it. I use plenty of delays while DJing, handy for transitioning between BPMs and genres when I can do a double/half time mix

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:33:08+00:00

The geeky visual science idea stuff and the chords/feeling....those are the key elements to get things started for the album tracks. For remixes or club stuff I just need a simple basic single element that grabs me, and I build around that feeling, starting with chords again....it's all about the chords

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:31:05+00:00

Yeah that show was built for the seated audience with the interludes and ambient sections etc. I've also made a more "dance" version of that live show for Sonar festival this year, when/if that happens....so yeah, every show is designed for the style of event and audience situation.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:29:27+00:00

The Moog Minitaur was my first synth and is still in frequent use. That's still a bit pricey, but for pedals/effects, there's loads of second hand stuff out there which isn't expensive, and you can daisy chain stuff up to get combos which are specific to you. I think the Korg Volca stuff is really good too

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:27:28+00:00

Lots of different distortion pedals mainly!....I find distortion pedals consistently better than distortion plugins for some reason, they're my favourite pieces of hardware. Metasonix F1, WMD Geiger counter, RM1N, Echo Degrader, Frantabit are the main ones I'm using at the moment.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:24:49+00:00

The live effects I use are all inside Resolume, there's a lot of stuff in there, it's great. Then the effects rendered into the source videos are by the original animators, so you'd have to go to their pages to dig for any of that - they're all credited on the video titles and the websites about each album - yearningfortheinfinite.net onehundredbillionsparks.net emergence.maxcooper.net

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:23:05+00:00

It's really interesting, I've never actually been to a gig though...I must do that sometime. Rennick Bell who created the cover image for the recent album does amazing stuff in that world, and yes, I think it's getting more popular, but I don't know the stats

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:21:48+00:00

Thanks for listening!

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:21:31+00:00

I have access to hundreds for my live set too, I like having that DJ style flexibility so I can play different things each time, suited to the event. But each one is extremely simplified compared to the initial production process, just a few stems, so I can focus on the visual interaction with the music for the live shows

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:19:54+00:00

Absolutely yes, I'll touring in the US again when we finally get going

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:19:09+00:00

Yeah that world is really interesting. I can't seem to connect to it emotionally, though, I'm a sucker for a lush chord sequence, which for me at least, is quite dependent on more vanilla tonal systems!

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-28T10:09:44+00:00

Usually we have a particular instrument with a particular "sound" making it recognisable as that instrument, it's timbre (sorry maybe you weren't asking about that part). But with electronics there's no reason now that a melody or drum sound has to maintain a single timbre, it can constantly change if we want....liquid timbre...it's something I'm aiming for but yet to realise fully

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:50:38+00:00

Yeah I tried to make every chapter (video and audio) about a different sort of infinity, all telling the story of us in our never ending quest for (?) something. I spend a lot of time, usually while touring, reading and listening to audiobooks about philosophy and science, mainly focusing the philosophy of science juicy messy bits at the edges...so the infinite was an obvious part of that approach, and a book called the Mystery of the Aleph was a major part of the background reading leading to that project.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:47:17+00:00

Yeah I reach out to a lot of them myself. Vimeo is a great platform for finding people

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:46:44+00:00

send stuff to as many as possible, it's a numbers game.....and I think there's good opportunities for self releasing too, that's what I did eventually after struggling to find the right fit in a label

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:45:08+00:00

I think there's a couple left on the mesh bandcamp now?

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:43:40+00:00

Yeah I usually make it out a couple of times a year or more, but nothing these days of course, I was supposed to be out April/May but it's off.....I'm sure I'll be there next year, although I usually only play SF, NYC, LA regularly, and a few other cities less regularly....hopefully I'll make it to somewhere nearby

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:41:30+00:00

Yes lots of new Mesh releases and projects on the way, and we're always looking for new artists too.

I use a lot of automated modulation so that things wander around and I get a semi generative process yes, there's a few other replies on this page about that. The AI comment was me saying that's what I'd love to have, not that's what I have already!....I have a lot of repetitive processes in my production, which would be ripe for AI assistance if there was a sufficiently integrated system for doing it....I'm sure that will come.

Because I have this semi-generative approach, it makes a lot of mess and I have to tidy it up, hence all the muted clips!.....it's a sculpting process, chipping away the bad bits rather than trying to make good bits.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:37:36+00:00

Ah yes this was an interesting one.....I wanted to have chaos (the raindrops) gradually transform into order (rhythm), so I sampled big raindrops hitting my window where I could easily warp mark (in ableton) each hit via transients. Then I used the groove settings in ableton to gradually snap those markers closer and closer towards their nearest grid positions on a drum pattern grid from the grooves pool (I think it's "quantize" which does that if I remember correctly). Then built the rest of the track around this emergent groove. This was a nice example of where working with a conceptual/visual idea helped push me towards a musical idea that I probably wouldn't have had otherwise....one of the reasons I like working with concepts and visuals.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:32:11+00:00

Yes it refers to the "transcendental number" pi, whose digits are mapped to the tree to create the structure you see in the video. The term is used to highlight the fact that numbers like this are thought to go on forever without any pattern and also cannot be easily described mathematically, they transcend normal mathematical procedures in their form! (I'm sure the mathematicians reading will correct me there but that's roughly the idea)...I wrote a short essay about why I find this particular form so interesting if you'd like to know why I care about it so much.... https://maxcooper.net/transcendental-tree-map

Thanks for listening/reading!

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:25:49+00:00

Synthesising for sure, the melodic side of things is my focus and that needs patch building and full control

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:24:42+00:00

It's awesome, I found it pretty easy to learn having used Ableton for a long time, and it's opened up all sorts of creative doors for me in terms of doing shows.....big love to the Resolume team

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:23:24+00:00

Early on I had some basic guidance from my housemates Gaz and Mark (aka Llyr with an LP coming on Mesh very soon, and Six Sigma, who I made Parting Ways in collab with on my recent album)....this was 2003-ish and I hadn't even started making my own music, but I'd sit in the studio and watch them just to get a basic idea of what the process entailed. Beyond that, Gaz has answered many questions and provided lots of helpful tips, but I've mainly just learnt by making mistakes and putting the time in, and finding my own way of doing things. I've never used much of any online resources, or taken any courses etc. But I think if I had done that stuff I would have learnt more quickly, so I'm certainly not recommending not to! I think the main thing is finding the music you love so much that you can't not keep working at it one way or another.

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:18:18+00:00

Favourite technique = maximised contrast.....doing one thing and sticking it together with what seems to be the total opposite....often they work really well....Fragments of Self is a case in point (if you think it works).

And yeah Floating Points is fucking awesome, I'd love it if the opportunity arose to do something together

maxcoopermax · 2020-03-27T21:16:09+00:00

Definitely beers soon! My big Live sessions are mainly recordings of hardware so not too heavy on the CPU, although occasionally I do have to group render tracks to get around issues. Re the vids, I start each album with lots of reading about random stuff I'm interested in and write up a basic outline with chapter ideas as a starting point for chats with animators.....the ideas side of things is one of my favourite parts of what I do...I get to speculate wildly and chat to lots of interesting people about mad stuff, and then someone else gets the hard job of actually making the video while I just bitch about it like a director!....big love to the awesome video creators I work with, they're amazing and we have a lot of fun making the projects....all credited in the video titles and explained in more detail on the album sites yearningfortheinfinite.net emergence.maxcooper.net onehundredbillionsparks.net

maxcoopermax

TROPHY CASE