Machinefabriek Q&A Pt 2, last day of half-price, fwf news, and Bandcamp Friday!

quiet details
Mar 6
5 min read

Hey friends - hope all good :)

Big thanks again for the support for qd46, so good to see so many people enjoying such wonderfully experimental music - Rutger’s a true artist and deserves all the plaudits for this special album.

Last day of half-price digital today, and also CDs still available for now.

As you all probably know too, today’s Bandcamp Friday - they generously waive their fee so more goes to the artists. So if there’s anything you’ve been interested in from quiet details, fields we found, or any other artist/label - today’s a good day to pick it up!

Also out earlier this week was my latest edition to the fields we found landscape series - long-form pieces, originally made for my meditation, now a part of it.

The will alway be free or pay what you can - hope they can be as cathartic for you as they are for me.

Hugh thanks to everyone that’s supported it so far, and to the new subscribers - deeply appreciate the trust in my music x

Now time for the second part of our Q&A with Rutger - massive thanks to him - enjoy!

Please can you give us an overview of your studio and favourite instruments?

To be honest, I can’t really call it a studio. It’s basically two corners of our big living room. One with a ‘hardware desk’, the other one the ‘software desk’. There’s not even soundproofing. No idea why I never got to turn it into a proper sort-of-professional studio… But I simply got totally used to it, and it works for me.

So, in one corner there’s a desk where I keep my live setup, and where I record ‘hardware jams’. The main machine there is a mixing desk, with an old tone generator, a contact mic, and a bunch of effect pedals connected. There’s cassette players, radios, and other hand held electronics that I might use too. My most recently purchased instrument is a ‘Chromaplane’, developed by the duo Passe Partout: https://passepartoutduo.com/chromaplane

It’s part of my ongoing quest to find electronics that I find useful as live gig tools. Still not sure if this is a winner for me, but some of its sounds are on Lijnverkenning at least.

My most treasured instruments/effects aren’t fancy synths or pricey state-of-the-art sound modules… they’re cheap and simple, but have by far proven their worth to me over the years…

My tone generator. Or should I call it an oscillator? I’m never sure. Anyway, I think it’s from the seventies, and I’d say it’s my main instrument. The clean sine tones it produces sounds great as they are, but are also the perfect input for effects pedals. I have multiple of these machines… some had to be replaced after blowing a fuse… But the tone generator is the instrument that replaced the guitar back in the days, and for two decades already it’s my main sound source at gigs.

A tea box with build-in contact mic. Simply super handy at live gigs. I can rub it with a steel sponge, tap it with my fingers, put a little radio on top of it, or use it to amplify the sound of tuning forks. All highly effective.

Fairfield Circuitry ‘Shallow Water’ pedal. This one is in my effects chain for a long time now. It’s perfect for adding a bit more lo-fi instability to the audio. It basically makes the output sound like it comes from an old cassette. So no wonder that I love it.

Sony TCM 200DV memo recorder. I have a few of these, and I love em. I use that as samplers, with loop tapes in them. When playing back, I can alter the pitch for a small speed-adjusting wheel. This really turns these machines into nice little instruments.

In another part of the house is another desk. This one has my working computer on it, and it’s where I construct my music, using Logic Pro.

This might come across as the less enigmatic side of my music making, but I actually think that the real magic happens when combining different sound layers, so I adore toying around with audio files on my computer.

Please can you gives a quick breakdown of how you made each track?

I won’t make a breakdown per track, since they kind of came to being in ‘one movement’ (except for Stemcassette, which I wrote about in the previous post). With ‘the quiet details idea’ in mind I started improvising with my live setup. Really taking it slow and keeping things minimal. I guess I was trying to create intimate spaces with sound, and to let my equipment do the ‘talking’ and not interfering too much. The resulting recordings were edited on the computer to the tracks you hear on the album, layering various bits on top of each other, and at times adding subtle field recordings for added ‘closeness’. You can actually hear my son in one of the tracks, if you listen carefully.

Another track, Lijnverkenning 3, has the sound of Barbara Eva Ardenois’ accordion in it. I was working on some graphic design for her, and couldn’t resist asking her to record some drones for me, simply recording ‘em with her phone. So these are in there too.

The two ‘Cirkel’ tracks are short fragments of repeated loops that I found ‘effective’, and also work as nice breaks between the more ephemeral ‘Lijnverkenning’ tracks.

Another thing that I did on a few tracks: I played back the recordings through a small speaker, with some dry pearl couscous on the cone. The couscous starts to ‘party’ when the speaker vibrates, and that sound is mixed into the original tracks, to add some more physicality to the tracks.

Now shout-outs - loads today, thanks to everyone!

qd46 Machinefabriek

Thanks to Peter at ambientblog for the lovely review here

Thanks to Richard Heinemann for the play on E-Lodie here

Thanks to Kevin Press for the play on The Moderns here

Thanks to Francis Beaubois for the play on Electronic Therapy here

Thanks to DJ SpaceTerrapin for the play here

qd45 Deadbeat

Thanks to Chuck van Zyl for including the album in the best of Feb here

Thanks to Sam Valenti IV for including the album in a post of recent releases he picked up (big love to Ghostly - check them out today!)

Thanks to a closer listen for including the album here

Thanks to Harry over at Whitelabrecs for the inclusion here - check them out too!