Jamuary 2022 — Thoughts and Takeaways

First off here’s today’s jam: #Jamuary day 27. My take on Crockett’s Theme (partial). Basimilus Iteritas Alter (BIA) is playing the lead.

And here’s my Jamuary playlist.

I only started with hardware modular 8 months ago, and unfortunately a personal incident about 6 months ago prevented me from really exploring my hardware for the rest of 2021. I was determined to participate in Jamuary and create something every day of the month. I’m on track and have only 4 more days until I complete my goal.

To get myself motivated and create the least friction on producing videos I imposed some soft rules on myself.

1. Assemble a modular system that would not change for the entire month.

This helps with not having to worry about spending time changing out modules, and I would be able to explore the modules more deeply in the current system. Thankfully the Intellijel 7U 104HP Performance Case came in stock in December and I was able to pick one up. Here’s my ModularGrid of my Jamuary system.

2. Start every jam with a blank slate.

This helps me going into each jam by not having any preconceived patches. Even something simple as distributing the clock from the Black Sequencer to the mult and out to Pam’s, Steppy, and Voltage Block may happen a lot, but not every time. The beauty of modular is that you can patch it however you’d like and having pre-patched routings can sometimes defeat that feature. While it can become tedious patching some things every day because that’s the way it makes sense, not having a pre-patched system opens up the possibility for more creativity.

3. Create a jam every day.

This is just a good practice. The more you explore the better you’ll get at creating and knowing your instrument. This is the same mentality I had when I used to practice my instrument (clarinet) back in High School and College.

4. Keep it simple.

Don’t try to create a full song. This is just an exploration of ideas and techniques.

5. Use as simple of an audio/video recording workflow as possible.

Recording audio isn’t too much of a hassle, but adding video can become demotivating. Because of this I wanted to create a workflow that had the lowest amount of friction as possible. Because of my situation I can’t leave my modular system and video recording system set up on my desk. So each day I clear off my desk to make room for my case and tripod and set out all of my patch cables before I begin. I decided to record video with my phone as it’s “good enough” for my purposes. The audio is getting routed into my audio interface and recorded in Ableton. I export the audio from Ableton as a .wav file and download my video from Google Photos, drop them into DaVinci Resolve, sync them, perform some minor editing, then render the video. Once I’m done recording producing the finished video takes less than 30 minutes.

6. Upload to YouTube in a consistent format.

I’ve kept all of my Jamuary videos pretty much in the same format (title, hashtag, playlist, end screen) so I don’t really have to spend much time uploading them to my channel. This part only takes a few minutes. The longest time is spent by YouTube processing the video.

7. Post my video for others to see.

While Jamuary was really for me to explore my system, learn, and create it’s also for sharing creations and learning from others. I post my videos to the Colorado Modular Synth Society Discord server and to DivKid’s Discord server as well as a couple of Discord servers that my friends run. I also post on my Facebook page and in the Eurorack Synthesizers group on Facebook.

Takeaways from creating a video every day for Jamuary

1. I’ve had a lot of fun.

It can be hard to motivate myself to get my system out to jam on due to all of the setup, but once I’m jamming on it I can get lost for hours. Exploring my instrument brings me joy.

2. It forced/allowed me to create different kinds of jams each day.

I’m not tied to one genre of music as a favorite, and with modular the possibilities seem endless. While exploring my instrument I’ve found ways to create music I would not have otherwise created. I didn’t want to create the same type of music each day so I tried to vary it as much as I could. If I created something upbeat one day I’d try downbeat or ambient the next etc.

3. Letting go of control is hard.

I’m used to structure in my music coming from a classical and jazz background. Letting things randomly happen is not in my blood. I feel like I struggle with creating ambient and/or evolving music. I’ve experimented with randomness and probability in some of my patches, and while I’m still not comfortable with it I feel like I’m progressing.

4. I have a tendency to patch the same way a lot.

Even though I start from a blank slate each day I noticed that I would often default to patching some things the same way. For example I’d patch the Black Sequencer’s clock and reset into the mult and then out to Pam’s, Steppy, and Voltage Block. I’d also patch Steppy into Rample into the Quad VCA mainly used as a mixer, and then into the PanMix.

5. There are modules I use a lot.

These are the modules I feel like I use a lot: Steppy, Buffered Mult, BeeHive (Plaits clone), Rangoon (Rings clone), BIA, Rample, C4RBN, QuadVCA (as a mixer), PanMix, Black Sequencer, Ochd, Typhoon (Clouds clone), and FX Aid XL.

6. There are modules I rarely use.

These are the modules I’ve barely used this month: Midi 1U, Dual VCA 1U, Quadratt 1U, Stages, Javelin, uO_C, and Disting Mk4.

7. I’ve learned a lot.

Because I’ve explored my system every day I’ve been able to dig a little deeper into each module and experiment with features I never would have otherwise used.

8. I still have a lot to learn.

I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I know I can go deeper into each module and try out a lot of other techniques I’ve yet to explore.

9. I want to swap out some modules.

I picked up the vpme.de Quad Drum during the Perfect Circuit winter sale, but it didn’t arrive until after I had already started Jamuary. That’s why I have one Jamuary video with it in my skiff. I wanted to test it out before February. After Jamuary is over I’ll be making some changes to my performance case. I’m not entirely sure what I want to swap out and swap in, but I know I want to add the Quad Drum to the case. I’ll probably take out Rample or maybe keep both Rample and Quad Drum in the case and swap something else out. I think I almost have enough modules for another performance case, but I want to wait on picking up another one until summer or later.

10. The modular community is awesome!

The Modular/Eurorack community is very awesome. So many helpful and diverse people sharing their love for something that brings people joy is so inspiring. I listen to a lot of the tracks posted on various Discord channels as well as elsewhere on YouTube and other sites. There is so much awesome music and sound and textures created by this community it can be overwhelming. Thanks to all of them it has made me better as an artist and as a person.

Would I do this again? In a hearbeat. In fact I’m considering continuing into Febjamary. Need a better name for that. I should probably go back and add more descriptive titles to my videos as well.

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, constructive criticisms, or critiques. Thanks!