It's been a very long time

[dubmasta]

Hi people. Yeah, its been a very long time since I participated on the Forum. I suppose I needed to disappear for some time to figure out things in my personal life. However Future Sound of London never disappeared from my life and its been my driving force over the last 2-3 years to get back into music making since I quit a decade ago, maybe more. While studying FSOL's music I actually wanted to drop a line asking certain techniques FSOL might have used in some of their tracks, so I might do that just as well. How is everybody doing? Are you people still making music or life has gotten in the way? Hope everybody's online, looking good...

Cheers,
Dimitri

[beetles]

Hi mate, I'm back on here now after just popping in every now and then. Im back making music regularly now. Hoping to finish some tracks this year!

[dubmasta]

Thanks so much for replying brother! It means a lot. Ive really missed this place and you guys, it felt great back in the older days to be a part of something greater than yourself, and FSOLboard is without a doubt where my journey into creating and releasing electronic music took place. The support I was given here has been cherished to this day and I thank you for that. If I’ve unintentionally disappointed some of you in any way, I sincerely apologize. I had to leave my past behind, just as my old project Five Minutes Alone. It's too painful, given the music and the memories of those days.
I find myself in a different place nowadays, both mentally and geographically, currently working on my new project(s) which I am trying to convince myself could work, a sound of Lifeforms meets Dead Cities meets ISDN. I just love FSOL for some reason and it's always been a dream of mine to make music like that. I am far from that of course, given the insane imagination and talent of these guys, nevertheless the sounds of those albums are stuck in my head, and this is the music that I love to hear. Would be cool to share some new tracks via pm for feedback, collabs or remixes, as I feel this is the only place people can understand what I am trying to make, because of our love for FSOL.

PS: ah, and also really into a lot of 70's jazz and 90's detroit techno.

[OffLand]

Hi Dimitri! Welcome back! I think most of the FSOL techniques are beyond me. I'm not sure what Brian's modes of working are these days. Seems like he's got a pretty custom setup for the studio wizardry.

I'm still around, making music

[Enofa]

'90s FSOL... sample sample sample. It can't be overstated how sample-heavy their '90s stuff is. Loops, chopped up loops, single-shot sounds. Pepper the tracks with weird single-shot noises with delays. Sample from stuff that isn't what you're making. Don't go sampling ambient if you're making ambient music. They sampled from funk, hip-hop, jazz, psychedelic rock, new age, '60s tape music, world music, folk, film scores, indie bands... Mixing all those disparate elements into a track is a big part of their unique sound - most electronic artists were using recognisable synths, FSOL were putting sounds and instruments together that would never be found in the same track, alongside tiny snippets of sound that, outside of their original context, are impossible to identify. Record your own samples - one of my tracks has a rhythm track that is my dad hammering in a post in the garden. Pitch your samples +12 and -12. Oh, and use vocals. Wordless, or at least with no obvious words in them. FSOL use female ones more often. Doesn't have to be central to the track like My Kingdom or PNG, but I'd estimate more than half of their '90s tracks have the human voice in them, even the dancey tracks. Lifeforms, Coda Coma, Slider, Max, Yage, Woodland, Brujo, Calcium, Swab, Hidden Sign, Distant Memories, Outer Heaven, Exchanged, even Skinny Ribbed Fucker has some atmospheric wailing in the background - no matter the style, they always get in there.

Structure your tracks unusually, have different sections coming and going, combine your elements in different ways so the drums of section 1 run over the synths of section 2 and the field recording of section 3 to make section 4.

I had a period of a few years where I was basically using this technique in my own stuff, mostly because I much prefer collaging audio than sequencing synths. I'm not going to pretend my stuff is on the same level as FSOL, but I think you can probably hear that I'm actively going for that approach in some of the tracks:






21st century FSOL... Brian still uses samples but a lot more subtly these days and has definitely gone deep into his synths, I wouldn't be able to help much there. A:E:V and Music for 3 Books use a lot of samples and field recordings as texture, quiet crumbly sounds in the background which form a really big part of the overall sound. Gaz still seems to be operating in 1997-2002 Isness mode when it comes to FSOL, a few samples but mostly live performances, chopped and looped and pitched up and down.

[dubmasta]

Yeah, I get your point. I tend to study by listening, and surely one of the aspects of FSOL's music that attracted me in the beginning is that it reminded me of pop rock structured music, intro, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, outro type of thing. But it gave me the feeling of old school hip hop approach, sample heavy but electronic at the same time. Given that I love old school rap, partly due to use of funk and jazz sounds, I have kept this approach, and could say that have developed it even further as I began using lots of jazz elements. NTS jazz channel has been revelating to me and Ive discovered a lot of music that I keep incorporating in my sounds to this day, from double bass lines to flutes, drums and percussion. I mean it's a lot of fun combining ride cymbals from Elvin Jones, a Debussy flute, a chopped amen break and a Korg-MS20 or TB303 I'm mostly interested in the way they used Reverbs, Delays, compression etc.

[Enofa]

Ah, well in terms of technical stuff you're probably not going to find so much info. This interview has a couple of possibly interesting bits, and they really did used to use delays on most of the individual little sounds, which is a big part of the FSOL aesthetic - lots of weird little noises with lots of delay.

[dubmasta]

Hi Dimitri! Welcome back! I think most of the FSOL techniques are beyond me. I'm not sure what Brian's modes of working are these days. Seems like he's got a pretty custom setup for the studio wizardry.

I'm still around, making music

Tim, you are looking good on the video. Ive been trying to convince myself to record snippets of my jams, or go on youtube in general, even though I don't know jackshit about music production and make music rather instinctively. But I might do that just as well, given I overcome my imposter syndrome.

Ah, well in terms of technical stuff you're probably not going to find so much info. This interview has a couple of possibly interesting bits, and they really did used to use delays on most of the individual little sounds, which is a big part of the FSOL aesthetic - lots of weird little noises with lots of delay.

That's a good read, first time I read this interview. If my memory does not fail me, I came across somewhere that they were using Alesis Quadraverb, maybe saw that reverb in a video of theirs, can't recall. Also Space Echo maybe? But the way they used those is a different story. Like that "I think I'm a bit afraid" sample in Among Myselves track, and many other examples. Panning, phasing, eqing, compressing, and god knows what else went into that.