Hey friends,
Season 2 of Melodic Minute is done, and looking back, it really has been a crazy journey. For 20 weeks I made a new jam every week, with just one week off after Season 1 (just like I’m taking one now). You can find the final jam of Season 2 here:
Too much time?!
That rhythm forced me, in a positive way, to build my whole structure around making music regularly. And in the beginning I thought: wow, that’s a lot of time. I’m self-employed, and I also have to get my business off the ground and keep it running.
But honestly, so many things came out of these episodes that I would never have come up with otherwise. My entire Ambient Atelier template was born from these jams. And the melodic techno template I’m working on right now came from a single jam where I thought: what happens if I add a kick to my ambient setup? Suddenly it went a bit into an ambient techno direction, and it actually sounded pretty cool. So now I’m trying to turn that idea further towards melodic techno.
What I’m taking away from this
I think the real lesson is continuity. If you sit down and work on the same thing over weeks, you automatically get better at it. That’s pretty logical. But actually looking back at where I started and where I am now, that step is huge. And thinking about what it might look like after Season 5 or 6, if we get that far, is just amazing.
Let your setup grow with you
So if you want to take something away, build yourself a template that’s fun, that inspires you every time you open it, even on days when the inspiration just isn’t there: sounds that speak to you right away, synths that are already connected, so you can just go in and jam. Tweak it a little every week and keep building on it, instead of switching setups and moving things around all the time. I often see this with people who buy a lot of new gear: there’s so much change that the setup can never really grow with your own understanding of how you want to make music.
My setup has really crystallized: the Push and the Moog Mother-32 are my core, and the Microcosm comes in for some sparkle. And honestly, that’s enough. If you go deep, you can get so much out of it. In my case, it’s slowly becoming the perfect live performance setup.
If you want to support Melodic Minute and help keep the series going, you can find me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kvndra
Thanks for being with me on this journey and stay creative,
Milan (KVNDRA)
