Productivity – Igama

New Gear Reviews

Posted on July 8, 2019July 8, 2019 by Igama in Gear, Lifestyle, music, Productivity

20180528_121458 — Berlin, home of Ableton, Soundcloud, Native Instruments, and countless other facets of the electronic music world ❤

Hello friends, I hope you had a good weekend. Just wanted to write a little bit about some of the gear I have recently acquired and how that has helped and altered my workflow. I made countless mistakes when it came to buying gear so I hope this will point a few of you in the right direction.

First Here are the items that I recently invested in:

Laptop – Razer Blade 15 – $1799 (On sale for $1599)
- Everything runs smoothly with loads of customization and a beautiful RGB keyboard and lovely display.
- High quality enclosure and hardware. Satisfying and accurate touch pad
- Impressive speakers with a great low end
- Ability to run most games I play with ease.
Native Instruments Komplete 12 Software Suite – $575
- Industry Standard soft-synths, effects, and sampling instruments
- Wide range of sounds for any style of music
- Ease of use and ubiquity from their NKS partnership program means many other industry-leading midi controllers and electronic instruments will work seamlessly with NI plugins and have pre-map parameters.
- One could get by having only this for music making — it’s that good.
Waldorf – Blofeld Synthesizer Module – $499
- Compact, yet powerful, digital synthesizer.
- Categorized Patches i.e. allows one to designate a patch to a specific category, there are already categories like leads,keys, or bass but you can make custom categories as well
- I use this synth for the special sounds in a song that you want to stand out from the rest.

So far the combination of a very satisfying laptop experience, with easy to use and customize digital instruments, has really increased my efficiency. I’m no longer frustrated by my laptop not being able to handle what I throw at it. It took a really long to find a laptop I truly enjoy so big ups to Razer for making solid products . The one-two combination of Native Instruments soft synths and Waldorfs powerful Blofeld desktop Module delivers all of the efficacy the world has come to expect of German engineering. Having those tools as the base of my sound design really helps me get into a groove because the Native Instrument tools work so consistently well. It has taken me years to find a setup that helps me get ideas out so well so if you’re in the market, I highly recommend any of the these three items. I’ll try to make a video soon showing them in action.

Happy Creating!

-Igama

New Music – Update Late Winter 2019

Posted on March 29, 2019March 30, 2019 by Igama in music, Productivity, Updates

Greetings,

I figured it was about time for an update on goals and to document the progression of 2019 so far so I’ll touch on that briefly in this post and then share some new moving forward.

Most of this year I have been getting up to speed with Envelop SLC Pop Up, the arrival of spatial audio in my life has totally altered my goals and I plan to implement Ambisonics into my workflow parallel to my standard stereo work, to start building the foundation for what my future release will rest on. I’m still not quite ready to write in detail on the subject but looking forward to sharing more on that later this year.

This year I have also been getting back into my guitar studies to help anchor my musical progression along live performance. To that end I’ve stated gearing down– selling unused and unneeded gear– as I look to transition to a much lighter load in anticipation of touring/traveling next year.

Last but not least, I have just wrapped up my first release in over a year called Castle (EP), with tracks featuring The Adaptive and Maja !! I am so thrilled about this music and is my first original music released in over a year. It will be available on every digital platform 4/15 and hopefully a physical format in the future. Any support would mean a lot and I hope to share more content around these ideas in the coming weeks.

Much Love

-Igama

Creative Obstacles

Posted on June 8, 2018June 8, 2018 by Igama in Lifestyle, Productivity, Traveling, Updates

This summer I took a leap of faith and decided to travel to Germany and find a new day job instead of staying in Utah because I couldn’t get the time off approved at my old job. What I have learned so far ? When you want to make progress on your creative journey, you need to clear your path of obstacles that are within your power to address

Since coming here to Berlin I have noticed a giant surge in creativity and inspiration from all of the new influences and scenery. I also noticed that having no job hanging over my head (but also little financial stress) has granted a freedom I could only dream of the last two years. This really underscores the importance of saving money as an artist– there is no better way to open up options than having your own resources to work with. In this way I would say that financial stress and untenable working situations can equally become creative obstacles and one must achieve the right balance to keep moving forward. Furthermore, the “administrative” task of life, paperwork, bills, taxes, etc., are better to take care of right away before they can come together to create bigger problems.

To put it simply, it is easier to be creative and expressive when one isn’t burdened down with unnecessary obligations. Unfortunately, for many of us this ideal seems so far away and we find it hard to see the way out. If this sounds like you, I would like to share my experience of a system that has worked for me in the past.

1. Make a list of tasks to complete in order of priority.

Make sure you address the most important tasks first.
It is better to bring one task to completion than to leave three things half-finished.

2. Determine how much time you can dedicate to addressing the items on the list.

Set aside as much time to complete these things as possible, but don’t forget to leave time for yourself as well.
If a task involves researching researching something like jobs or schools, it is really easy to get burned out. Try getting some information and then taking time to digest it — slow and steady is the key.

3. Once you have completed a task, reevaluate the priorities and adjust the order if necessary.

Sometimes you will finish a task quicker than expected, when that happens use the momentum to your advantage!
Realize some things will take more time than others, if you have done everything possible on your end and are just waiting on another party, move onto the next task or to one that is small enough to complete without stressing you out while you wait.

4. When you run into delays, complications, or dead ends reach out for help!

If you have family and friends around don’t be afraid to ask for help from those who might have experience with what you’re working on.
When you don’t have people to ask for help, turn to the internet for problems big and small (recently a woman even gave birth with the help of YouTube! )

I hope this will help someone who felt like I did two years ago and would love to hear any other ideas for taking care of life stuff that has worked for you.

Thanks for reading and good luck on your journey!

-Igama