Tag: igama

New Gear Reviews

Posted on by Igama in Gear, Lifestyle, music, Productivity

 

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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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3.  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 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

Igama Air – Music for Flying

Posted on by Igama in music, Traveling

I’m happy to report I will soon be making my second trip to Berlin! What I did differently to prepare this time is make a Spotify playlist for listening in-air and in-line. It seems like a no-brainer looking back now, but with all of the other preparations it was simply overlooked last year . Having a good playlist keeps your hands free longer and makes airports more bearable, so feel free to follow and add this playlist to your library on Spotify if you use that platform.

On this playlist I started with some energetic downtempo grooves for the pre-flight hustle with some Papadosio, Ulrich Schnauss, and Pantha Du Prince. Next, the music begins to slightly resemble the conversations with myself as I wait for take off with North Valley Subconscious Orchestra’s Neutral Buoyancy . “THIS COULD BE THE ONE THAT GOES DOWN”, goes one voice and ” Non-sense, you’ll be fine just relax, BREATHE…” goes the other. At this point, I let the more rational voice win and the music gives way to some very relaxing ambient compositions including cuts from In the Branches, Machinedrum, Deru, and myself. Of course, you will need to raise your energy just a bit again for the post flight rigamarole before it’s over —  enter Casino Versus Japan, Telefon Tel Aviv, and Hammock to see you through the last tasks and safely on your way.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this playlist even if you don’t use it for a flight. I will keep updating with new songs, keeping the same trajectory for the playlist. I would love to hear what you listen to when flying as well!

Safe Travels My Friends,

Igama